Wayfaring Stranger

Object lessons that hit you upside the head!

I've been struggling over the past few weeks with what I called pride issues a week ago. Then sometime during the week following that declaration, in my study time I came across an article written by Selwyn Hughes that talked about how we suffer from the sin of demandingness. That was object lesson number one. I spent the rest of the week reeling from this realization that yes indeed I am demanding and I don't like that one bit. So I shared this discovery with one of my trusted elders and we talked about that for a bit. I told him I am trying hard to change that about myself. He immediately turned toward me and said he had a teachable moment for me. I should have ducked. He asked me to "try" to pick up a pen on the table. Okay. Well no matter how I picked that pen up, it was the wrong way. I was about to say there is no way I can pick this up when he stopped me and told me that if I keep trying to do something, it will never happen. That's what happens when we "try" to go on a diet. You either do or you don't. Then he put his hand on the table just a little space away from the pen and said when we go as far as we can, that's when God puts his hand over ours and moves us the rest of the way. That is how in our weakness, he makes us strong. He put his other hand down on the hand on the table and moved it to pick up the pen. Object lesson number two.

Now I don't know about anybody else but when I get hit hard twice in the same week with object lessons, I decide it's something I am definitely supposed to be paying attention to. I also start thinking how I really would like to start making these amazing discoveries without having to be hit with a brick! But then again, I also know I would probably miss them entirely if there wasn't some pain involved. That seems to be the way I operate. I'm just very glad that God cares enough to know me and the ways I learn important lessons.

posted by Dana @ 4:46 PM 0 comments

Texas, Again!

My daughter and her family have moved to Amarillo, Texas. After all these years, we're suddenly back in a state I never wanted to be in again. Not that I am not a proud Texan. I really am. I'm thrilled that my new granddaughter is a born in Texas Texan. It's been a long time. I was the last in the family. It's just that I had to go to Texas every year for Christmas all the years I was growing up in the north. I thought when my grandparents died, my Christmas trips were finally a thing of the past. Then in September my kids moved to Amarillo and two days before Christmas found us driving the 16 hours to spend Christmas with them in Texas. It was such a sense of deja vu! In fact it was a little rough on me. After the first couple of days, though, I worked through the old memories while loving and cuddling on my new granddaughter and chasing her big sister all over the house amidst yelps and belly laughs. I've missed her terribly and now I miss them twice as much. It was so much fun to be together and to see Steven and Angela's new home. I'm very happy for them as Steven really likes Central and Angela loves her new house. They are finally able to settle down some and get to know people now that they are moved in and the baby is finally here. All these things are good. Even so, all this good is sitting on top of a lot of sadness and grief of being so far away from each other. Isn't it amazing how God has blessed us with so many good and perfect gifts from above to offset the sorrow and sadness of separation. I wonder if that isn't the same kind of thing that helps us in our separation from him. He continually blesses us every day with wonderful things to help us make it through our separation from him until that day when we will finally be together for eternity. I know I am thinking of whether it would be a good thing to move to Amarillo to be closer to my kids. At the same time it' s one of my yearly quests to do whatever it takes to move closer to my Jesus. It's an interesting parallel.

posted by Dana @ 12:09 PM 0 comments