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Along the Path

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Making Scents

It was a long weekend and I had high hopes of getting caught up with my blog. I had so many things turning and swirling in my head it is not until now that I am finally able to process and get things down.

I want to thank everyone for your support during this difficult time. I cannot express to you enough what your prayers, thoughts, phone calls, emails, visits and everything you have done and provided to me and my family have meant to us. Thank you feels so small and insignificant for the outpouring of love, kindness and presence you have given.

My mom and Martin are doing much better. Recovery Road, albeit a long one, they are both on it. Both are out of hospitals and surgeries and in the care of home health care and rehabilitation. Please continue to lift them up in your prayers as they continue their difficult journey.

Dave, Gregory and I made a trip out to Cody and Powell to be near them. It was a long trip done in a short amount of time. I am thankful we were able to go.

Immediately before leaving, I was working on my annual project for Head Start. Immediately upon returning, I had a wedding. I have been feeling a bit overwhelmed by everything and stretched to the limits. It is nice to now have a more familiar routine back in place and time to have processed all that has happened in the last month.

Our faith will be tested. It must remain unwavering. God is good. No. Matter. What.

On our way out to Wyoming, amidst much uncertainty of what God's plan was for my mother and brother, He showed me once again. Believe. Trust in Him.

I don't know how many of you have ever traveled the road between Gillette, Wyoming and Buffalo, Wyoming. If you are familiar with the area, you know....there is not a whole lot going on around Gillette. The earth is dry, there are very few trees, not much to look at, and I must say, one of my least favorite places I have ever been.

When you are traveling west from Gillette, you are driving and driving.....with nothing to look at. All is dry and barren, very boring, very dull. Just when I am getting beside myself with the unpleasantness of the area........there.........out of nowhere.......the most beautiful sight......

the glorious Big Horn Mountains appear out of nowhere. This was the scene when I came up over a hill from the dry, coarse earth around Gillette and what my eyes laid upon. The sunlight radiated from the clouds and the majestic mountains stood strong in the distance.

I told Dave that drive to me is a lot like believing in God. Like the Bighorns, although we cannot always see them......they are there, beautiful, amazing and welcoming. Unwavering, ALWAYS there.

As we are traveling down that long, dull, barren road, much like many days of our lives, we have to believe, we have to trust there is beauty, goodness, and something wonderful and amazing......there.....in the distance.....that we cannot see. Then we come up over a hill and out of nowhere.........standing before us. Strength, majesty, and beauty calling to us and welcoming us.

Just like God.

I may not be able to physically see him now, but I know...He is there. ALWAYS there. Some day I will come up over a hill and He will be standing there before me. Welcoming me. Looking to me, just like the Big Horn Mountains did that day. Strong, majestic, beautiful and amazing.

When we are wavering, just when our minds start playing tricks on us that all there is going to be is ongoing desolation, we must have faith. He is right over the hill. He is there. He IS there.

That is what happened to me that day driving across Wyoming. After all the questions in my mind, he reminded me once again........just because you can't physically see......doesn't mean it can't be. See with your heart. Believe. He IS there. Trust in Him.

The last few days of being home I have been sitting in my office. My windows open with a soft breeze swirling about and with it the glorious scents of the blooming trees and flowers in my yard. My own little piece of heaven.


As I delight in the scents surrounding me and thank Him for all His glorious creations and marvel at how wonderful His plan works out. How everything must fall into place so precisely for me to be able to enjoy these wonderful scents filling the air in my office, I take pause. Why is it so easy to believe in Him when things are going wonderful and to give him thanks and praise for His plan when it is to our benefit, and yet, so difficult to trust in His plan when the unfolding of that plan is yielding us an unfavorable moment or something we feel conflicts with our own plan and desires. Something that may even appear to tear our world apart.


I do feel we are entitled to express sadness, grief and concern when we are faced with difficult and life-changing circumstances, but we do not know the rest of the story.......what is next in His plan......and who are WE to say when His plan is good and when it is not. When we should show Him glory and when we should doubt.

We will praise the glorious scents from the trees He has given us, but we will turn our back and turn away when things turn sour and don't make sense to us?

Things don't have to and will not always make sense to us, and my experience is, good things make much more sense to us than bad things.

It ALL makes perfect sense to Him.

We need to remember God is good no mater what. He has a plan and it is not for us to question or doubt. After a long hard winter, with dark days and rough, bitter nights, buds emerge and glorious flowers and air filled with heavenly scents surround us.

Even in the darkest days.....have faith.......He will eventually bring glorious scents and He will eventually appear over the hill.

It doesn't make sense. It just is.

4 comments:

  1. Beautiful! Your mouth speaks what overflows your heart!
    Carol

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  2. Marnie
    I'm so glad to see your post - you are so right in everything you said. We'll keep them in our prayers.
    Sommerlyn

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  3. Wow. I have driven on that road. What a vision you have brought to me. I will think of this now every time I am there in the future or in situations where I need to remember he is just over the hill. Thank you.

    Laura

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  4. I remember driving that road Aug.19,1991, praying to God why was I heading West and where in the world was I. I pulled in to Buffalo with one gal. of gas in my U-Haul. I thought many times of turning back to Florida, how history would have played out for many lives had I turned back. Fate !! Bobbie C-H

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