Cathy’s Corner

 

I’m sitting here watching the rain pour down outside. It started raining last night and rained all night long, and has continued this morning. I took the day off yesterday to spend with my daughter who is here from Virginia. It never fails when I am out it seems we have tornado warnings and last night was no exception. While I was wishing I was up here when all this was going on, I called Judy and talked to her. She had the kids along with a few parents all taken care of in our childcare and tucked safely away downstairs. She was listening to our weather radio. She mentioned how informative it was and how confident she felt in the information she was receiving from it. I was completely confident in her ability to assess the situation by listening to the radio and her own judgment to take the utmost care of our kids and employees. Today we have leaks all over the building; and we had a delivery that needed to be unloaded from WOW but we couldn’t because we had no dry place to unload it and the contents would ruin if it got wet. They had to reschedule for tomorrow. We have classrooms that have huge leaks and the carpet is getting wet. There are trashcans out all over the building. It’s literally been raining for the last eighteen hours. When you have that much water in that short of a time without time to dry out; it has to go somewhere. So we will be wet vacuuming for the next two days and huge fans will be placed so the carpet will dry.  Hopefully today as you read this you will be in a nice clean, dry classroom in which to teach the children.

 

It’s somewhat like life. The storms in our life come on us and sometimes it literally just pours. Nothing seems to go right, one thing happens after another and it seems like it is never going to let up. In the midst of the storm we have two choices; one we can panic and show our fear or our other choice is what Judy did. She listened to the best possible information and made the best choice for the people she was responsible for. We have that option in our lives. We have God’s Word and prayer to get the best possible information. We can trust God will give us discernment and good judgment as we assess the situation. We can have the utmost confidence as we have faith in every situation that God is watching over us. It may seem like we need to explode and let off some steam or have a good cry. After all when it all builds up it’s got to come out somewhere. Then we have to deal with the results of those storms. There may be leaks that have to be stopped and cleaned up after like health issues, relationships that need to be mended; wrongs to be made right, apologies to make all from the result of a storm. Some things in our life may have to be rescheduled. We may be cleaning up for a few days.

 

As I have been typing this the sun is now coming out and the rain has subsided. Just like the rain eventually will stop, the storms in our life can’t last forever. While the storms left behind downed trees and some without electricity; the sun does come out and it will dry up the rain and leave behind green grass and beautiful flowers and sometimes even a rainbow. The results of the storms in our lives can leave some scars physically, mentally and emotionally; but if we’ve trusted in God and had faith in His ability to watch over us, in time it can leave us stronger physically, mentally, and emotionally.  Genesis 9:13 “I set My rainbow in the cloud. And it shall be for the sign of the covenant between Me and the earth.” A covenant that requires trust and faith in Him.

Have a great day in the Lord

 

Cathy’s Corner

 

Oswald Chambers - “The Secret of the Lord”

What is the sign of a friend? Is it that he tells you his secret sorrows? No, it is that he tells you his secret joys. Many people will confide their secret sorrows to you, but the final mark of intimacy is when they share their secret joys with you. Have we ever let God tell us any of His joys? Or are we continually telling God our secrets, leaving Him no time to talk to us?  At the beginning of our Christian life we are full of requests to God. But then we find that God wants to get us into an intimate relationship with Himself – to get us in touch with His purposes. Are we so intimately united to Jesus Christ’s idea of prayer –“Your will be done” – that we catch the secrets of God? What makes God so dear to us is not so much His big blessings to us, but the tiny things, because they show His amazing intimacy with us – He knows every detail of each of our individual lives.

“Him shall He teach in the way He chooses” (Psalm 25:12). At first, we want the awareness of being guided by God. But then as we grow spiritually, we live so fully aware of God that we do not even need to ask what His will is, because the thought of choosing another way will never occur to us. If we are saved and sanctified, God guides us by our everyday choices. And if we are about to choose what He does not want, He will give us a sense of doubt or restraint, which we must heed. Whenever there is doubt, stop at once. Never try to reason it out, saying, “I wonder why I shouldn’t do this?” God instructs us in what we choose, that is, He actually guides our common sense. And when we yield to His teachings and guidance, we no longer hinder His Spirit by continually asking, “Now, Lord, what is Your will?”

