From 2/19/2022:
I am in one of those weird spots in which I know God is doing something…. I can feel it in my bones…(Yes, I’ve gotten old enough to feel things in my bones!) There are definitely some things stirring. Can’t put my finger on it, but I’m paying attention, Lord. And praying….
It’s not like mid summer 2020 when I put before the Lord in prayer my urgency about the furious pace of the COVID-19 pandemic sweeping through our world and how it was bringing some people to absolute brokenness, others to absolute insanity, and others death. I cried out for relief …. “Isn’t there a point at which some relief will come? A new treatment? Something that will roll this back? There has to be relief from this coming! Are we close, Lord??” In that season I was being affected by the fear of many others. I wasn’t so concerned for myself, as I believed I could survive it, but if I didn’t, I knew where I’d be. I was concerned for so many who seemed so afraid of COVID….crazy fear, what seemed to me like an irrational degree of fear, angry fear. Fear and its consequences seemed even worse than the disease. When I put that question before the Lord that day His prompt and unequivocal response was, ” Not. Even. Close.” My heart sank in that moment and I knew we were in for a long season. Mere weeks later Bill had died from complications of treatment for COVID….
This is different. Hopeful. Not anxious. Like a small child waiting for Christmas…. knowing it is coming… not sure when… but it will definitely be good! I’ve learned not to ask God when…. I’ve learned to simply watch and wait…. to keep alert, sober and prepared. Keep the shoes on. Keep food that will travel close at hand. Close doors to the world’s chaos and cover my pathway out with the blood of the lamb.
I don’t know what God is doing, when, how, where, or among whom….. I know only that God is present in it and because God is good, it will be good. And because God is sovereign, He will not fail. And because God loves me, I will be included at some point in seeing what He is preparing, maybe before, maybe as it happens, or maybe only in retrospect….. But “GOD IS” the great “I AM.” And that is enough for me to know.
A year later…. 2/19/2023
Many things have changed in a year. We have closed the residential group home of Titus 2 and have space for 2-3 women up at Living Waters Bridge Ranch. It is a peaceful environment. We’ve been busy since June this past year making the transition. It’s almost complete. More changes, too, as Lynn Haven UMC has finally voted to disaffiliate from the UMC and become GMC. The vote was JN 30 but it won’t be completed until May 7 th. And now many of us have been watching since February 8th as revival appears to be breaking in on college campuses, having started at Asbury University in Wilmore, Ky. God is definitely moving in observable ways!