God is going on ahead

See, I am sending my angel ahead of you to guard you along the way and to bring you to the place I have prepared. Exodus 23:20
     For the last month, I have seen God's hand at work, smoothing a path for me out of the wilderness. The wilderness has been pretty grim, as yours may be. That goes with the territory. But there is hope. HE is here, and we're facing in his direction. Hallelujah! To you be the glory, Lord. 
     A month ago, I'd just completed the intensive Certified Nursing Assistant course. Now, sensing his presence all the way, I've passed the exam.  Of course, even though I've taken care of plenty of people in their homes and in retirement facilities when I worked for an agency, I'm considered a "new grad," so jobs are hard to get. Oh, well.  My God is still sending an angel ahead of me. Through HIM, I have prospects, despite the job market.
     The Lord directed me to a wonderful website called Care.com.  It has listings for families and care providers to put what they need, and what they offer, of all varieties: everything from pet sitting to tutoring, to infant care, senior care, special needs, babysitting, etc.  I uploaded my picture, resume, skills, including how many languages I can speak, amount of pay I'd like. Then I started offering myself as a baby nanny (experienced with multiples--my daughter's twins), senior care, tutor, special needs care.  
     Yesterday, I was contacted as a newborn twin baby nurse.  Today as a senior CNA.  Both possibilities are for different times and days, so I could potentially do both, and we'd all benefit. Praise God!  And if these don't work out, there are plenty of others.
     So, my friends, as Churchill said, never give up. Never, never, never give up. 
      Now, have you ever tried saying a verse word-by-word, placing emphasis on each word, to get full meaning? Let's try it with this verse: SEE, I am sending my angel ahead of you...
See, I AM sending my angel ahead of you...
See, I am SENDING my angel ahead of you...
See, I am sending MY angel ahead of you, to guard you along the way...
      You get the idea.  Keep at it, and let the full power of God's going ahead of you flow over you, carrying you through your hard times--as well as the easier ones. It has transformed this month for me.  Realizing that he is going ahead allows me rest in him, to let me get out of his way so he can do his will on my behalf, to the glory of his Name. May HE be praised!
The Lord is the one who goes ahead of you; he will be with you. He will not fail you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.

Deuteronomy 31:8

Moving on

Enough of the pity party!  Stop looking at what I've lost. That's so 2009. We're in the new decade. Time to move on already. What do I still, always have? Like duh: my powerful and faithful God.

Anyone in the same neighborhood of Genesis (see previous blog post), has to acknowledge that God was involved in this little project of, um, creating the universe out of nothing. Hello!  If he can take care of that little number, can he not be trusted to manage our comparatively less complicated lives and our problems? 

Yes, our problems are all we have, and they are gigantic to us.  Our Lord knows that. I think that's the reason why Jesus mentions God caring about the fall of the humble sparrow, and then he goes on to reassure us that we're far more important than sparrows to our Father.

No matter where you might stand on the details of Creation account, God's power and loving care are still the bottom line. He is the Master Designer and the force holding the universe together and running.  As it says elsewhere in the scripture about Jesus (John 1), without him, nothing was made that was made.

Seeing the work of the Father, Son, and Spirt of God in Genesis fills my heart with healing and hope again. I don't know how he will work to guide me to the next place, but I surely know who will guide me. Surely, that is more than enough. To him be the glory!

Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see...By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was made out of what was not visible.

Hebrews 11:1,3

When you think there is no plan

This past week was a tough one, and I let myself fall into the slime far more than was fun. How wonderful to feel God's restoration every time I remembered to turn back to his word, or heard encouragement from a friend.

You may be looking at chaos in your own life, and you may not see a plan at work right now--or at least not one you like. Our hearts long to make sense out of the disorder in our lives, for life to be fair and right.  In spite of everything, life is frequently messy and unfair, no matter how hard we try to control it.

But our God does have a plan, and no matter how things look at the moment, this is a part of the larger picture.

In 1931, my grandfather, Clifford Clinton, had a wife and three young children. He had just been fired from his own father's business by two men who should have had no right to fire him. Clifford had a vision, however. He felt called to run a cafeteria based on the principles of the Golden Rule. He also believed he could honor God by feeding people in need and running an honest business.

Clifford spent many years of his childhood seeing starvation in China, in the beginning of the twentieth century, and he was never the same. He resolved to fight it any way he could, including through his business. But here he was, in the height of the Depression, surrounded by hungry and unemployed people.

His policy was never to turn away a customer who could not pay for a meal. He trusted that God would somehow provide for him and his employees.

