It is 5:14 am, Saturday morning. I am sitting at my computer, getting ready to write what I have already had prayer time about, and what I am certain God wants me to say today. Then something happens, and I am reduced to tears in just a few heartbeats, and then something else happens, and the tears continue to fall. And it feels good. A lot of things that have been compounded down in my heart this week has been brought to the surface this morning, and I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that things that started happening earlier this week was God preparing me for this very moment, when He would talk to me, and put all the puzzle pieces of a week together, or maybe the puzzle pieces of a lifttime just so He can say, "See? This is why everything happens, this is why I am God". And I truly feel His Love wrapped around me, and it is amazing. And I will try to give the story justice, this may be long.
Wednesday morning, I got in my van to head to my moms as we had a doctor visit in Terre Haute. I have had a lot of appointments in different directions this week, and it is always a bit scary because I am afraid I will slip up and forget something and let someone down. Normally, I call my mom about as soon as I get in the car to go to work, but since I was picking her up in 15 minutes, I turned on the radio, to my favorite Christian satellite station. Danny Gokey was singing his new song Rise, I was in love with it immediately. Until 15 minutes or so ago, it was going to be the song at the end of today's blog.
I think I mentioned in a previous blog that I am reading a Chronological Bible this year. Once again, I have been mostly in Genesis, and yesterday was the last chapter. In the last half of Genesis, we see the story of Joseph. I think most people know the story in at least some capacity. Joseph was his father's favorite, his brother's threw him in a pit, then pulled him out of the pit and sold him to the Midianites, who sold him to Potiphar. Potiphar's wife got Joseph thrown into prison, and eventually Pharaoh released him. Long story short, Joseph ended up being the equivalent of the Prime Minister of Egypt. When His brothers came, Joseph ended up moving them and their father to Egypt as well. I have left lots out for the sake of room, this story basically starts in Genesis 37, if you want to explore farther.
In Genesis 50, Jacob, Joseph's father, had died, and the brothers were a bit leery of how Joseph would treat them now that their dad was dead.
Verses 19-21 is what I really want to look at.
19 But Joseph said to them, “Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? 20 You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. 21 So then, don’t be afraid. I will provide for you and your children.” And he reassured them and spoke kindly to them.
And there it is. God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done. The events that had happened over Joseph's life all led to the here and now that Joseph was in a really good place and was thanking God for that.
We have a lady coming to speak to our staff and clients in a little over a week. I have heard her speak twice and am in awe of her. She is a true success story of working her way out of generational poverty. The first time I heard her speak, I learned there were two different types of poverty, generational and situational. I had never really seen it that way, but it explained a lot. For the first time, I realized, I had experienced situational poverty, I had never really put a name to what that time in my life from the time my dad passed away all the way through high school was. I knew then. I have kicked myself over decisions I made after I did get a job, because I bought stupid things, and I could have been doing more to help my mom instead, after all, it was because of her that only my closest friends and a couple of teachers knew things weren't just fine in our lives.
One of the things that Donna, the lady who is coming to speak, drives home is that people just want to feel normal. We live in a society where normal is high priced tennis shoes, designer jeans, and in the present day, the right cell phone. When I was growing up, it was pretty well Nike shoes and Jordache, or Calvin Klein jeans, there was never a time I didn't have them all. And even as I mentioned it this week, my mom defended me in my selfishness (she will comment on me saying that too), in that I worked for those things, I helped out around the house, and made sure she never had to worry about my room being clean, and certain other things, you know, those things I should have been doing without thinking I had to spend a month's worth of grocery money to have the right clothes. Thing is, all of these things brought me to my life today. I still don't understand God and what He is thinking with Mom, but I do know I am me, and I do my job better, and I live my life better, because of what He had me experience. If my dad would not have died, I would have most certainly went to college, my goal was to be a teacher. I would have probably not ever worked at Walmart, or met Andrew, and so I am thankful everything went just the way it did. Although I would still give anything for Dad to have met Andrew and to have got to experience Robert. I daydream about the fun those two would have had together and it hurts my heart but it is God's ways and His ways are perfect, so that's where we go. I also know though, that, when faced with a young person in those same shoes, I could help them still get to college, and still have a better life down the road, and I know, my path was the way it was, so God could use me to help others.
I could go on and on, in fact, this particular blog could probably turn into a book pretty easily, but I will close because one more thing happened, now 45 minutes ago. I went to Youtube to pull up the Danny Gokey song I spoke of earlier. The official video is about DV. I work in a world where DV is an everyday acronym for Domestic Violence. And I WILL use this video in an upcoming blog, it was after I had clicked open another tab, and was getting ready to start typing that the next Danny Gokey song started. "Tell Your Heart to Beat Again", and the tears flowed, and it might as well have been me instead of Joseph saying, "God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done."
