Lord Willing!

Yesterday was a holiday Monday, but we had no intentions of taking it off, too much to do getting ready for going away....but....one should always say, "Lord willing......" whenever you make plans!  I got a phone call mid-morning from a long, lost friend from the town we used to live in and he wanted to know if we were free!  Our names had been on his mind constantly apparently and he felt he just had to come that day!  How could we say no?!  I didn't even ask my husband.  I knew he would agree, so I said, "Sure!" 

This man is in his mid 70s and lost his wife to a brain tumour 2 years ago.  As a couple, they were very influential in our lives when we were first married.  He was the man who convinced my husband that tithing 10% was the bare minimum we should consider.  He was the man who constantly encouraged us that we should be reading our Bible through at least once a year.  He and his wife modelled how to pray in a more organized fashion so that we could pray for more people including those around the world. 

His wife also became a good friend to my mom and it was a real loss for her, too, when she passed away.  All 3 of us moms were school teachers at one time and so shared a common interest in teaching little children, especially about the Lord.

They were such a godly influence in our lives, I knew we would have been remiss to say "No, too busy...". It was the perfect example of what we had heard on Sunday.  The pastor had been speaking on Proverbs on the topic of friendship.  He described that we need to surround ourselves with "life-enhancing" friends that point us to Christ as opposed to "life-sucking" friends that take us away from Christ.  This man is definitely one of those life-enhancing friends.  We almost entirely spoke of theological things yesterday.  Scripture was tossed around all afternoon.  It was so wonderful.  Even when the topics got a little touchy or controversial, none of us strayed away from our friendship, we quite enjoyed the banter.  I was so glad he came.

I sure wish people had watched me kick into high gear, though, when I found out I was going to have a visitor in an hour!  My oldest 3 weren't around (and won't be for the whole week which I'll explain in a bit).  I can usually rely on them for all the clean up help.  My next child is still in a cast, so not a lot of help!  My younger ones were there, so I gave a quick pep talk on what needed to be done and I'm happy to say, they rose to the task!  I had thought I would be home all day cleaning and sorting, so I had pulled out all sorts of things to do.... had to put it all away.  We went into running/cleaning mode!  It was quite a marvel to see and I was sweating when all was said and done.

What to feed him?  I hadn't thought of anything even for ourselves that day!  Then I remembered I had some pork chops and zucchini in the fridge.  I even brought out some frozen fish to thaw (surf and turf!)   I quickly threw on some rice and then spiced up the pork chops and zucchini for the BBQ, but then I thought, "This guy is Jamaican, he'll love something with coconut or a curry sauce", so I quickly whipped up a coconut/curry sauce for the pork.  He ended up bringing some fresh corn which I boiled.  It ended up being a delicious gourmet lunch!  Barbequed pork, fish, zucchini with rice, corn, and a yummy sauce on the side or all over.   Fantastic!  No dessert made, so I quickly scooped ice-cream and poured a chocolate sauce on it - very easy and everyone was happy.  It was a great visit and he stayed probably 5 hours.  We did not accomplish all that we had hoped, but I felt like God stopped our plans that day and gave us something of eternal value instead, a wonderful Godly friendship.

Our older children will be gone again today and for the rest of the week.  They, too, had a change of plans.  They were expecting to go to the same Christian Worldview Camp again like last year, but it got cancelled due to lack of interest sadly.  We should have also said, "Lord willing!"  So at first, when it got cancelled, there was a tremendous sense of loss, but we quickly got our heads around it and tried to see that God was working instead. We ended up finding a wonderful replacement located at a local church that was being put on by Operation Mobilization, a mission organization that trains people on different religions and then sends you out to evangelize.  Because it wasn't an overnight camp, it was much cheaper, so all 3 of the older ones can go, not just two.  I have to admit, I'm a little shocked that my kids wanted to go as that is just not what I would have wanted to do when I was their age, but I thank the street preachers that came and visited us last summer and the tremendous influence they left on our children, so great.

Today they go off to a mosque where they will receive a tour of the temple and then learn all about Islam and how to speak to a Muslim.  Then they go and "street preach" for a few hours in Niagara, looking to specifically talk to Muslims.  Yikes!  Each day they'll learn about a different religion, go to their place of worship and then they'll go evangelizing.  It's an exhausting day, nearly 12 hours of training, driving, touring and evangelizing, but they are so excited and learning so much themselves.  They are seeing lots of people turn away with no interest in hearing anything about God or the Bible and then others seem somewhat receptive, but no sense of eternity.  It's a big wake-up call for them to see how disinterested people are.

Another change of plans in my life - only one full day of school planning kid-free.  It's "chicken day", so all the little ones are going to go with my husband to pick up the 100 chickens and 10 turkeys that we've ordered.  The older ones are gone till late evening, so I have to take advantage of this rare "no kid" day and get all my school stuff organized and planned - not going to be easy.  Usually this takes me days, but I'm up for the challenge as I've been thinking about what I'll do for awhile.

So, I think the moral of the story is the message from James, we must say, "Lord willing" whenever we make plans.  God allows us to make our plans, but He determines our steps.  Learning to be flexible reduces my stress level as I can view the changes in plans as God is intervening and that He has a better plan for my life and for my children's lives.  Otherwise I'll just find myself all upset or disappointed that things didn't go the way I hoped.  Today, I'll give my day up to Him again, thinking I will be planning for school, but at the same time, I'm leaving it open if He wants to do something else with my day!