Showing posts with label waiting on Him. Show all posts
Showing posts with label waiting on Him. Show all posts

Still Seeking

Over the weekend, I heard a phrase in a song, "You are perfect in all of Your ways." I knew it was a scripture but couldn't remember where it was located.  This morning I looked it up and it is in Deuteronomy 32 at the beginning of the Song of Moses.

I read the whole chapter a time or two and went back to meditate on the phrase for a bit. I closed my eyes and thought about how perfect God is and how right and just every decision He makes is. When I opened my eyes, they fell on a scripture on the opposite page - I had marked it sometime ago. It is in chapter 30, verse 4.

Though you are at the ends of the earth, the Lord your God will go and find you and bring you back again. 

I thought about that for awhile and read it in context. Moses is encouraging the Children of Israel to return to the Lord. He is calling them to come back to Him with their whole heart and seek Him fully. But this verse to me is God reaching for them. He continues to seek a relationship with His people no matter what their situation is. Just because we became caregivers doesn't mean He has abandoned His pursuit of relationship. Actually, He is still seeking.

Exodus 34:14 in the New Living Translation reminds us that God is a God who is passionate about His relationship with us. He is always seeking for our heart because He actually wants to be with us. He longs for us to have two-way conversation, not just us asking for things in what we call prayer. He longs to have an intimate connection with us.

I'll be the first to admit I've had trouble in this arena particularly since my son's accident. I felt like God had abandoned me. Even though I needed His touch even more, it became difficult for me to seek Him. But He was still seeking me. He is relentless in His pursuit of our hearts. He doesn't stop desiring to be with us when life gets difficult or ugly. He doesn't walk away wringing His hands like many of our friends have done. When they are not really sure what to do with us or our situation, He is still waiting on us to come to Him. To be accepted. To be cared for. To be loved. Being with us - is His very heartbeat. And so He waits.....and seeks....

These scriptures were recorded by Moses who was leading the Children of Israel through the wilderness. They were argumentative, faithless, complaining and just plain ugly sometimes. Yet God continues to communicate His love for them and His desire to be with them. He feels the same way about us - whether life is beautiful or not, whether we have it all together or not, whether we feel faithful or faithless, whether we are waiting on Him or not - He is waiting on us, longing for us to come to Him.

Today I am going to turn my thoughts to how much He wants to be with me - no matter what life looks like. I will stop all the crazy thoughts in my head today and focus on being with Him. I'll pour out my heart before Him and wait for Him to pour His heart into mine. My meditations will be on his love and pursuit of me. I'll think about how He waits for me to come to Him. And I will wait on Him today. Will you join me?

The Huge Sigh!

This morning as I was trying to focus during my devotions and prayer, my head was going 900 miles per hour. That's not much of an exaggeration, either. I was running through my mental list of all I have to get done as well as the roadblocks I know of, like not getting all of my son's supplies this month and tying to figure out when and how to go make those purchases.

As caregivers, we already have so much on our plate on any given day and these seemingly "little" problems can be huge. So my mind is going over finances and our schedule to see how to fit these additional items in, plus having to figure out how to work with less time available for the afternoon.. My mind was racing through all these tasks and chores when I heard myself heave a huge sigh. I felt so overwhelmed.

Of course I'm overwhelmed, I'm a caregiver, lol! It's not imagined - there really is a lot going on and there are no easy tasks. Lately I've found I go to bed tired - and wake up tired. I was thinking about all this and all the things I need to get done today when this very familiar scripture was triggered by my thoughts. I know you know it too:

Give all your worries and cares to God,
For He cares about what happens to you.
(1Peter 5:7 NLT)

I know I know this scripture - but this simple reminder helped me catch up to myself this morning. Not one thing got taken off my list of things to do. And as a matter of fact, I headed out the back door to my little backyard and worked in my wanna-be garden for a while. In the process, I emptied myself out before the Lord and I gave Him the whole shebang. I poured out my heart and let Him fill it back up. This waiting on Him is really hard work. But I'm finding when we purposefully wait on Him - He takes up that slack and fills up our empty spots with more of Him. And with that - I will face this day.

Today while I am scurrying about to finish tasks, I will take time to breathe Him in. My thoughts and deep meditations will be on how He strengthens me and offers wisdom to those who ask. Today I'll be asking Him for wisdom and waiting for His strength - will you join me?

Do We Have What it Takes?

The question do we have what it takes can seem kind of shallow and unnecessary to ask caregivers, right? We've already figured out how to roll up our sleeves, dig in and get it done. We have developed our own skill set some of which were part of our makeup before becoming caregivers; but we have also honed many skills as we have gone along.

We learned to advocate, picked up on the right keywords to get things done, learned medical vernacular, figured out how to get the "right numbers" when we really need something done and opened our homes to total strangers to accept help. (nurses, doctors, aides, etc)

While we are still the same person we were before caregiving - we have also evolved. We learned how to get up in someone's face. I recall when my son was still in the hospital and I discovered his catheter had had absolutely zero output all day - he was in horrible shape. They couldn't send anyone in because the nurse was at lunch. Madea's words ran through my mind  you only have to go crazy up in here one time.

Now I am a very composed and gathered person for the most part as I was in ministry for many years and you learn how to keep your composure at all costs. But I purposefully chose to go out in the hall and lose it. And I did it up good! Since I had been there for over 3 months and never made a scene nurses came from everywhere to see what was up with mama. They took care of my son's needs right then. I share that to say - as caregivers - we learn to do what we need to to get the right things done.

We know what we have to do and we are willing to do whatever is needed to ensure our loved one is well taken care of. But do we have what it takes to wait? I have to say many times I do not. This morning during my daily devotions I came across (okay so my Bible fell open to) Psalm119:114 and it leaped out at me. It says this

You are my hiding place and my shield
I wait for Your Word...

When my mind is swirling with all that I have to get done today and everyday, can I slow down and just wait for Him? Sometimes I need to just chill out and wait for His grace, wait for His hope, wait for His strength to flood my being. It's so easy for us as caregivers to get pulled out and taut to where we have zero relief. When I find myself in this position it just makes it that much harder to wait for Him and to hear Him when He speaks.

Today I will take many deep breaths as I refocus on waiting for Him. I will turn off all the noise in my head and purposefully rest in Him. My thoughts will be on His peace, His love, His abundance, His grace and His mercy as I shift my focus from myself and back to Him one more time. Today...I wait. Will you join me?  

The Stare

  Do you ever just find yourself sitting and staring at the wall? It doesn't really happen too often because, quite frankly, who has tim...