So, THAT is the song I am leaving you with. I wish you days of hearing God speaking straight to you, and I wish you the time to really soak that feeling in.
Wednesday morning, I got in my van to head to my moms as we had a doctor visit in Terre Haute. I have had a lot of appointments in different directions this week, and it is always a bit scary because I am afraid I will slip up and forget something and let someone down. Normally, I call my mom about as soon as I get in the car to go to work, but since I was picking her up in 15 minutes, I turned on the radio, to my favorite Christian satellite station. Danny Gokey was singing his new song Rise, I was in love with it immediately. Until 15 minutes or so ago, it was going to be the song at the end of today's blog.
I think I mentioned in a previous blog that I am reading a Chronological Bible this year. Once again, I have been mostly in Genesis, and yesterday was the last chapter. In the last half of Genesis, we see the story of Joseph. I think most people know the story in at least some capacity. Joseph was his father's favorite, his brother's threw him in a pit, then pulled him out of the pit and sold him to the Midianites, who sold him to Potiphar. Potiphar's wife got Joseph thrown into prison, and eventually Pharaoh released him. Long story short, Joseph ended up being the equivalent of the Prime Minister of Egypt. When His brothers came, Joseph ended up moving them and their father to Egypt as well. I have left lots out for the sake of room, this story basically starts in Genesis 37, if you want to explore farther.
In Genesis 50, Jacob, Joseph's father, had died, and the brothers were a bit leery of how Joseph would treat them now that their dad was dead.
Verses 19-21 is what I really want to look at.
19 But Joseph said to them, “Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? 20 You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. 21 So then, don’t be afraid. I will provide for you and your children.” And he reassured them and spoke kindly to them.
And there it is. God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done. The events that had happened over Joseph's life all led to the here and now that Joseph was in a really good place and was thanking God for that.
We have a lady coming to speak to our staff and clients in a little over a week. I have heard her speak twice and am in awe of her. She is a true success story of working her way out of generational poverty. The first time I heard her speak, I learned there were two different types of poverty, generational and situational. I had never really seen it that way, but it explained a lot. For the first time, I realized, I had experienced situational poverty, I had never really put a name to what that time in my life from the time my dad passed away all the way through high school was. I knew then. I have kicked myself over decisions I made after I did get a job, because I bought stupid things, and I could have been doing more to help my mom instead, after all, it was because of her that only my closest friends and a couple of teachers knew things weren't just fine in our lives.
One of the things that Donna, the lady who is coming to speak, drives home is that people just want to feel normal. We live in a society where normal is high priced tennis shoes, designer jeans, and in the present day, the right cell phone. When I was growing up, it was pretty well Nike shoes and Jordache, or Calvin Klein jeans, there was never a time I didn't have them all. And even as I mentioned it this week, my mom defended me in my selfishness (she will comment on me saying that too), in that I worked for those things, I helped out around the house, and made sure she never had to worry about my room being clean, and certain other things, you know, those things I should have been doing without thinking I had to spend a month's worth of grocery money to have the right clothes. Thing is, all of these things brought me to my life today. I still don't understand God and what He is thinking with Mom, but I do know I am me, and I do my job better, and I live my life better, because of what He had me experience. If my dad would not have died, I would have most certainly went to college, my goal was to be a teacher. I would have probably not ever worked at Walmart, or met Andrew, and so I am thankful everything went just the way it did. Although I would still give anything for Dad to have met Andrew and to have got to experience Robert. I daydream about the fun those two would have had together and it hurts my heart but it is God's ways and His ways are perfect, so that's where we go. I also know though, that, when faced with a young person in those same shoes, I could help them still get to college, and still have a better life down the road, and I know, my path was the way it was, so God could use me to help others.
I could go on and on, in fact, this particular blog could probably turn into a book pretty easily, but I will close because one more thing happened, now 45 minutes ago. I went to Youtube to pull up the Danny Gokey song I spoke of earlier. The official video is about DV. I work in a world where DV is an everyday acronym for Domestic Violence. And I WILL use this video in an upcoming blog, it was after I had clicked open another tab, and was getting ready to start typing that the next Danny Gokey song started. "Tell Your Heart to Beat Again", and the tears flowed, and it might as well have been me instead of Joseph saying, "God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done."
So, THAT is the song I am leaving you with. I wish you days of hearing God speaking straight to you, and I wish you the time to really soak that feeling in.
Comments
Post a Comment