Recently I've been crunching numbers with a friend - looking at financial stuff that involves "future cost of care" and other such freaky topics. This is unto helping me make wise decisions that will affect the years that are stretching out before me and my wheelchair.
It's not pretty or fun, really, but it needs to be looked at and dealt with.
I've been waffling between "trusting God to look after me" and looking to others for help because "in a multitude of counsellors there is much wisdom"... God's word sometimes feels like it contradicts itself and if I don't look at the whole picture, I can feel very shaky and uncertain.
But, there is the "whole counsel" that takes into account His character and His whole Word and the freedom that He has given us to pray and trust that He is leading us as we begin to move in a direction that feels right. Even though it may have felt wrong at first. And even if I screw up, He will still cause "all things to work together for good" because I love Him...
"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your understanding,
In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight..."
I'm trying to do that and am so grateful for the kind and wise voices He has surrounded me with, here on earth, in the flesh.
I pray, I seek Him, I read the Word and I seek the counsel of many. It has been enlightening and hard and frustrating and very helpful... Tonight my friend called after having looked at some of my "information" and she has come up with a brilliant strategy. Seriously so very, very helpful to me. At no cost. There's still more homework for me to do, pieces of the puzzle that need to be gathered and then consolidated into a written document that I am praying will lead to success.
I am going to finish this journey.
He is enabling me. Even when it gets to hard and I have to lay down (wait) and forget for awhile (rest), unable to muster the courage to push to the next milestone, it's ok.
Because suddenly, there it is again.
The ability to rise up and move ahead.
To take the next step and make the next phone-call and send of the next e-mail.
Trusting all the while.
Remembering the words I've been given from Proverbs 6 and Deuteronomy 9 and Psalm 27
He goes before me.
He counsels me.
He helps me.
And then, in the midst of my figuring and planning and wondering how it's all going to work out I am given two of the biggest gifts I've ever been given by my children.
On two separate occasions in the past week, on the days surrounding my birthday, my kids each told me, completely separate from each other that they'd like to be a part of my future. Caring for me in some capacity.
It was a most beautiful moment in each of the events.
A Ruth and Naomi kind of thing.
First my daughter shared her heart and her desire to be a help to me, not to leave me alone with my future. Unbelievable. I will continue to release her to God's purposes and plans and she may not even end up living in the same city as me in the future, but her heart of love and her commitment to me absolutely dumbfounded me. There are no words...
And then, a few days later, my daughter-in-law no less, basically told me the same thing. How she and my son have talked, and they would love to own a property where I could live with them in a carriage home and they would make things accessible and be available to help when I need it.
I cried.
Even as I write this I am crying again. What have I done to deserve these kids?
How kind is my God to me?
Oh so Good. All the Time.
And the refrain continues:
"Wait on the Lord
Be strong and courageous
Yes, wait on the Lord."
I don't want to rush any of this, even though I feel this is the season to get to the finish line, to obtain my inheritance and to close this chapter that has been on the last paragraph for about eight years now...
But I will wait and move when He puts the wind in my sails.
In the fullness of time.
