Good Morning…
As I soaked in the stillness of the Ignatius House Retreat Center, choice words of reflection came to rest upon my page.
“Safe. Secure. Simple. That was my old unblemished life. Through a series of large, crashing waves, God separated me from the life of my childhood dreams. Clarity, comfort, connection all tumbled, tumbled, tumbled away. With God saying ‘no’ to my deepest desires, I was forced to say ‘yes’ to the life of God’s dreams.
‘LORD, why did You coaxed out of my comfort zone to greet me with suffocating silence, day after day after day?’ Now I understand God’s thinking more fully. The LORD merely took a breather from responding as I expected. So I was forced to wait and wonder, “When will Your powerful wind pick up to move, to guide, to carry me forward?”
Life continues to weather me, training me in total trust that God’s redeeming plans will only grow in His perfect time through His quirky ways. Not in my time. Not in my way. Not through any of my controlling effort. Re-telling the uncanny story of God’s will trumping mine in the summer of 2003 helps me feel again the contrast between my small shallow and God’s huge deep-and-wide. I marvel at my puny dreams expanding into the eternal dream of God.
Daily I surrender to this simple truth: “Any holistic healing of our private pain is a God-thing, a broken-to-beautiful love story being written by our living LORD.”
“Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine” (Luke 22:42, NLT).
…Sue…
