... have kept me from having the time to ponder even the most basic of things. The last few months my mind has been on control and trying to give it to God. I have always been a control nut. Not over others. I learned long ago that it wasn't a good idea to ever think you could control others and have you or them be happy. But I am very big on being in control of myself and what I can control that has to do with me and my family. But we were never meant to be in control and when we try to be in control it can lead to some really big stress and unhappiness that we'd never experience if we could just truly trust in God to take care of us.
I know that God controls my life. I know that God controls every aspect of my life from start to finish. Not control like someone taking you by the arm and dragging you to where you need to be. No... God likes to lead us... some times subtly and sometimes with a great big shove. But always where we need to be to stay on his path. And maybe it is just with people like me, who ask God to help keep me on his path that go through this and maybe it is everyone; like it or not.
A good example is when I was still in my mid 20's. My Brother, who now rests in the arms of Jesus, told me that I should go work for a company that was an hours drive up the road from us because he heard that they paid almost twice what minimum wage was for laborers. I, at that time, was trying to raise four children on my own. I heard what he had to say but all I could think of was the amount of money I would need to move up to a place I knew nothing about with my four children and hope I got a job that would pay the bills. There was just no way it would work with the kids. Alone... well I could sleep in my car. But with the children I could never put them through something crazy like that. So it would not be an option. Back then I knew God, but I didn't know him as I do now. So I blew off the suggestion, as tempting as it was, knowing it was not feasible for us.
It only took a year for God to remove everything from me, all obstacles he needed out of the way to get me up to the very place I needed to be to get a job at this exact company my Brother had suggested. I had sent my children out to live with their Dad while I got myself on my feet. I applied to the company my Brother had told me about and went in and did their testing. Then a few weeks later I got a letter in the mail saying they had been trying to reach me to offer me a job. And there I was. A laborer making good money compared to what I had made in the past. Even more than when I was a Deputy Sheriff. I know... sad isn't it?
But that wasn't the only reason God had pushed my life to where it was. It wasn't the only reason he had made my situation desperate enough for me to send my kids out to live with their Dad so they wouldn't suffer with me any longer. It wasn't the only reason he had brought me to that company to work. It would be there that I would meet the love of my life and best friend, my husband, John. A whole other story, and too too personal to be entertaining, so we will leave it at that. God had turned my life upside down. Taken everything I valued away. Had me in a total tail spin of unhappiness, lost without my children, feeling like a failure, moving up where I could get away from everyone. But he knew exactly what he was doing. Exactly how I would react. He knew his plan for me and that this was exactly where I needed to be.
He knew if I had gotten a loan to move up to this area on my own with my kids I would have never taken the time to apply at this company because the hiring process was too long and I would have needed a job and money ASAP. He knew that once I met my future husband that he wouldn't have given me the time of day if I would have had four children at home. He would have, by his own admission, been afraid to have even dated me with all that baggage right there. He would have been frightened away. And on top of that I could have never worked the hours I needed to that put me on the same work crew as my future husband. No night time sitters.
Now if someone had said to me, "Look, we are going to have you get a really great job and then snatch it away from you. Then we are going to make it hard for you to find another job to the point that your children begin suffering because of it. Then we are going to make you so distraught about it that you send them off to live with their Dad. Of course then you will move up to this place, get this job, meet the love of your life and bring them all back home to live happily ever after. Is that ok with you?" I would have been happy. I would have known the plan and why things were happening and that in the end we would all be better for it.
But that didn't happen. No one told me. And I ended up at a place in my life where I felt like it would be better to believe that there was no God than to believe that there was a God and he was just sitting back letting all this awful stuff happen to us. It was a very cold lonely period in my life. But thanks to God I got through it and came out on the other side exactly where God knew I would. Eventually God even let me know why things had to happen the way they did.
This all boils down to faith. If I would have had true faith in God I might have questioned why he felt the need to take me down such a dark and unhappy road, but I would have known in my heart that he was leading me to where I needed to be and for my best interest. And God leads us to where he knows we will have our happiness, and if we are very lucky, will be one of his instruments in other's happiness as well. But that kind of faith... it isn't for the faint of heart. It takes real strength to stand up when going through the fires waiting to get to where God is using those fires to take us. In my case, it was to my husband and the father of our 12 children. (Yeah... I laugh too when I think of how he said he would have been scared off by four. LOL)
Satan loves to use doubt and fear and guilt against us. He whispers in our ears as we go through adversity asking us where our God is now. Knowing having faith in something you cannot always see is not always easy. He reminds us of our every sin and giggles with glee as the guilt sets in and pushes us further away from God. He sets the thought, "Why would God do this to you? Why would he allow this to happen?" planting more doubt pushing us further from the truth and the light and the way.
When life is slamming us, dealing us bad cards, making us absolutely miserable... God is still there. He doesn't change. He doesn't give up. He remains. He knows us. And in that he knows how vulnerable we are to Satan's whisperings. Hold on tight to God when life gets rough. Hold on tight and rebuke Satan at every turn. When your mind feeds you thoughts that you know are not right, rebuke Satan. Hold strong to the word of God and to your faith. If you are standing at the bedside of your toddler son and he is slipping away ravaged by illness, as much as it will hurt to be without him, remind yourself of where he will be and that you will be together again. If you are sitting in your car outside the job you just lost hold on tight to the Lord and know that he is going to carry you through this. That no matter how bleak things may look, you are on your way to something better. It is hard to know or think that as you are going through it, but try your best. I know I do, every time. And most times I get hit by the ugliness of life it takes just a bit of time to catch my breath and remember who is in control of my life and that everything, no matter how bad, will be ok, because he is in control.
(Note: This post is a bit similar to an earlier post I made. The point being made is different, but some of the references are the same.)
