CULTIVATING JOY: THE NOSEY NEIGHBOR~Looking back

Friday, August 6, 2021

THE NOSEY NEIGHBOR~Looking back

April 19, 2020

THE FABRIC OF MY EXPERIENCES

Did some porch watching this evening.  Early evening is when many neighbors take a stroll.

" But the plans of the Lord stand firm forever,

    the purposes of his heart through all generations."~Ps.33:11

"God sovereignly decrees and designs circumstances so that we end up where he wants us to be even if we don’t have any conscious part in getting there. For example, Paul and Silas found themselves in jail, and the result was the salvation of the jailer and his household (Acts 16:24-34). This was God’s plan, but not Paul’s. God does this often—putting us in places that we did not plan or decide to be." ~John Piper

 “no purposes of [God’s] can be thwarted,” Job 42:2.

And that is what makes tracing ones genealogy so exciting.  The fabric of my mortal experiences are God's sovereign orchestration of my spiritual life and my spiritual ancestors.

 My spiritual life has functioned by suggestions in the patterns of those dimensions.  It has left me with a clearer vision and sense of purpose.  God always knows what he is doing.

  Some of those Russian/German Mennonite emigrants who arrived in the late 1874s by ship were placed in my story.

  They in turn were influenced by the spiritual revivals of their day on the heels of great preachers such as Spurgeon, Moody, G.Campbell Morgan, and other great men of influence in their lives.

Looking back over the generations, I've seen just how God's story has woven my history and those before me to get me to where I am now.

 My story is intertwined with my past to make God's story, part of my story.  I am living in the shadow of some great spiritual leaders of my time making up the fabric of my spiritual journey. 

 They were influenced by their spiritual journeys.  Just as all human DNA is unique to each person, so is each personal spiritual profile.

"Many are the plans in the mind of a man,

    but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand."~Prov.19:21

 "Even from eternity I am He, And there is none who can deliver out of My hand; I act and who can reverse it?"~Isa.43:13

" But the plans of the Lord stand firm forever,

    the purposes of his heart through all generations."~Ps.33:11

  "For the Lord Almighty has purposed, and who can thwart him?

    His hand is stretched out, and who can turn it back?"~Isa.14:27

Believe it or not, 50+ years after the fact, I still find myself “catching up” and being out of sync with my peers.  Over time I have found out what I “missed” during those years.  The thing I found strange was how obsessive my peers were about movies, music, dress and looks.  My first visit to a  movie theater was shortly after moving to liberal California, my first date with my husband to watch The Sound Of Music.  I was raised in a strict culture that "you didn't smoke", "you didn't drink", and "you didn't fraternize with those who do."  

 I have always lived with an inner sense of being different and painful sense of not belonging because those things were not important to me.

Perhaps grief was one of the lasting legacies of being sent to boarding school.  Crying was viewed as a weakness.  Adaptability and adventuresome spirit have been my strengths, out of necessity.   Losses went unacknowledged.

The layers of loss run deep:  Friends, a failed relationship, community, pets.  Family (son), toys, language.  Weather, food, culture.  Loss of identity.  Loss of a place of comfort, stability, a safe and predictable world.  Home.

Perhaps those loses have conditioned me to survive and thrive during present losses. Life is marching on so rapidly, we do not have time to mourn them.  My life has been that of a  sojourner, a foreigner in this life. 

I was born for another world.  My identity encompasses all the abundance of being a beloved child of God.  My identity is a gift from God.  It is belonging to Him and a future guarantee.  

Colossians 1:11-13 "being strengthened with all power according to His glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light..."