The Providence of God

I have been thinking a lot about the Providence of God this week. It seems that whenever we feel that things are going "our" way we are so thankful for God's providence. Then when things start to "go against" us it either a boss who's done it, or bad circumstances or whatever other thing we can come up with to keep from admitting that we are rebelling against God. I do that all of the time. It is so easy for me to see the providence of a loving and faithful god in other's lives but not in my own circumstances. It is easy for me to see the working of God when it is after the fact but so very, very hard when I am in the middle of the tests the Lord sends me. It seems so simple to see when I am outside looking in at someone else's trials. I always know just what they should do! But of course MY situation is different and is SO much harder than everyone's! I appreciate those sermons and bible studies that show me once again that God's will is perfect and that I can rest in Him.

Several other things have struck me in the past couple of weeks. Providentially, we now have a grandson and a new son-in-law. They are WONDERFUL. My daughter ROCKS as a wife and mother. Her house is immaculate! (Mine NEVER was after the children started coming) My grandson is always clean, full and is growing by leaps and bounds. But....whenever I tell people that my sweet daughter got married in August and had a baby in January, they behave as if this is the WORST decision that she could have made. Several of my coworkers have shared with me that they have taken their college age daughters to get them on the pill, or told them to be sure and buy a box of condoms if they can't resist. I am not saying that it was not a shock when we were informed that we were going to be grandparents but here's the deal... My daughter wouldn't have had to tell us anything, her husband could have just walked away from the whole situation and no one would have been the wiser. They both handled the situation with maturity and grace and showed patience and longsuffering with her parents. God has use the whole situation to bring about a great deal of reconciliation among family members. This has all shown me that God's perfect plan is PERFECT, ALWAYS! God's ways are not man's ways. Praise be to God. (Plus we got a BABY out of the deal!!!!!)

Another note on the faith of children: Our youngest son and I were on the way to school the day before yesterday (March 12) and we were talking about how fierce the wind has been here for the past week or so. He said that the wind was good for the neighbors' windmills and I told him that we really did need to pray for rain, snow or some sort of moisture because the grass is so dry and we need it to grow and we need to pray that the fire danger would go down. Last night at supper, when he finished his supper prayer and said amen, he told us to wait a minute and began a new prayer. This is how it went, "Dear God, Please send us some rain tomorrow". This morning he got up, saw the snow covering the ground and came to me and said, "Look Mom, it snowed last night! Isn't it good I prayed that prayer last night?!"

My prayer: Dear God, please increase my faith so that it is the faith of a little child. Grant that I would trust in you for all things. Thy will be done. Thank you for your many blessings!

Till next time...