Unveiling

6/17/13

I'm not always sure how to open a blog post, mainly if it is going to be an intense one.
So that's my opening.

It's funny how God can shine a light when your not paying very close attention. Even funnier when He hit's you with that light like a semi truck with it's brights on.

I had been reading a wonderful book called, Lineage of Grace by Francine Rivers. A very well put together book about incredible women in the Bible. I eagerly skipped over a chapter to read the story of Ruth. Some reason or other I just stopped right towards the end.
I couldn't find interest in finishing it's last bit. It had been months.
Last night I sat on the couch with my mind just going in every which direction. I felt like I had choices to make and I didn't know how to even start. My pitiful two second prayers asking for an answer weren't cutting it and I was absorbed in my own confusion I couldn't find what I needed to really seek my answer.
Then I pick up my book. Of all the times to read, my mind couldn't contain itself and I decided to attempt to redirect it's attention to a story. Then the truck with it's brights hit me.

There is so graciously a devotional at the end of each story of these women in the bible. I finished up the story of Ruth and I felt the sense of celebration as I ended it, satisfied. Yet, I pressed on to read the devotional. Something I wouldn't have done normally, especially late at night, with my mind overflowing, with my husband gone up stairs for the night already, all these unusual things but I found myself in the midst of God by continuing into the devotional time.

Ruth had to make life changing decisions. Extreme ones. I need to make big decisions and are extreme to me.
I told my husband I am not one to jump off a bridge and say, "God catch me!"
But I am one to use a rope and say, "God, I trust You to hold me."
I found myself at the top of a bridge and I looked down and coward. Because the rope can seem uncertain. It can seem weak and frail. But at the bottom I could see what I desired.

That also scared me.
Because sometimes it's hard to believe that my desires are God's as well.
Because sometimes I like to believe it is to justify my own wants.
I'm afraid of making up my mind based only on me and my wants, and making a mistake.
Praying for something that I've made up in my mind to do already and just asking God to play along.

"I am going this direction God! Come and follow me!"
when it should be,
"I will follow You and go Your way."

But I couldn't find my mind in any kind of clarity to see the path I needed to take. To follow.
This time of devotion opened my heart, my ears, cleared my mind and I found myself in discussion with God. As I read each question I heard it like God was beckoning me. & then there was this passage:

Don't copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will know what God wants you to do, and you will know how good and pleasing and perfect his will really is.'
Romans 12:2

I prayed for a transformation. To change the way I was thinking, so I would know what He wanted me to do.
& when I prayed this, I knew how good and pleasing and perfect his will really was.
It was so clear.

Suddenly as I asked questions that had been running through my mind over and over, they were just being answered, so plainly.

'Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will direct your paths.'
Proverbs 3:5-6

So what has been so intensely on my mind I could hardly focus, that I need this awing moment, to be hit by an oncoming vehicle with it's lights blaring on me?


I've decided, along with my husband, that I will give my notice at work & officially be a full time stay at home mom! {Insert giant happy smiley Liz here}