Adjusting to God's Plan for My Days

It is two days after Thanksgiving Day, and I finally have a minute to sit down at my little blog for the first time in several days.  The boys are watching football, my daughter has her play dishes spread out on a table in the living room, and we just got home from our first cider mill trip of the year-- on Nov. 27, mind you.  I had planned to post something every day of November on my "Twenty-Five Days of Praise", but I have had to do some serious adjusting to God's plan for my November.  My plan didn't match up with His, but His plan is perfect nonetheless.  God sent several events, responsibilities, and people my way that I had not anticipated, and so my plans for writing every day had to take a back seat.  I felt very sad that I couldn't keep up with it, but there were people and things that needed my attention more, and those things were God's plan for me.  I would go to bed every night thinking about how there had never been time to write something that day, and I would just have to say, "OK, Lord, You know what my day held and You ordained all of that for today."

Someday I will have time to write all I want, but for now, I'm just going to have to be content with an "every-so-often" kind of blog.  My blog writing may be every-so-often, but my God is a constant companion and faithful refuge.  I'm so glad it isn't the other way around.

I continue to rejoice in the Lord's provision and His goodness to us.  I am so thankful for my precious husband and my four beautiful children who love me and need me day after day.  I praise God for the many family and friends that He has blessed me with-- friends and family that challenge me, encourage me, and love me despite my faults. We were blessed to spend Thanksgiving Day with three other families that, like us,  do not live near their families, and it was a precious time of fellowship for this little "far-from-home" bunch.

So my "Twenty-Five Days of Praise" turned into just a few posts, but I learned a lot about the difference between my plan and God's plan.  I can't fight against it when the days don't look like I expect them to look, but I can rest in the fact that God has perfectly ordained each interruption for His glory and my good.  Actually, they are not interruptions at all, just differences between God's "To-do List" for my day and mine.  Wrangling against it will do me no good, but accepting that God is writing the story of my life makes each day an adventure.

I'm so glad He is writing my story.  He will do a much better job than I ever would.  Let the next chapter begin...

Twenty-Five Days of Praise- Days Six through Sixteen

When I set out to post about twenty-five days of praise, I had no idea that I was going to be overtaken by a bad respiratory infection.  Consequently, I have been doing the bare minimum the last several days, and blogging has taken a back seat.  By God's grace, I am feeling much better, and I am beginning to get caught up on all of the things that got set to the side during my illness.  I was praising the Lord while I was sick, but I wasn't necessarily up to writing about it!  I guess my plan was not God's plan.

Today I simply praise the Lord for His strength, his grace in my life, and His healing from this physical illness.  It's startling to realize how much I take health for granted until I am sick.  It gives me great compassion for those that live with chronic illness, and it makes me realize how blessed I am to have been so healthy for so long.  I am also thankful for the ultimate healing that will come one day-- the healing that was purchased on the cross by my dear Savior.

Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits...

Twenty-Five Days of Praise- Day Five: My Husband

Today I thank the Lord for my husband-- the love of my earthly life, my dearest friend, and the person I'd rather spend time with than anyone in the world.  What a gift of grace he is to me.  Paul loves me when I am lovely, and more importantly, he loves me when I'm not so lovely.  He is the living, breathing love of Christ to me and our children day after day, and I'm very blessed to be called his wife.  I praise God for the precious gift of a husband who loves Christ, loves me, and loves our children.


Dear God, I prayed, all unafraid
(as we're inclined to do)
I do not need a handsome man
but let him be like You;
I do not need one big and strong
nor yet so very tall,
nor need he be some genius,
or wealthy, Lord, at all;
but let his head be high, dear God,
and let his eye be clear,
his shoulders straight, whate'er his state,
whate'er his earthly sphere;
and let his face have character,
a ruggedness of soul,
and let his whole life show, dear God,
a singleness of goal;
then when he comes
(as he will come)
with quiet eyes aglow,
I'll understand that he's the man
I prayed for long ago.
                       --Ruth Bell Graham

Twenty-Five Days of Praise- Day Four: An Advocate

I John 2: 1-- "My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin.  But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous."

There are many things I have learned during my years as the wife of an attorney.  I have learned that it is hard to out-argue a man that is quite skilled at making valid arguments.  I have learned that I am sometimes very quick to judge a situation when there is often much more there than meets the eye.  I have learned much about the protections afforded an individual in our court system- even if the accused has pled guilty.  Our constitution guarantees each citizen wise and competent counsel.  Our constitution guarantees each citizen an advocate, whether they are guilty or innocent, deserving or undeserving, lovely or unlovely.

