Be careful what you pray for!

God has such perfect timing – and a great sense of humor! Dad and his wife were planning on visiting for Christmas. The plan was (or so I thought) to arrive at my house from Texas ‘by Friday’. So, I took off from work on Tuesday and had a plan! I was going to get Morgan’s birthday cake made, clean the house up a bit, make sure their room was ready and do a little shopping.

The first kink in my plan came when Morgan came home from school with a stomach bug. But that’s ok – I confined her to her room and threatened her within an inch of her life if she came downstairs! So, I called dad. ‘How’s the trip coming along … how far have you gotten?’ The last time I’d talked to him, they were in Louisiana. ‘Oh, pretty good’ he said. ‘When do you think you’ll be here’ I asked; thinking ‘By Friday means Thursday … maybe Wednesday night. ‘Oh, about 4 hours … we just crossed into North Carolina!’ WHAT?!?!!? Tuesday is NOT ‘by Friday’. Tuesday is ‘by Wednesday’!!

So, I called in some reinforcements! And I called on God. ‘Good, Lord’ I said, ‘I’m not ready … I need a little more time’. I didn’t have time to get Morgan’s cake done and get their room ready in the few hours it would take them to get here.

Now, one thing I know. If mom is in Heaven and can give me anything … she’d give me a chance to clean something!! About an hour later, I got a call from dad … the truck was over heating, and they were going to the dealership to have it looked at. Perfect! That little ‘inconvenience’ gave me a few more hours to get everything done and ready for them when they walked in the door that night! Thanks, mom … but really, you didn’t have to break dad’s truck!

God knows what He is doing, and it will always be right on time. It doesn’t matter what we do … we can leave early, leave late, get stuck or break down – and we will always be there right when God wants us there. Sometimes we might be in the truck that breaks; sometimes we might be the one needing more time. Sometimes we might just be the car dealer – but we are all a part of his plan. God does have a plan for you – trust it!

To Everything there is a Season

As the chilly fall weather grips us, I’m already looking forward to spring! I’m not much of a winter person. If I had it my way, I would have 4 months of spring, 3 months of summer, 4 months of fall and 1 month of winter. And during the month of winter, it would have to snow – there’s no sense being that cold without snow!

That’s sort of like what we wish for in our own lives. We’d love for our kids to stay children as long as they can – they grow up way too fast. We could speed up adolescence just a bit, though – for everyone’s sanity! The next few decades can cruise by at a slow and leisurely pace. As ‘old age’ creeps in – whether it’s at 60 years old or 100 years old – we don’t want to linger long without the freedoms that our more youthful bodies allowed for.

But God has his own plans – and they are custom made for each one of us. Some ‘children’ I know are more grown up than some ‘adults’ that I know. There are some folks that are 90 years old that are more active and act younger than some 60 year olds that I know. Sometimes I think my dad and my daughter are the same age! It’s all relative – age is just a number. The seasons of our lives that God has prepared for us have no bearing on the number of years we’ve lived, yet that number is so important to us.

When we’re young, we want to be older – when we get older; we want to be young again. At one point, I thought that if mom and I were ever asked our age, I’d be older than she was! Too bad we can’t identify our ‘age’ by seasons. ‘I’m in the beginning of my fall season.’ Besides Noah lived to be 950 – and started a major construction project at 480 years old!

Why is it that we put so much emphasis on our age? Why does society think that 16 is appropriate to drive a car, that 18 is appropriate to go to war, and everyone should retire at 65. And don’t even get me started on why they think that PG-13 movies are appropriate for a 13 year old!!

Last week, I turned 40. Next week, Morgan will be 14. That is significant for so many reasons! I didn’t hide under the covers; avoiding that dreaded number … it was a great day! And although Morgan claims to be a whole year older, we’re just a day older than we were yesterday! The number ‘4’ has a very special place in our family. It’s a long story … so I’ll save it for next week, but we know that it’s Mom’s way of letting us know that she’s okay!

In Ecclesiastes, God said that ‘To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under the sun’. I don’t recall there being any reference to a number. So I think … when someone asks me how old I am, I think I’ll tell them ‘I’m early fall!”