The Heavens Declare the Glory of the Lord

This summer my interest has been drawn to the moon.  I am talking about the Blood Moons and the supermoons.  I had never paid much attention before.  I had noticed the beauty of a full moon and the read a bit about the shape of the moon revealed in the night sky and why it is a different shape every night.

This summer has been unique for moon watchers.  I have come to appreciate more fully the beauty of the creation of our God along with the intricate details of his handiwork.
This simple appreciation has drawn me closer to Him in unexpected ways.  This beautiful summer was different and, well, just nice.  The weather changed often from cool to warm and then back again to cool.  As fall approaches, it has finally been hot.  

I am a flower gardener, and I have noticed that the plants seemed to struggle this summer from the changing temperatures.  While they thrive in the season for which they were created, they seem to be confused by the abrupt change in temperatures. When that season is interrupted by a change, the flowers respond by stopping their growth for a while, just until they adjust to the new environment.  Then they begin to grow in the new situation.  When another big change comes, their growth is stunted again.  It started me thinking.  That is just how I am, stunted in my growth by the harsh changes of life. 

Just I begin to thrive in the situation into which God has placed me, then a change comes.   Depending on the severity of the change, I must adapt to it.  There really is no other choice.  I noticed my last blog was over a year ago.  I thought to myself about why I had not blogged at all.  Yes, a lot of things go on in life naturally, and busyness abounds in every life, it seems.  But that is not it.  I realized that I have not really adjusted to the biggest change of all in a mother's life.  That is the natural and Godly process of her children, loaned to her by God to raise, had grown up and moved away and had begun their own process of change.  They are all thriving in their particular situations, building their homes and marriages, growing their families with the children God sends to them, and trusting God to lead them.  Really?.....isn't that what you have prayed for all their lives?  Yes, it is, but I never realized how it would impact my own heart. I had grown to be depressed, and it had slowly been growing.

As I pray and reflect and ask my Father what is going on with me, I believe that the loss of my daughter Brooke has affected my heart in such deep ways, that I have unconsciously held on to the others with a tighter grip in my heart.  I have accepted her death as being God's will for her life, and I am very happy she is with Him, but I sure do miss my baby girl!  She was truly a gift from the Lord who blessed all who came in contact with her.  I thought this loss had been accepted and I had grown to see her life as having been a special blessing of God to me. I have been surprised that as her mother, I have been able to talk freely about her, to keep her memory alive, especially in the lives of my grandchildren without sadness, but with joyful remembrance.  I just didn't know what else was lurking in my heart.  Now that I think about it, it wouldn't be normal to lose a child that you loved so deeply and just move on.  The deeper issues have affected my feelings about my other children moving away.  It has been a greater pain than I expected.  It seemed as if they had all died also, just like sweet Brookie.

You may be asking what does all this have to do with the moon and its natural phases and the phenomena of the blood moon and supermoons?  It is this.  All of us go through phases in our lives, just like God has scheduled the phases of the moon.  While we can predict what the moon will be doing and when it will be, we certainly can have no such predictions about our human lives.  Only our Heavenly Father knows that plan, and He is not telling.  I would like to know the good things, but certainly not the bad ones.  He knows that.  He knows us.  We are His children and He ordains each day of our lives.  He knows our feelings and stands ready to help if we will only seek Him for our answers and not just peruse other books and ask people what they think.  They do not know our hearts.  They do not know what we need.  They really do not even know what they need.
But our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, His only son, do know.  That is the answer, the only real answer to our needs.

My favorite verse in the Bible is Proverbs 3:5-6, which says "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths."  What more could a person need to know than this in order to find direction for life?  He will lead us to the more we will need.

It is very interesting how this early morning's Harvest Moon awakened me with its bright light shining on my bedroom wall, calling me to get out of my bed and go outside just to see the beauty of the Lord's creation.  My life has its own beauty.  He has created me to shine like the bright moon in the time and place in history which He has chosen for me.
Yes, indeed, the heavens do declare the Glory of the Lord, and the light of this particular moon has shone into the depths of my heart this morning and I had to share.  I am certainly a pondering person, and this pondering about the ways of my God has led me to another level.  I am pondering and wondering what He will do with my life next.  It will be a surprise, and He will direct my steps.  He is so good. I am very blessed and happy.

Adjusting to Change

Life is full of change.  Never has that become more apparent than it has in this period of my life.  When I was a young woman, I loved change.  Of course, the change I liked was good change.  I loved being a mom and watching daily change in my children.  It seemed at the time that I would be raising children forever and I was happy for that.  For me, there has been nothing more fulfilling in life than raising a son or a daughter and watching each of their personalities develop.  I wondered what they would be like as adults.  I pondered what it would be like to have grandchildren. 

Now all that wondering and pondering has come to a partial fulfillment.  They are all grown now and have children of their own.  What I never counted on in my thinking was that they would actually leave and live somewhere else.  That was very silly of me, but I just assumed wrong things borne out of my heart's desires.....desires to be the grandmother close by.....desires to be the place that they would want to come to and spend the night and do all sorts of fun things with their grandparents.  They do get to do that, but those visits are few and far between up here in Oklahoma, as they naturally have very full lives where they live and it is hard to make the trip up here. We actually see them more often down where they all live.

More change has just occurred and I have no idea what it will be like for the grandparenting department.  Our oldest son and his family have moved far away.  I can neither just run over there in a few hours now, nor be there for every birthday as we have in the past.  I am anxious to see what the Lord is going to do in their lives in the foreign land of California.

Our thoughts and plans are not God's.  He has greater plans than we could ever imagine.  While my heart longed for them to be near, that was my own desire, not God's best plan for them.  They have followed His plan for their lives and I am happy that they all know Him and are following Him.  I truly could not want more than that for them.  I just miss them.  That's all.

This summer is one of change for the Burress house - literally the house.  We are adding that long-needed downstairs bedroom.

Beautiful, isn't it!!!!

Maybe, by this fall, we will have a complete new addition for this old house.  This kind of change is what I'm talking about....Good Change!

As we move into the stage of life without children or grandchildren around, I know God has plans for Ike and me that we do not even know about.  We have some ideas, but we are praying to see what will happen.  Waiting is just the hardest thing to do, isn't it?  Even when you know that God is in control, it is still hard for me to wait.  It feels just like waiting for Christmas Day to finally come so I could open those shiny gifts.  I am wanting to open God's shiny new gifts for our lives.  His ways are not our ways and His plans are not our plans.  Oh, how I still wish they were.  I thought I had some pretty good ideas about how life should go.  I guess I did not.

Please pray daily for American Christians to seek repentance and seek God's guidance.  That's what we all must do on both a personal and a national level if we want God's direction in our country.

Enjoy the plans He has for you, or at the very least, accept His will and move on, counting on Him to lead you.  That's what I want to do.  I will read this tomorrow when I start to sink into wrong thinking.