My Visions Against God's Will

Unfortunately, to your dismay I’m sure, I don’t have some long drawn out story to share with you; simply a thought that crossed my mind a few nights ago that hasn’t seemed to escape since.

Just because you have your heart set on something doesn’t mean God set it on your heart.

I think this might just be a new life motto of mine. It has been such a reoccurring theme when I look back on certain choices that I have made in the past. My decisions were purely that; MY decisions. They were always what I thought was best and what I believed would make me happiest. I figured if it was something that sounded good and I was excited about it then it was the right choice. Notice all of these selfish pronouns? Going forward in life, it is extremely important that every decision is a decision that began as an idea placed on my heart by God. I’m not intending on waking up in the morning and asking God what I should eat for breakfast, but I feel my conscience inside of me saying I don’t go to Him enough in my decision making. And with a desire to live out God’s purpose in my life, obviously that’s an issue. How am I to fulfill His plan if I don’t seek His counsel when it comes to life’s important choices? It’s time to stop having my heart set on something I think I want to do and instead ask God to place on my heart what it is He has planned. His will is far greater than my visions. Besides, life will be much easier without all of these detours I’ve been taking.

Psalm 91

¹ Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High 
   will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. 
² I will say of the LORD, “He is my refuge and my fortress, 
   my God, in whom I trust.”

 ³ Surely he will save you
   from the fowler’s snare
   and from the deadly pestilence.
⁴ He will cover you with his feathers,
   and under his wings you will find refuge;
   his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.
⁵ You will not fear the terror of night,
   nor the arrow that flies by day,
⁶ nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness,
   nor the plague that destroys at midday.
⁷ A thousand may fall at your side,
   ten thousand at your right hand,
   but it will not come near you.
⁸ You will only observe with your eyes
   and see the punishment of the wicked.

 ⁹ If you say, “The LORD is my refuge,”
   and you make the Most High your dwelling,
¹⁰ no harm will overtake you,
   no disaster will come near your tent.
¹¹ For he will command his angels concerning you
   to guard you in all your ways;
¹² they will lift you up in their hands,
   so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.
¹³ You will tread on the lion and the cobra;
   you will trample the great lion and the serpent.

 ¹⁴ “Because he loves me,” says the LORD, “I will rescue him;
   I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.
¹⁵ He will call on me, and I will answer him;
   I will be with him in trouble,
   I will deliver him and honor him.
¹⁶ With long life I will satisfy him 

   and show him my salvation.”

I spent over an hour struggling through this long rambling confusion of what I intended to be my next post, went to put it up, and decided I wanted to share something different today; the reason this blog exists. I am continuing to be overwhelmed by how God works in our lives. How he connects us and weaves our lives together is so beautiful. This is one of the major examples of that in my life.

My fifth grade year was my first difficult year in school. I did not enjoy the teacher I had. After being blessed with two nurturing, understanding, gentle spirited teachers before her, it was hard for me to accept her strict rules and seemingly less caring personality. She was going through a divorce with her husband of over twenty years and she shared a lot of stories that I did not feel were appropriate for a fifth grade class. Within these days in her class, we began memorizing different passages of scripture. The passage we focused on learning was Psalm 91. Each day in class we would read it as a whole and continue to add a verse onto what we had previously memorized. Eventually, we could recite the whole chapter. I didn’t pay as much attention to the message as I did to the fact that I had memorized a whole chapter in the Bible.

Later on towards the end of the year I became very sick with mononucleosis and had to miss a lot of school. My health got progressively worse as I had my first seizure later that summer. This was a period of time I had to deal with a lot of needles. Like most, as a little girl I always hated going to the doctor, and having to get any sort of shot was like a death sentence. It always took my mom, the doctor, and two nurses to hold me down and get me to cooperate. Afterwards I would pout and be angry with my mom that she “allowed them to torture me”. When I arrived at the hospital after I had my seizure, they proceeded to give me an IV. That was when Psalm 91 became real to me. I held my mom’s hand as I said the words aloud. Even now it brings tears to my eyes thinking about the power of the words in those verses. They have continued to comfort me time after time in everything I have walked through, but especially concerning my health struggles.