As Paul has practiced law throughout our marriage, I have observed first-hand what it is to have an advocate in a courtroom.   He is often the only person pleading for the cause of an individual or speaking on their behalf.  I think he especially loves being an advocate for those that truly have no other means of help.  I don't often know much about his cases.  Once in awhile, however, he is able to share a bit with me, and I am always amazed at how seriously he takes his job as an advocate.

In Job 9: 32, 33, Job speaks of God when he says, "For He is not a man, as I am, that I might answer Him, that we should come to trial together.  There is no arbiter between us, who might lay his hand on us both." (ESV) Job is pleading for an advocate between himself and God, someone that might present his case and come alongside him.  Really, Job is pleading for Christ.

I never expected to learn so much about the gospel being married to an attorney, but I am continually struck by the fact that I have an Advocate with God the Father.  Despite my guilt, Jesus is my Advocate before God.  As the hymn "Before the Throne of God Above" so beautifully says, He "ever lives and pleads for me".  Not only do I have an Advocate, but he is a righteous Advocate that also took the punishment for my sin and guilt.  He stands before the Father pleading on my behalf on the basis of His righteousness.

I am overwhelmed with thankfulness today for my Advocate, Jesus Christ.

Before the throne of God above
I have a strong and perfect plea.
A great High Priest whose name is Love,
Who ever lives and pleads for me.


My name is graven on His hands,
My name is written on His heart.
I know that while in Heav'n He stands,
No tongue can bid me thence depart.
                   --Vickie Cook

Twenty-Five Days of Praise- Day Three: A Favorite Poem

Psalm 89:1-- "I will sing of the steadfast love of the Lord, forever;  with my mouth I will make known your faithfulness to all generations."

I have to admit it-- I love poetry.  I have a few poem collections that I meander through quite often.

One of my absolute favorites is called Sitting By My Laughing Fire, a compilation of the poetry of Ruth Bell Graham.  I also have several books that include the poems of Amy Carmichael, the English missionary that rescued girls from the temples in India and began the Donhavur Fellowship.  For day three of the twenty-five days of praise, I decided to include one of Amy Carmichael's poems found in her book Edges of His Ways.


O praise the Lord, for it is good
      And pleasant and a joyful thing
To lift the heart as all men should
     Who have so dear a Lord to sing.


The number of the stars He tells,
     And calls each star by his own name:
No two of all His flowery bells
     Or leaves or grasses are the same.


So individual is His thought
     For all of us, did one let go
The hand of Joy, and sore distraught
     Forget to sing, His heart would know.


From rainbow did a color float,
     Or did a shining sun burn dim,
That were far less for Him to note
     Than dumbness of a child to Him.


O save from that!  Let grateful song
      And jubilance of melody,
And loving merry-makings throng
      The road that leads us home to Thee.

Twenty-Five Days of Praise- Day Two: Citizenship

Romans 13:1-- "Let every person be subject to the governing authorities.  For there is no authority, except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God."

Today I sit here thankful for my citizenship.  First and foremost, my citizenship is in Heaven, and I am secure because of that.  I have always loved the verse in Psalm 20:7 that says, "Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God."  I am thankful that no matter what an earthly government does, I serve the King of Kings-- and He is sovereign over all things including governments.


But does that mean that I have no responsibility here in America- in this time and place?  I have always struggled with those that have the philosophy that patriotism as an American is incompatible with being a citizen of Heaven.  As the verse from Romans 13:1 asserts,  I am subject to the earthly authority that has been put in place by God.  I am a citizen in America because God sovereignly ordained that, and I thank God for the freedom to speak, worship, and vote.  I will vote today, because I have been given that right and responsibility, and I will tell my children what a privilege it is to vote my conscience and have some say in our government.  All the while, I will pray hard.  I will pray that God would have mercy on us as a nation.  I will pray that my children will also have the opportunity to vote when they get older, and I will pray that Americans would come to realize that the solution to the majority of the problems we face is not found in government, but in Christ.  


Today, I am exceedingly thankful for my citizenship and the right to vote, knowing all the while that every authority that exists has been instituted by God.

Twenty Five Days of Praise- Day One

I haven't had much time to write often on this little blog of mine, but in honor of Thanksgiving, I am going to begin 25 days of praise until November 25.  The posts might be about something that I'm thankful for, but they also might be a psalm, a poem, or a picture.  They will all have one theme though-- God's great goodness to His children.


Today I begin by praising God for Jesus Christ and the salvation found in Him alone.  On my own I am not deserving of anything but great punishment, and I have nothing worthy to bring to Him.  I am full of sin and selfishness.  It is because of His great love that He has called me and saved me.  He picked me up out of the miry clay, set my feet upon a rock, and gave me a new song to sing.  When I consider how sinful and unworthy I am on my own, what Christ has done for me by dying on the cross to take my punishment, and what I am in Christ- adopted, made whole, washed clean, and called a child of God- my heart wells up with thanksgiving.