A Perfect Day

It was a perfect "me" day yesterday.  After church, we were able to meet up with my parents for lunch at my children's favourite buffet.  Food I don't have to prepare always tastes sooooo good.  For most people, that would have been enough socializing for one day.  They'd have gone home, had a nap and called it a day.  Not me.  I was just getting started.

While we were at the restaurant, we got a text from our friends who were in town.  I knew they were coming, so I just responded, "House is open...walk in...we'll meet you there after lunch."  My older kids, as soon as they knew they were there, took one of the vehicles and took off to go meet their friends at the house.  We arrived shortly after and had a nice visit for an hour and a half.  Meanwhile, another friend and her kids were also in town!  They also emailed and said, "Hey, do you have a few minutes for us to drop in?"  "Sure!" I said.  I told her there were other people there and as long as she didn't mind a little activity, she was welcome....She pulled in just as my other friend was about to go. They were able to stay for dinner and took off shortly after that.  I had somehow managed to visit with 3 different sets of friends and family in just a matter of a few hours. For some, that would have killed them.  For me....it just filled me up to overflowing.  I absolutely loved every minute of it!

I think that is what Christian fellowship is supposed to do.  Each conversation, each family member and friend, really had Christ at the center of it all.  We were all encouraging one another towards "love and good deeds", at Hebrews says.  I think that's why I felt so full at the end of it all.  I had spent time with people who were all trying to be faithful to God's call in their lives and were all living it out differently and yet faithfully.

The last friend who came that afternoon had known my kids when they were just little.  We had known her when she was single, but now she was there with a small gaggle of kids under 7.  As grown children, my kids sat there talking with her as peers.  It was so neat to see them listening to her experience as she reflected on how it was when she was their age.  I was so glad she came as we are still working out the final details of my oldest son's school applications.  I am so overwhelmed by the whole process.  Even though my husband is doing most of it, I absolutely hate the paperwork, gathering the material he needs, coordinating transcripts, marks, past courses, etc.  If I'm not careful, this is a great opportunity for the devil to instill panic in me, or give me fear that he won't get in, or fear that he might be delayed a term or even, heaven forbid, a year!  She saw this in me and heard those same fears in my son and just calmly told us her story, her school experience and how God used everything for His good, even what seemed like "delays".   After she left, we were all so encouraged. To me, she was an angel, sent at just the perfect time.  How many times does God do that for me?  I often need God to speak to me, in person, with skin on, and He does just that?

Psalm 77 speaks of this, "Your way was through the sea, your path through the great waters, yet your footsprints were unseen." (vs. 19).  So often it seems like God's footprints are "unseen", no real evidence that He is working.  However, somehow He takes us through the sea and the great waters. Is He really unseen?  The Israelites never saw God come down and open the seas and the waters with an actual hand, but the waters were still moved.  I feel like I am in the middle of the sea and in the middle of great waters in this post-secondary school process, but I know, even though I don't see His footprints, per se, He is still moving back the waters for me.  He brings encouragement to me through people like this friend of mine who basically said, "Calm down.  It will be ok."  And then there's my husband, of course, who won't let me get myself all in a knot.  His confidence encourages me, too.

The next psalm says it best, "Can God spread a table in the wilderness?.......Can He also give bread or provide meat for His people?" (19, 20)

It may as well say, "Can He get your son into university?"  "Can He provide the wisdom, the ability, the energy, the resources that you don't think you have?"

I have to believe that He can.  The Israelites, on the other hand kindled the wrath of God, "his anger rose against Israel, because they did not believe in God and did not trust in His saving power." (21) It seems pretty key that I trust in His saving power.  I need to believe that God can do these very things that seem so impossible to me.

Am I in way over my head?  Yup.  But all I have to do is go back and remember all the times God has been so faithful.  Just like with the Israelites, I can recount the countless times He has"divided the seas and let them pass through it."  He has "split rocks in the wilderness and gave them drink abundantly as from the deep."  He has "made streams come out of the rock and caused waters to flow down the rivers." (13-16)  He has done that for me so many times.  He can do it again.  The Iraelites, however, "did not remember His power or the day He redeemed them from the foe."  I think that has to be the difference.  They forgot.  I can't.