I'm doing it again. My mind is traveling at the speed of light. I just happened to watch a video yesterday, and that's what started this ball a rollin'! The speaker was Priscilla Shirer. I've heard her before, and she touched my heart back then too. However, I am in a different place now. Very different, so I need to share just where my head (and heart) is at.
As I've mentioned before, I moved away from family and friends 2 years ago. Previously I had moved 13 years ago-- the same scenario. Just to be clear--I don't like moving. I don't like too much change. I love my family and friends. My closest friends are family to so that even makes moving double hard. But, with my husband's job comes change, moving, making new friends, and exploring new possibilities. That's what I tell myself anyway. New possibilities.
This last move--2 years ago--was by far the hardest move I've made thus far. I moved away from grandchildren. Not good. Not good at all. Who knew that those 5 little grandbabies would steal my heart so completely--that I would do anything to remain close to them. That wasn't going to be the case though. God had other plans for my life. And since I had given my life over to him, well, I had to move and move readily, with a smile on my face and a willingness in my heart. OK, forget the smile and the heart bit. It was just plain horrible. I cried the whole 6-hour drive to my new little town. My husband driving, me crying and him feeling like the biggest heal on earth.
I can honestly say that I wasn't mad at God. I was just sad. It was a lonely place to be in emotionally, it was hard. It was a bad time in my life. And while God wanted me to see the good stuff, Satan wanted me to only see the bad stuff. I soon learned though that through those hard lonely sad awful days--God was doing something. He was setting me up. He had good stuff in store, a plan, and a future. I learned that if I just kept praying, he'd show me the good stuff, a little at a time. And so I did. I waited, I prayed, I anticipated, I cried (I do that a lot) and I wondered--is it time yet God? And when, oh when, will this pain of loneliness and sadness go away? Basically, I just wanted to go home. Home to my forever house, to my friends, to my kids and grandkids, to my old Bible study friends--home. Just let me go home. I would actually daydream about the day my husband would walk into our house and say guess what? We're going home! Only that never happened.
It's been 2 years. What's changed? Everything! When I was ready to throw in the towel, God was there. When I was laying on my bed crying my eyes out, God was there. I leaned in and pressed close because I had no one else. My husband was extremely busy with his new position in his company. I did not have even one friend to come along side me. I had no one to talk to. No one. Only God.
It was during that lonely time that I began to write. I started this blog. It became my voice. My only mode of relating my emotions, my stories and my experiences about my new life. And, out of this little blog, believe it or not, a ministry was born. Hmmm--out of pain, a birth. Now just where have I heard that before?
I look at things much differently now. I am happy. I am no longer lonely. We have settled in and I know that I am right where God intended me to be. He didn't make a mistake. He didn't send me out here to punish me. He had a plan. A plan that revolves around him and not me. A plan to use my college degree, and a plan to use this blog to minister to others. A plan for me to make some fantastic lifelong friends. Yes, he had a plan all along. I am content. I am fully engaged in what God is doing in my life. Was it hard? Extremely. Was I sad? Yep. Would I do it again? In a heartbeat. I love my life, it is sweet, and it belongs to my father, who will never ever leave me or forsake me. I am more than willing to walk this road, this path, this plan, as long as I am walking it with him.
Even in the hard times, I will serve you, oh my God.
I will praise you even when I cannot lift my head.
I will sing to you even when sometimes it is only a whisper.
I will open up my eyes to all you have for me to see.
I will trust you, and seek you, and remember all you've done for me.
I will shout your name from the depths of my heart.
For you oh God are mine.
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