Serenity

 ARE YOU KIDDING ME!

Let me just say...God has a sense of humor! Today the car would not start for me after MOPS, thankfully my friend Amy was there and took us home!! My husband, loving and patient,left work to come check the car out and find that I needed to fill the tank. This is not the first time, I just forget and I really thought it was an added headache to our fix-it list.  Thankfully it just needed gas. This summer has been crazy with things breaking on us.  Our list keeps getting bigger and bigger.  It all started this summer when we had the heating company come and fix our broken central air system.  We already knew it would need replaced when we moved in, we just didn't realize how soon it would be.  Basically when we first moved into our home it was not working and we frozen that winter! Each year the Plumbing and Heating company we use has graciously patched it up, but this year was different.  The words I was dreading to hear, came this year. "Mrs. Cheek I can patch it up for now but this may not last you through the year." UUUHH!!! We now have to replace the whole system, which is 13 years old, so was expected but not at a time everything else would need replaced.  Our back door, the actual door, seems to be rotting and will need replaced. Our front hall light was to go next.  It was coming right out of the ceiling, hanging by wires!!   Needless to say we are not using that until it gets fixed. Then my husbands truck was making a noise so he had to get that checked.  We had just added new tires and breaks. When he took the truck in, we found there would be other added things that would need replaced before the truck would be safe to drive.  Needless to say, we were thankful we were not in it when anything decided to snap, and God has watched over us and provided.  But the other part of me is thinking, "Lord, Are you kidding me!!!", "Are you setting us up to win the lottery or a huge chunk of inheritance we don't know about?"  Not to mention the small crease in our dining room ceiling that has grown to a crack with a lovely 15 inch wet spot.  Something is leaking from our bathroom and into our dining area! The garbage disposal went a few weeks ago, not replaceable, but broken! I have a kidney stone that won't go away but comes at the most inconvenient times!  Serenity is not easy! No one says it was, but I am just stating it again for big effect! SERENITY IS NOT EASY! Giving your worries, your problems big and small, your every day to God to control, is not simple.  It is hard for me to give my husband, the man I love and trust with our kids the most, control of our kids.  I call a dozen times a day to make sure no one has broken a bone or rushed to the hospital.  How am I going to give all this up to someone I can not see??

God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Psalm 46

So let me take you back a few years, I was working full time and our kids were being watched by our mothers.  But...What John and I wanted was for me to stay home.  I did not see how we were going to do that, we needed a bed for Johnny and other things, like health insurance.  And what we were making together for our family was perfect.  Then one day, I just up and decided I had to quit my job, God will handle this, I thought. It's like that trust test you did at camp, where everyone has locked arms and you are up on a chair, trusting that when you fall backwards these strangers are going to catch you...so you think. And once you have overcome the initial thought that you could be paralyzed for LIFE from this, you do it and they safely catch you, thank the Lord! Due to other things arising I felt almost forced to quit.  So with no time to plan, no big boy bed for johnny, and no health insurance, I quit.  For maybe a day we were living off John's salary alone.  The next day John went into work and got called into his bosses office to hear he was getting a raise! "Where was this coming from?!", we were wow'd by God's timing!! Then a few day later my aunt called me and said she was getting rid of her son's bed, did we want it? YES!!! I said.  Friends were moving and gave us other furniture we needed! There were other things too, that was saying, " I AM your ever present help!" I care for you in your troubles!" As our pastor said one Sunday, and I have it written on my dry erase board, " God sovereignly cares about every little detail of out lives." I believe that! Even though there are times where I am living in selfishness and worry, he is saying, stop this and give it up to me to deal with! I will take care of it all! Saying all this what I am getting at is, looking at our past God has provided in out time of trouble and he will continue. He is forever faithful. And this list of fix-it's we have, He will provide.  When I worry about the things before us and do not give them to God, I find myself getting impatient with my family, angry at the world with frustration because I can not control of the situation, and just right down unpleasant! It's embarrassing, who is that 28 year old throwing a tantrum on the kitchen floor! All said! through this crazy time, I am trying to remember these things and give my trouble to Him.

Tough stuff, but this is what is getting me through this day. I am worth everything to Him and so are you!! 

 Here are other quotes I jotted from the sermon on Fainting Faith, Psalm 77 :Remember the past acts where God has provided, Walk forward by faith allowing God to be in control! 

"Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they?"  Matthew 6:26

Serenity