I underlined that last part because that is one of the things I have the most trouble with. I’m fully aware of God’s presence around me, within me and guiding me. But when it comes to the sense of doubt or restraint then I often miss it. I know I shouldn’t but most of the time I don’t even realize it until it’s too late and then I look back and think, ”Yep that was God trying to tell me whoa.” Like Tuesday morning, I was getting ready to ride my bike to church. Gary came and told me that there were thunderstorms rolling in and would be here in twenty minutes, wouldn’t last long and then it’d be over. So I kept getting ready, did my quiet time and got ready to walk out the door.  I hesitated and the thought crossed my mind to go turn the television on and look at the radar, but nah, I knew it had been fifty minutes since Gary had left and so the rain was long gone. I walked out the door and it was sprinkling, I hesitated but nah, I thought it was the end of the rain. Got on my bike and started down the street. Made it about three blocks and it started sprinkling a little harder, and the farther away from the house I got the harder it began raining. Soon it was dripping off my helmet, mascara was running into my eyes, and I was getting soaked. I was about halfway and I could hear it thunder and saw lightening in the distance. “Well this was a stupid idea!!” I yelled out to no one, because everyone else had the sense to come out of the rain and be inside a house or a car, nice and dry. When I got here, there was not one dry spot on my clothes or body. My shoes were filled with water, not just squishy wet but water in them. I got ready and went and put my clothes in the dryer. As I walked out of the preschool I ran into someone who used to teach in preschool. I said. “Hey how are you, I haven’t seen you in forever.” She said. “Oh Cathy, I didn’t recognize you without makeup.” That’s like adding insult to injury because I had makeup on when I left the house. Then on Wednesday night I found out someone else was on the phone with their wife when I rode up and he told her how wet I was. She was telling him to stop laughing or at least not to let me see him laughing.  So when doubts enter my mind or I seem to hesitate and think maybe I should do something or not do something, I’m going to try to stop. Then I’m going to ask myself is that God trying to guide my common sense and if so then Lord help me listen!  

 

Have a great day in the Lord. 

 

Cathy’s Corner

In December of 2006  Gary, Caitlin and I had been living in a two bedroom apartment for the past six months waiting for our house in Lubbock to sell. Our daughter, Kiersten was moving up here with us and we decided to move into a rent house with three bedrooms. Mind you this was during a time that our house in Lubbock hadn’t sold for the past ten months, my Mother was terminally ill, our son J, was in Iraq for the second tour and Gary did not have a teaching job and was working nights driving a forklift, so to say our lives were a tad bit chaotic and stressful is an understatement.  

At one point I finally got most of the boxes unpacked and I had to tackle the garage where the washer and dryer were located. I was tired from moving, stressed out from worrying about my mother, Christmas a few weeks away and a son who not only wouldn’t be home for it, but was in danger on a daily basis. I finally had the garage looking really good. There were two wire shelves up above the washer and dryer which were 10 feet long. I had gone through everything and had it in its place. I had things on the shelves, some of Gary’s stuff on one end and the laundry stuff at the other. I was washing, drying and hanging up clothes. I walked into the house and as I closed the door I heard a crash and knew immediately what had happened. I turned around and went back out and sure enough the bottom shelf had broken and everything that I had spent the last few hours organizing and putting in place was on the floor. Now I’m not talking just the shelf broke. I’m talking the bolts came out of the wall and left big holes in the wall. Gary said the wall even pulled away and remember this was a rent house. The weight was more than the shelf could hold. Gary did have a small cabinet with all his nuts and bolts and nails and stuff in it and miraculously it was still hanging on the shelf by inches. It was bad enough having to clean up the mess but the thought of having spent the last few hours organizing everything and then was going to have to do it again was more than my tired stressed out body and mind could handle and of course Gary would have to repair the wall and the damage I’d done.

Isn’t that the way it goes? We think we get our lives all neat and tidy and things just the way we think they should be. It’s all organized and together or we have taken just about all we can take. Then just one little thing (like hanging the laundry up on the end of the shelf) causes it all to come falling down around us. Sometimes just one more thing can send us over the edge. There is a scripture in Proverbs. “Men plan and God laughs.” I was reminded once again God is in control and He knows the plans He has for us, plans for a hope and a future, and plans not to harm us but to prosper us. Even in all of the chaos going on around us He is still in the smallest details of our lives. Can you imagine trying to sort through all of those nuts and bolts and organize them? It was still up there leaning toward falling, but nothing spilled. In all of the mess there was still something that was intact. God still had His arms around me and was holding me safe and secure and He was doing that for our family as well. Things may have felt like they were falling down around us but He still had each of us in his arms. He had my mother wrapped lovingly in His arms. He held our son safe and secure in His arms. He held Gary and our girls safe and secure in his arms. There was never a time I felt like God was not there. I may have not understood how He was working but I knew He had a plan and He loved me. So this week if you feel like things are falling down around you; remember the nuts and bolts are still in tact on the shelf, God is in control and holds you safely in His arms.

Have a great day in the Lord