This is The Stuff You Use

I had a really rough time of it in 2010.   Lots of situations and circumstances that sort of set me up for the perfect storm.   I found out 2 days before Christmas 2009 that the school where I had spent the last 15 years teaching kindergarten was closing.   To say this was hard for me personally, is an understatement.   I mean I understood the economy is bad etc, it was just that I had to continue to teach the rest of the school year and  it was just so sad.  I was grieving the death of something I loved deeply.  My husband was good to remind me again and again that this was minor in comparison to what some people have to walk through.   Still it was hard.    

In January 2010, I emailed my older brother John who lives in Ireland about how I was struggling.  Here is his response to me. 

"I understand at least in part, your feelings about the school's closing.  You've invested a significant part of your adult life into the kids and school.  Yet there is a time to move on, even as the Book of Ecclesiastes suggests "There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven."  Change, however difficult, is a key to growth and for some odd reason we seem to resist it with every fiber in our being.  What I have gleaned from my journey is that I can trust God to lead me through and to new things/changes in my life that I would not have thought possible.  We see in part and know in part--however, He holds all of the parts.  When I retired from the Air Force, I knew it was time although I was not at all enthused about working in a Christian school and church.  In fact, I enjoyed the military and sometimes working with Christians is more difficult than fighting Communism.  I needed the changes, notwithstanding my deep affection for Newton's First Law of Motion, a body at rest tends to remain at rest. Movement meant much change--and in  my mind, pain.  Interestingly enough, recently Joseph (my nephew) sent me an e-mail in which he stated, "It is amazing how the things in my past have prepared me for the future."  Pretty powerful stuff there!  Anyway, I believe the Lord has something better, more challenging and rewarding for you.  But the underlying principle in the Kingdom is that the just should live by faith--trusting God in the dark as well as light and believing that He who began a good work in us will complete it.  This could be a very good time to ratchet up the prayer life several notches and begin to cry out for something bigger and better."

Good stuff, right?  So now a year has passed.  A year filled with let's see...   Kidney stones and lithotripsies.  A surprise Golden Retriever puppy for my 50th birthday.  My very first car accident when I rear-ended a Lexus.  And losing my job.  

BUT.....   I can say now, even though I knew it in my heart all along,  that God is good.  And I do see His hand on my life and His faithfulness to me every day.  And I am now working part-time at a small Montessori school and loving it.  

This song by Francesca Battistelli keeps playing in my head.  Give it a listen.  And be encouraged because 

"This is the stuff that gets under my skin 

But I've got to trust You know exactly what You're doing 

It might not be what I might choose but this is the stuff You use"

Francesca Battistelli

Blessings,