Re-posted blog from Mon, 10 Sep 2007
Years ago I read a book by Tim Lahaye in which he said the difference between a tortoise and a clam is that the tortoise has legs to move in the direction it wants to go while the clam has to sit on the bottom of the ocean and wait to open it’s mouth for food. God gave us legs to move and we don’t do well in life if we live as though we are in a shell and stuck.
Around that time in my thankless thirties, when life felt like I was walking through a badly potholed and bumpy lane, I ran across a man and woman talking at work…and eavesdropped.
“Life is what you make it,” I overhead the man say to the woman as she explained the lessons she's trying to teach her children. They both spoke of the choices their kids were making.
Somehow, God used that short, passing conversation. Every day those words began popping up around me like summer weeds, and spurred me on to change. They helped me to stop blaming, to stop playing a victim, to stop what if-ing and to start doing what I could with the life God had given me, as a single woman.
Eventually I was back on the freeway of life, and moving toward ministry and health and goals, God and people. I turned off of the pathetic potholed dead end track of self pity, deciding with God’s power I could choose to ask for hope and help and reach out to others. The Bible says a word spoken at the right time is like apples of gold in pictures of silver. That word was gold.
How many times have passing words even from a stranger been so spot on we knew there was no coincidence? God works from many directions when he leads his sheep back home to the pasture of contentment and provision.
After that conversation I decided I did have more control over some things than I realized. I could work for a different company if I wanted right now…I didn’t need to wait for a reason to leave.
I could make the phone call I was shy about; no one would ever make it for me.
I worked on the dreams I could do something about. Life was too vast to dream in one corner. Realizing I cannot control the family aspect of my single life(having a mate or children isn’t a genie wish) no matter how much we pray—I learned to practice making today better instead of praying so much about tomorrow…and ultimately it would better all my tomorrows.
God’s grace is sufficient for today…2 Corinthians 12:9
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