As much as that fifth grade year seemed to be torture at the time, I look back now and see how God used a woman, broken hearted by her personal trials, to bring me to a new level of faith I could never imagine. She was a true blessing in disguise and I will always be grateful to God for placing her in my life. It’s so easy to question our circumstances when they aren’t what we wish they would be, but we must remember that everything happens for a reason. God placed us here on earth for each other. We ultimately are to depend on God, but it’s the strengths and weaknesses of others that encourage us to reach out and help one another as we trust in God’s sovereignty. 

Ladybug Life

     When I was little, I had a fierce love for ladybugs. I spent many days catching them and playing with them. I counted the spots and observed the different shades of red each small body had. My love for ladybugs turned into an obsession. I had many items of ladybug themed clothing and for a particular birthday, my mom made a ladybug cake.

     One year, my sister got the idea to give me ladybugs as a gift for my birthday. She bought a mesh bag filled with hundreds of them and did her best to make sure I didn’t find out. One night as I was just getting in bed, I heard my sister yelling, “MOM!” out into the hallway. I jumped out of bed curious as to what was happening once I heard much commotion taking place. Of course, I was told to go back to bed. Come to find out, my sister wanted to transfer the mesh bag of ladybugs into a large mason jar. As she sat the jar on the bathroom counter and opened the bag for the ladybugs to enter the glass habitat, you can imagine what happened next. I’m still not sure how she and my mom managed to get rid of that large amount of ladybugs, but I’m sure the fact that the wallpaper had a nature theme with ladybugs printed throughout, didn’t help the process. Needless to say, this is a story within our family that never gets old.

     A year ago today, not only was I faced with the unexpected trauma of another seizure, but I also received news of the loss of a special person in my life. Edward Jones, a dear friend to my mom who she considered a younger brother, was like an uncle to me. I had only known him for a few years but he played a major role in my life. He had a great side hobby of mixing music and being the DJ of different major events, so when it came time for my sweet sixteen and my eighteenth birthday party, who better to ask to do the music? My voice teacher happened to live just around the corner from him so each week after my lesson, sometimes I would go to his house with my mom and share a new song I had written or just catch up on life and laugh about its absurdities. I can remember many times being in the car with my mom having a stressful situation happen and a call from Edward would be just the thing to brighten her spirits.

     It was the most surreal feeling just waking up from a heavy sleep in my parents’ hotel room, my body overwhelmed with exhaustion, and my mom taking a phone call from a friend. After we had just been hit with the unexpected hours before, we had no way of knowing that there was even more unexpected change waiting so close by. I’ll never forgot the confused look of disbelief on her face as she looked at me with tears in her eyes and whispered, “Edward’s dead.”.

     The next few days were such a blur. Everything from the long car ride back home, to the doctor visit the following day, to the visitation with friends, the only words I can think of to describe it all were shockingly surreal. Then, I was approached with the idea of singing at Edward’s funeral. It terrified me. Singing for others didn’t scare me and I had sung at a funeral before, but this was different to me. I didn’t see how I could possibly get through it after picturing the times that I sang with him sitting in my line of vision and this time he wouldn’t be. But I am so glad that I chose to do it. The day before the funeral, my parents and I shared memories with many close friends of Edward’s. I spoke with his partner and he told me how much he appreciated me singing at the funeral and wanted me to have something special to hold while I was singing; a small glass bead with a ladybug in the center. It took my breath away. He had no way of knowing how meaningful that was to me. As I sang the following morning holding the small piece of glass, God brought upon me a sense of peace and comfort.

     The days preceding the funeral were difficult and I still have a hard time accepting the loss of someone who I thought had so much more life to live. Then I think about the ladybug. The average life span of a ladybug is two to three years; so impossibly short compared to the average life of a human. So why do ladybugs even exist if their lives are so short? What purpose do they have? Their purpose is their appetite. They live off of plant eating insects, which in turn allow farmers to grow their different crops without interference. Even though we see ourselves as having long lives and someday dying of old age, leaving this earth satisfied because we crossed everything off of our bucket lists, we forget that life is fleeting and to live another day is a blessing from the hand of God. We should strive to have the appetite of a ladybug for our lives; hungry to be enriched and grateful to be fed with the beauty of life. I know that Edward was a ladybug and I like to think that I am too.

Dedicated to Edward Kindall Jones 6/3/1970-7/1/2010