In my earlier years, I seem to have had no lack of bold confidence or sheer determination (and what was becoming blind faith). As I look back now on those earlier days — so many amazing (and so many cringe-worthy 😲) days! I marvel at the goodness and mercy of God!
The other day Hannah asked me if I regret any of the purchases we made in the early days of parenting. This conversation was sparked by a comment I made regarding the proliferation of infant and toddler necessities — all the latest stuff young mothers think they must have these days – in addition to all the other things they need to buy and do and be! I told her, no. No, I don’t regret what we bought for our kids or for my pregnancies, or our home… and I laughed as I told her that most of the time we couldn’t afford to make poor decisions! ~smile~ But I did go on to say that we didn’t have all the things in those days — so many things! — that are pushed as necessary and imperative today. Again laughing, I said, I sure sound like an old person, don’t I?!? I’m so glad now… glad we didn’t have the money to buy things which didn’t exist then. ~smile~ There were enough stresses just “making it” through without the added burden of having to measure up or deal with what I see are today’s must have‘s (must be‘s – must do‘s) for young mothers. We had all the necessities for the babies — may’ve been short on space and money, but sure long on imaginative creativity.
Those were the days of bold confidence and sheer determination. Those were the humble beginnings of blind faith. Those were the days where I began to see that God was in it all. [cp_quote style=”quote_left_dark”]”The years teach much which the days never know” — Ralph Waldo Emerson [/cp_quote] In those days I was beginning to collect the thousands of mercies, experiences, provisions, protections, and miracles from the Lord — the years now teaching much which most of those days never knew. But in bold confidence and sheer determination, God was working to instill blind faith.
I don’t think in those days that I expected God to work — He was working marvelously, but I didn’t know Him enough to know it. Working through my bold confidence and sheer determination, those were the days where the Lord allowed for a very,very short season –about a year’s time– a great amount of money and lavish living. I know we credited Him for that prosperity — but it was, in reality, misplaced or misunderstood credit. What was happening was that God was showing Himself strong on our behalf — not in the sudden wealth so much as what He was going to do with it all. We’d asked Him to bless us. And He did. O, He did. We thought the blessing was in what we could see — the goals and the things we could obtain. That wasn’t the blessing at all. The blessing was in what we couldn’t see/didn’t see — at that time. Part of the blessing was to put us back on the track of humble beginnings. The years have taught so much what those days didn’t know. It was the beginning of blind faith. It was the beginning of very sharply refining that bold confidence and sheer determination. It was the dawn of knowing that God does all things well: All the time.
Journal entries for days… What the Lord gave and what He took away. What happened to that confidence? What does blind faith look like now?
For days my mind’s been flooded with grief and all sorts of other CSA emotions I’ve been trying to stifle. (I wrote this a week ago; gripped with the reality that sexualabuse steals and steels. Today I wondered if I wrote it as another of many, many entries I would write and never publish. But I’ll publish this today with the prayer that grown up little girls might be helped, encouraged and comforted — not alone, not wrecked, not forever bad or without hope.)
From me (and my family) to you, Happy Thanksgiving 2015
As I was mulling over a bunch of different events and circumstances affecting or involving our home and family this morning as the winds of change continue to blow, and I found myself reeling in thoughts of sadness, happiness, doubt, hope, confusion — as if tossed in the waves of a rolling sea. And then, almost as immediately as my mind was filled with cares of this life, I was calmed by the blessed assurance that “the lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places” (psalm 16) and, truly, the Lord is ever before me. And, I’m further comforted that regardless of how this ship is tossed to and fro or whether it takes on water — or whether I stagger about, one thing I know (that I know that I know that I know): my Anchor holds.
Wherein God, willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath: That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us: Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the veil; Whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made an high priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec.” —Hebrews 6. 17-20
For the last fourteen years, I’ve had a day where I’ve stood between two days, looking back and looking ahead. Today is that day. Fourteen years ago when I looked back at that “yesterday” and ahead to that “tomorrow,” I didn’t know that I would come to call it my Bookends Day. I didn’t know at the time that a final chapter had been written… that the baby born on June 29th would be my last living baby. And when I looked ahead to “tomorrow” that day, I was amazed that my first baby would be twenty two. Twenty two and expecting his first baby to be born just weeks later.
e stepped inside the front doorway of our new house nineteen years ago. From that moment, this nearly one hundred year old farmhouse felt like home to me. In my notebook that I carried most everywhere I went was a page of notes — prayer requests, actually. And among those requests were *specific details — astonishingly, right before my eyes, most everything in and about this home that day. I realized that the Lord had, in His merciful kindness allowed me to write that list, pray over it and wait on Him. It was also in His merciful kindness that He would provide or answer those requests.
Another 
…in a Mother’s Meeting in Tennessee and I would hear a phrase that would come to have incredible significance to me. One of the mothers commented to another: Well, you don’t have to be so blue and white about it! I let that sink down in my ears. Tucked it away for some future day… and when that day came, I understood. I totally understood.”
They have with me… and if you/your family was involved in the program, probably with you, too. It may seem a moot point to bring all this up, now, but actually, I’ve shared much of this in the past and stuff keeps resurfacing. And then there’s this strange unspoken cardinal rule that one doesn’t question the Institute or Mr. G. (Yep, and that oughtta be a red flag for ya!)
[cp_dropcaps]H[/cp_dropcaps]ardly a week goes by that I don’t think (or mutter aloud) that this or that blog or twitter account will have a crash. In just a matter of time there will be an incident or an avalanche of incidents that will take a blogger to an intersection in her life where she’ll be broadsided some Thursday afternoon and she’ll sit on the floor, head in her hands, crying out to God for His mercy. But for now, she doesn’t ask for help because she doesn’t know she needs it. Yet.