Saturday | If I Could Really Get It

If you could fully, completely grasp an aspect of God, what would you choose?

My answer came to me last night as I was curled up in the rocking chair by the fire, drying my socks after wearing a pair of mudboots outside to get a few logs to stoke the fire. I thought mud boots were supposed to be waterproof? I was doing some thinking and praying…and maybe some worrying, too. A friend’s marriage. A friend who needs a job. My car inability to stay fixed. Financial stresses. Tough decisions. What if’s.

And it came to me that if I could grasp, really, really grasp something in my walk with God, I’d choose to understand how tight God’s hand really is over every situation.

Because there’s nothing under my control and I like being in control and so many of my stresses in life are over things over which only God has control. And wow, what would life be like if I was able to see every situation, every circumstance, ever tough moment…as inescapably vice-gripped in God’s hand? Insomuch that I never questioned whether God would pull through or how things would end up working out – it was just a rock-hard given in my mind that God had it under control. Every. Single. Time. Because right now…life seems a little bit wibbly-wobbly (timey-wimey, anyone?), unsure, unstable…sometimes even hopeless. I see the needs I have, the needs my family and friends have…and I don’t see God as clearly as I see those needs.

But I know that somehow in the mix of it that God is in control, that nothing is in flux, nothing in life is a free-fall…it is under the super-control of God’s direction.

But I rarely feel like I really understand that. But I wish I did. Because if I did….wow.

Tuesday | Confessions From a Shop Girl

"There are shop boys, and there are boys who just happen to work in a shop for the time being."



I never once imagined that working at Target, specifically in the grocery section, would at times prove painful in the singleness department. Young moms come in with their kids, picking up the evening’s dinner, the laundry soap or a knickknack to make a house that much more their home. Young families come in together, the mom and dad chatting together and laughing with their little kids in the basket or in their arms. Sometimes young dads come in, a baby in their arms as they grab a quick item off the shelf, chatting away with a baby that can’t even talk back. And daily I see couples shopping together, holding hands and obviously in love.

All those people coming out of their cozy homes to buy what they need…and I’m just the girl stocking the shelves for them. The shop girl.

It’s been awhile since I really found myself missing that something in my life. For months, marriage has held no appeal and the independence-filled skies were the limit and should I have one day found myself married, I doubted whether or not I’d even want to have children at all. It’s been a great place to be – just me and my own future ahead.

All undermined by people who have no idea the stabs of pain hidden behind friendly eyes and a cheerful “can I help you find anything?” of the girl in the red and khaki.

So yeah, lately there’s been some heavy heart and empty smiles. I love being single (I really do, sometimes too much, actually) but I do have a purpose built inside the code of my DNA, put there by God when He created woman to be a wife on that very first day of human’s existence and honestly, that’s not going to change.

And once again, that’s okay and it’s normal. Read more on that here. But sometimes when being single lasts longer than we imagined…it’s hard and it’s lonely. So, anyways…just sayin’.

Single girls? Let’s bring it in:

 

Monday | Autumn

Fall is here and I feel like it's been flying by my car windows to and from work way too fast. To try and remedy that, today after work, despite sore feet and tired eyes, I grabbed the camera and took a mini-walk out in the back of our property. It was so pretty. I found a comfy hay bale out behind the barn, in the midst of the remnants of the barn dance a few weeks ago...and just soaked it in. Soaked in the left-over shadows of a festive evening and the autumn wonder in full flourish around me.

Fall is just so magical!