My grandfather later wrote letters, remembering those hard times, which our family has kept. As I read them, he talked about turning to God for direction, and seeing God's hand at work to bring in supplies at reduced cost, and miraculous provisions to keep his business running.  One of his early customers was a bankruptcy judge who told him he'd expected to see him within the first year!

While Clifford did not make any cash profit in his early years, he was able to keep his doors open, pay his employees, and provide four million meals for people who could not pay.

Remember Who holds your future, and Who guides your plan, no matter how today looks.

"For I know the plans I have for you," says the Lord. "They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope."

Jeremiah 29:11

Listening in when God speaks

In the last blog posting, I spoke about a wonderful elder statesman of God who changed my life at a teachable moment in my twenties. Over the years, I know I've worried much less than otherwise, as I remembered the wise words he shared from his lifetime of seeing God rescue him from every disaster he worried about--as well as the ones he didn't know were coming.

When I was writing, I'd been feeling wrung out for weeks, out of breath at the slightest exertion, nearly done in by going up and down the stairs, having pain in my chest (not ever a good sign), and trying to carry the full school load.  I finally decided it would be good to stop wondering what was making me feel so lousy and get help, only to find out I had both lungs riddled with bronchitis, which I probably had been battling for the last month.

Isn't that what we do with the Lord?  We drag along on our own, trying to fight our own battles, getting more and more beaten down, when there is someone who would be glad to help us, if we would just reach out for help?  As soon as I started antibiotics, sleep, breathing treatments with the bronchodilators, the wheezing started getting better, and I started feeling less wrung out, able to get back to the schedule, the battle.

That's when I started getting attacked spiritually.  The week before, during a bunch of tests at school, I knew I was struggling with my memory issues, and I asked friends and relatives for prayer to hold me up in a way that would glorify God.  God clearly helped by causing me to study the material that was going to be tested, and to retain it--a real gift, and even humorous in one case: when everyone else studied the formulas (which I couldn't begin to remember that week), the teacher asked about historical information, which is what I had focused on. For once, I had the highest score in the class.

As I was saying, this past week, I moved in with fear and let him walk all over me. I had a major crisis of confidence. It didn't help that I was vulnerable from illness. That's just an excuse. I realize as I write this that a crisis of confidence means that my confidence was in me. As long it had rested squarely in God I was fine.

Do you ever do that? 

When I let it wander over to myself is when I ran into trouble. My eyes were off the One who is my Rock and my Redeemer. He alone can be my strength.  Mine comes and goes whimsically.  His strength is as sure as the present tense of I AM.

You are my rock and my fortress. For the honor of your name, lead me out of this peril.

Psalm 31:3

I cried out to the Lord in my suffering, and he heard me. He set me free from my fears.

Psalm 34:6

The changing desires of the heart

The side notes I've scribbled in my Bibles have a sort of journal quality that tell me what was going on in my life at the time.

For instance, I've written a date (7/20/97) with no explanation next to Psalm 20:4 "May he grant you according to your heart's desire, and fulfill all your purpose." I also have an arrow across the page pointing to Psalm 21:2 "You have given him his heart's desire, and have not withheld the request of his lips."

These are wonderful verses. I can only guess that the date is for the closing of a house I no longer live in. At the time, it was naturally the biggest event going on in my life.

I was a single mom of three daughters, and we needed a place to live. We did not know until the last minute of closing whether the deal on the other house would go through to allow us to move into the house we wanted, so we truly were praying for a miracle. And our gracious God did grant us the desires of our hearts for that time.

Only as I look back almost exactly twelve years later, does perspective allow me to see how many other pressing desires--prayer needs related to what was going on in my life or the lives of my loved ones--there have been in the meantime.

• Praying through pregnancies and deliveries (with complications and miscarriages) of my daughters and stepdaughter.
• Sitting at the bedside of my seriously ill husband--a husband who was not even married to me twelve years ago.
• The disappearance of my precious stepson, who then committed suicide.
• The murders of my dear friend and my aunt.
• The brain tumor and the ways living with it affects my life.

This is a partial list. You have your own. How important are the current desires of your heart to you? Vital, of course. To God? Vital, of course. Does he grant them all? Of course not.

I'm glad not to have known what was ahead twelve years ago. How gracious God is to grant us the desires he knows are appropriate for us in his season and to his glory. We don't need to know further ahead than today--he does.

May he grant your heart's desire and fulfill all your plans. May we shout for joy when we hear of your victory, flying banners to honor our God. May the Lord answer all your prayers.
Now I know that the Lord saves his anointed king. He will answer him from his holy heaven and rescue him by his great power. Some nations boast of their great armies and weapons, but we boast in the Lord our God.

Psalm 20:4-8