July 11, 2009

Greetings My Friend,

One of the things I like about my new life is that I am able to laugh at myself, to not give into drama all the time. As I read the Bible, I find myself desiring wisdom. At one point I thought a college education would give me wisdom. As I get older, I find that wisdom goes deep. I find if I open my heart to Jesus, read my Bible and pray then I begin to have another deeper type of wisdom.

Proverbs 3:6 says, “in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.” Another set of verses I like is Proverbs 3: 11-13, “My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline and do not resent his rebuke, because the Lord disciplines those he loves, as a father the son he delights in.”

As I thought about wisdom, I remembered some moments in Junior and my life. After Junior retired and after I had cancer, we did not travel for a couple of years. We were in a healing process and travel was too difficult. Our niece was getting married one March, so we decided to travel to Virginia for her wedding. I e-mailed my sister to get directions to her place. She sent great instructions! Junior was retired and I was back to work. We left after I got off of work. Junior picked me up at work. Our first goal was to stop in Lexington Kentucky. It was half-way, we’d be ready to sleep etc. We got to Lexington. I went to the back of the van to make up the bed. I asked Junior where the blanket was. He thought he’d packed it. He vaguely remembered leaving it on the kitchen floor and the door might be open. We couldn’t believe that he left the door open. We grabbed a blanket off of the dresser we were taking down to give to my sister.

We went to sleep, woke up and started down the road again. It took us a couple of hours to realize that we went down the right freeway but in the wrong direction. No problem, we got ourselves back on track and headed for Virginia once more. The directions on mapquest had us going through a lot of very small towns, winding roads and it was taking us forever to get to my Sister’s place. At one point we realized that we needed to follow my sister’s instructions and we weren’t. Ugh!!!!!

We finally made it to Virginia, to my sister’s place. We were tired and frustrated. We rested. We went to the wedding. It was nice and we enjoyed ourselves a whole lot. We got up, went to church and then headed for home. We found South 23, we were very focused on South 23. We checked often to make sure we were on South 23. When we hit the Tennessee line, we realized that we needed 23 North, not SOUTH! Here we go again! We laughed at ourselves over and over that whole weekend. We refused to let ourselves be angry, even though we made so many stupid mistakes. We made it home to Michigan to realize that…. We did leave the back door open! Again we chose to laugh. Getting mad wasn’t going to fix the wrongs we had done.

A few weeks ago we met my sister in Abingdon for a church conference. It is about an hour – hour and a half from our home. We found the college where the conference was held with no real problems. We enjoyed the conference and left early because we had a long drive home and we were going to get up early to help my sister move the next day. We found route 80 and headed down the winding now dark road. We talked about the conference. We laughed. We said, “look, I remember that when we came.” We were enjoying ourselves a whole lot. Our drive home was starting to seem like it took FOREVER!!!! We found a town when we ran out of road. We stopped in to ask directions and we had gone 2 hours in the WRONG direction! We had the right road but the WRONG DIRECTION!

Out in the mountains it is very dark because there are very few lights. Several times Junior turned on his bright lights. When a car in the opposite direction was coming Junior turned off his bright lights. By mistake he turned off all his lights. He traveled for a few seconds with no lights on. It was very scary!

It’s kind of like walking with the Lord. When I don’t allow myself to listen, I can end up going off in the wrong direction. The older I get, I am finding that I don’t want to wander off in the wrong direction too often. Getting back to square one gets harder and harder to do and I try hard to hear right the first time.

Another thought I have been pondering is communication. Many times I hear people sight that communication is a problem in their relationships. We realize that on some level that it is important to talk, to share what is on our hearts and to listen to our partner’s thoughts. I find the same is true with a relationship with the Lord. It is hard to know what God has in mind if we never speak to Him. It is hard to know who God, Jesus or the Holy Spirit is if we never read the Bible or pray.

Many of us try to make God to be who we want Him to be. I did this for many years myself. As I have read my Bible though, I have begun to see God in a different light. He really does give us a clue to what He is like when we read the Bible. The more I understand who God is; then, it is easier for me to pray, to grow, to love and to serve. The more I grow in Jesus, the more I am able to face life, even the rough spots along the way. Will we get lost again? More than likely! At that point, I pray though that I bring my life back to the Lord and get squared away quickly!

May God bless you and keep you make His face to shine upon you.

Love

Janet