Friday, March 29, 2013

Two Years

On Monday it will be two years since we made our journey down that big hill.

If someone would have told me what this journey would look like, I most likely would not have believed them.

Three moves in two years, making the transition from homeschooling mom to having children in both private and public schools, taking on a part time job that actually seems to be more like full time... These are just morsels of the ride we have been on.

There have been days of extreme beauty and also days of discouraging ugliness. Two years later though, I can see that all of these days have just been part of the mosaic. The Lord's mosaic.

My devotional today was titled ' The Lord's Surprise Visits'. How appropriate for the thoughts that are on my mind. I would like to share a part of this devotional.

"Jesus rarely comes where we expect Him; He appears where we least expect Him, and always in the most illogical situations. The only way a servant can remain true to God is to be ready for the Lord's surprise visits."

WOW! I have seen many of these surprise visits over the past two years. Some I was ready for, but sadly, some I was not.

Then it goes on to say...

" This readiness will not be brought about by service, but through intense spiritual reality, expecting Jesus Christ at every turn. This sense of expectation will give our life the attitude of childlike wonder He wants it to have."

How many of us are getting this part wrong? Readiness doesn't mean doing, it means being. Being WITH Him... Expecting Him to be WITH us!

This is, perhaps the largest piece of the mosaic for me. Understanding this has been a journey all in itself, but feeling it and living it have been new just recently.

I spend my first moments of each new day with Him. Before I even put my feet on the floor I am in conversation with my Jesus. This is not an act of service, it is my intense spiritual reality. I have always done daily devotions, but I have done them without routine. I have squeezed time with the Lord in my day wherever I thought it would fit. I am SO grateful that I have come to a new understanding of what kind of relationship I am to have with Jesus. I am not to "squeeze Him in".... I am to to squeeze everything else out until after I have started my day WITH Him and He WITH me!

I guess I could say that it took many days of discouragement, frustration and hurt to get to this new place. I could also say that I have had just as many days of joy, gratitude and smiles to get to this new place. I think that's the way the Lord planned this two year journey for me.

It has all been part of this very long unexpected, yet expected visit from The One who created me.

** Devotional quotations taken from My Utmost For His Highest by Oswald Chambers