Gosh - I just looked at my last post here and it was dated 29th August! So, what happened to September? And is that really November I see galloping towards me...?
Well, life has been busy....remember in the last post I mentioned pinballs ricocheting.....?
The long and short of it is, family circumstances have taken any semblance of day-to-day 'routine' and thrown it out of the window. While juggling extra housework caring for my daughter (who had emergency eye surgery) and coping with lifting the spirits of another 'fledgeling' who has had to return home to the nest due to unemployment, I find myself in 'rocking-horse syndrome' - plenty of action but no real progress!
But, re-reading though that previous post I realise it ties in with the service at church this morning (yes - church attendance has been sporadic over the last few weeks for obvious reasons but I'm glad I made the effort this morning!).
The theme was 'Knowing the will of God' - boy, that had my attention! I was familiar with the point of testing what you believe God is saying against Scripture; also the point of others confirming in agreement or sharing a matching 'revelation'. Fine and dandy - but my problem is/was wondering if God was speaking to me at all!
Since I gave up work in January I've gone through the 'holiday' stage; the 're-vamping-the-house-and-garden' stage; the 'not-feeling-guilty-about-sitting-down-with-a-good-book-for-a-large-portion-of-the-day' stage; the 'OK-so-now-you-have-no-excuse-to-not-get-on-and-finish-that-novel' stage.........
Behind all of this, I suddenly felt a wave of 'what am I supposed to do now?'. I'd raised a family, worked to help with the household finances, took on voluntary work and joined a couple of interest groups - but suddenly I was faced with a void.
So I began to earnestly seek what God had planned for this new and strange chapter of life - after all, I don't want to waste a precious minute between here and eternity!
And.......nothing. Nada. No amazing revelations. Silence.
Stoically, I had decided to just keep in step with God and wait until He was ready to let me in on the next exciting instalment.
But still, silence.
Then this morning, in the middle of the 'preach' one of the comments from the 'pulpit' (er.....we use a lectern!) suggested that not hearing from God might just be because we weren't ready to receive new things from God; our hands were already full of things that we were perhaps unwilling to let go of or not ready to do so.
Surrendering everything - EVERYTHING - means holding up all the things I like to do, that I feel I do well, and saying I'm prepared to forego that in favour of whatever HE has in mind. And there's a genuine feeling of anticipation - that the best is yet to come!
.....and maybe part of the plan is just for me to 'rest in pastures green' for a while longer! (Hey, that's fine by me, but I just need to actually confirm that's what HE has in mind!)
Last Sunday I was sent this YouTube clip - and it has been resonating with me all week:
That sparked off the idea of a story over at one of my other blogs. We live in this world but we don't have to conform to it's ways.
Putting that together with what I learned at church this morning, maybe God's plans for me aren't for anything big and exciting; maybe I'm just meant to live a simple life - and that kind of feels more like what He's saying.
Perhaps He needs me to be growing the 'kingdom' in quiet, gentle ways by facing the maelstrom of financial and commercial upheaval that seems to be coming at us from every direction and coping with them in Christ-like ways.
So, until I hear otherwise, this little cogwheel's just gonna keep on turning, one day at a time!
