My Lesson for the Week
by Brandy Webb
Today, I want to write a more personal blog rather than the style I have been writing because I want to share my week. I had a really testing week this week. I wasn’t tragically tested. My test this week was more about not quite reaching a major family goal.
See, my husband and I live in the country pretty far from any nice-sized towns. In fact, it takes me at least thirty minutes to get to a Wal-Mart. I live out in, what some people say, the “boonies.” We set out on this adventure of moving to the country over eight and one-half years ago. We lived in town, in a neighborhood, in a conventional home, and after the birth of our second child, we decided we wanted to move to the country.
Our goal and dream was to buy land, live in something like a camper or small trailer, and eventually build a house. Well, we did find land, and it had a small single wide for us to live in until we built our house. The only thing is, we never imagined that it would take so long to finally reach the finality of building a house. Over the years, we have learned a lot about farming, raising a family in an itty-bitty living space, and how complicated trying to build a house can be, especially if you don’t have all the cash to do it out of pocket.
Anyway, this week was a struggle because we finally thought we could start building our house, but, unfortunately, things as of right now are not moving in a very positive direction. In fact, unless God works a miracle we may have to think of a different plan, and it may not be the same as our dream.
Needless to say, it was quite overwhelming when I heard the bad news that may keep us from building. I definitely cried a lot. I did remember that I wrote a blog about expect things to not go as expected. At the time of my initial grief, I really didn’t want to listen to my own advice.
Today, though, I can see that this is another good lesson that I can learn from, it is a lesson in faith and trust. One of the first thoughts that snapped me out of my emotional pity party was the statement, “My ways are not your ways” (Isa 55:8). The other one was “trust in the Lord with all your heart” (Prov 3:5). And the last thing was “not my will but Yours be done” (Mark 14:36).
I realized that I was not trusting God with this. I don’t know what plans He has for me, but I know that if I commit my way to Him and trust Him, He will act. Maybe it won’t be the way I thought it should go, but He will act. The truth is, I know He knows my future and I don’t, and I want His will to be done even if I must ignore what my will wants. Like I said, in the blog about things going in unexpected ways, that we have to let go of the wheel (our will) and let God do the driving so that His will is what happens.
It is hard to step back, and to sit patiently waiting to see if God will show me what direction I should go. It takes faith, which sometimes I lack, and is probably why I am going through this trial right now. He is trying to teach me faith and the understanding that “many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand” (Prov 19:21).
Therefore, I chose to dry my tears and give thanks to God that my trial right now is about a house, which is far less than what a lot of people are going through right now. I should be grateful, not sorrowful, and I should stop and put my trust in my loving Heavenly Father and my loving Savior.