a walk with my dog = a walk with God!

This morning, as I walked my dog in the early foggy light, I looked over the events of my recent life. I became so irritable and said to myself, "When I meet God, I am going to grab Him by His lapels and scream, "WHY?!"

Whew. That took guts!

Seriously, though, my eyes then welled up in tears as I thought of the many GOOD things I have received, too, not just bad things (although God does not wish bad on anyone!) Sometimes, life just gets hard. Immediately, thoughts of Jesus being tempted in the wilderness flooded my mind. Jesus, God who became Man, so He could understand more of who we are and we could see God face to face as well.

My walk took me to a small lake by my house. As I stood at water's edge, I became quiet. I allowed my mind to listen...to the sounds of a gentle breeze, to the wood ducks as they skittered across the lake, their shrill quacks announcing their departure and especially, to the cacophony of geese on the nearby island in the middle of this lake. They were quite loud this morning! 

As I turned to make my way back home, my heart full, I asked God to forgive me. "Be it done to me according to Your Word," I prayed.

be like a child, always trusting that God will show you the way!

That, too takes guts! Just as Mary told the angel Gabriel when he announced her upcoming pregnancy and birth of Jesus, so too I gave myself over to the mission God has in store for me. So far, it has not been an easy one. With coronavirus making the news world-wide, plus having not only my immune-compromised husband, but his 78 year old mom to care for, plus the other regular "stuff" I deal with day to day, I am tired. Not just "take a nap" tired, my body and soul are exhausted. It's hard to be "on" all the time and it can be so easy to just give in, to say, "to heck with this!" and run away. Believe me, I have thought of this MANY times in the past months! To leave all that I have and start over on my own, I admit, that, yes, I wanted to escape. I needed to escape. I thought of nothing BUT escaping! Walk away from all of it; "be damned, details, I am outta here!" Joseph, when hearing about Mary's pregnancy, wanted to do the same thing.

"Be it done to me according to Your Word."
Yeah, a powerful proclamation! 

He too, had to give up what he had made plans for and make new plans. Fleeing an oppressive government and becoming an exile in a new land, then returning when all was safe...this was not what he had signed up for, either! We don't have too many details about his life, nor of what happened to Mary after the crucifixion of her Son. Knowing what we do know, however, we can surmise they lived out their lives in grace as well as hardships of the time. Just because you are the Mother of God doesn't mean red carpet treatment. In fact, I often speculate that because she WAS the mother of Jesus, this must have made her life even more dangerous. (I so wish the gospel writers told us more about her life after the ascension of Jesus into heaven!)

So, here I am...and there you are! I know you have it tough, too. No one here gets out alive. No one here gets out unscathed, either. We all have responsibilities we didn't sign up for. We all have our issues with wanting to run away. What we have to realize is, #1, running away presents a whole new set of problems and #2, God's grace can and will carry us through what we deal with. We need only to call out to Him to carry us and, as in the "Footprints" poem, He will. Go ahead, look back! You will see only one set of footprints. It was then that He carried you!

Have a blessed day!