God has plans....

So, I know that it is an obvious statement.  God has plans.
He does. But, sometimes I forget that I am a part of His plan instead of Him being the overseer of my plans.  Very often I find myself presenting my plan to the Father and asking Him to bless it....knowing that I have not even "consulted" Him during the plan-making process.

I am learning to sit....to wait....to rest.....to stop planning.  
It is the hardest lesson I have ever had to learn....because, at times, I feel unprepared, lazy, or even stupid.
I have always planned.

My plan for this baby: To be High Risk....to get to see the Dr. every two weeks, if not more.....to have constant reassurance....a team of Drs watching my baby.  To have, though, a perfect pregnancy and then a perfect baby. :) Not a bad plan....just not God's.

After agreeing to the first trimester screening, I got to see the high risk docs, the same ones that delivered Branson.  There was something calming and sweet about seeing the people that had seen my Branson.  We wanted the screening and the blood tests so that if there was a marker, my kids would know their medical history when they went to have kids.....Our scan was perfect, with a bouncing baby with a perfect heartbeat.  The blood test results came back great.  Good news, right?

So, the high risk docs don't need to see me anymore.....at all.  I am not high risk......for real?

I am currently in the middle of the dreaded 4 week waiting process to see the doctor again....4 weeks is an eternity...it really is.

It isn't that I don't want to be a part of God's plans.....It isn't that I don't trust Him...
It is pride.  Sometimes I simply and stupidly think my plan is better.....I know.......stupid.

Pray for patience and submission to His will.......

Pray for an unexpected glitch in the calendar that makes October 20th come quicker so we can find out sooner if this is a boy or a girl! ( just kidding...pray for patience)

Johnna

making a space....

It is a new feeling.
It creates anxiety in a peaceful vacuum, starts arguments in your heart, gives you the shivers......
It is a place where the enemy has never attacked before.... like the soft, fleshy underside of  the chin- unprotected by armor.

It is peace.

It has always been easy to trust and obey during the easy times.....during the times of peace and favor....when you feel the Lord's blessing on you like the first hot day in March.  It was always the dark times where I struggled to see and find my way back to my Abba's lap.

But now, in the midst of the sunshine...now, experiencing the blessing I find myself reluctant to trust- knowing full and well that there is NOTHING else to do but trust....I still find myself shaken.

I feel like this tree....It has been uprooted only to take root again and survive...Its limbs sink low to the ground and it looks rough....It sure isn't "standing" the way a tree should.  But it still survives because its roots sought the very thing necessary for survival. On top of that, God intended it survive...so it did.

I will be this tree, ugly and sideways if I need to be.  First, I will understand and be thankful that God intended me to survive..and I will continue to search for His nourishment even when it is hard...as I daily confess my fear and mistrust to Him.

I mean look at this tree.....It is rough.  But at the same time, it is magnificent.  I will gladly lower my branches in His honor and glory.....
Besides, now the tree, as am I, is more perfect for kids to play on.....:)

Surrender......

These are the hands of surrender.  

I have spent the last 8 months learning how to walk around with my hands in the air....how to be in surrender to a perfect will I did not understand. I have been walking in reverence and submission to a bigger plan, a larger picture.....a plan that my Jesus formulated that is far above my ability to understand most days.  

It has taken months to even learn this walk....and I haven't even felt like I "got it".  Each prayer has been about my surrender.  Each praise to the Father is about the fact that He has it in His hands.  Each fear has been that if He did not, I would be dead in the water.....hopeless, bitter....angrier.  

Learning to walk this way has only increased my humility, humbled my "knowledge" and increased my faith in what is unseen. I have no answers. I don't know why God chose to heal the leper and not my sweet girl.  I do not know why we have experienced the amount of death in our family that we have this year...7 in the last year....... I don't know any of it....but I know who He is...and I know He loves me....and I know that I will continue to surrender....

Here is what I did NOT know:

The same hands that reach out in surrender to the Almighty....those are the same hands that wait for blessing.

Look at them...... See the outstretched arms....the extended fingers and palms cupped to receive.  

I didn't know.

I didn't know that this whole walk...this entire climb...I had been walking in submission and surrender with my hands awaiting His blessing as well.  

And it has come.....

And I am having trouble receiving it.

I'm just being honest.

I will wait...with cupped hands....I will hold His blessing out in my hands raised to Him for He means to work in me, through me...like a river flowing in and through and around all that I am.