Peace or Pieces

The past two weeks or so have made 'as the world turns' seem a bit tame (according to me anyway). I don't really have much to do with 'soap operas' but who needs them with what has been going on in our daily lives.

Due to some rather interesting changes in our plans, our son, his wife and I went to Florida. A member of my father's uncle's family had died and my brother from out west decided to come. He was much closer to that part of our family than most of the rest of us. He and my sister offered to help pay for some of our gas if we would come so at about the last minute we decided to 'go for it'.

From retrospect that trip was one that God had planned. Not that everything went smoothly -(sometimes wondered about 'pieces') but time after time God arranged or rearranged events and in my mind I could see why.

My brother wanted to go see a dear friend, while he was here on the east coast - who lived in North Carolina. We all decided that I should go with him to help him drive. That gave our son and his new wife a little more time to spend in Florida. She had never been there before.

Most of you have heard that Florida has not been exactly what you would call warm, so water activities were not included on the agenda but the couple did drive down to the keys, which I hope they enjoyed, while I was in North Carolina.

Sadly, there are a few differences of opinion between some members of our family. I doubt that anything I did or said changed the situation but I sure have some insights I didn't have before.

We got back home just before noon this past Friday. I have got a lot to catch up on, but am thankful for safety during the miles of driving (or riding).

It definitely put a 'big dent' in our pocketbook but it was such a blessing for me to have the time with my older brother. It is probably the longest time I have ever spent with him in my whole life. I really feel like I am beginning to know him better than before and I hope it was a blessing for him as well.

I didn't get quite as much time with my sister, but she has stopped by more than once where we live in Virginia, so our times together hasn't been so distant.

I arrived home with several major decisions awaiting my attention. Since it was so close to Sabbath as special praise time with our wonderful Lord I decided to just lay aside such 'mundane' activities as making critical and possibly life changing decisions and focus on our precious God. As I was preparing for church I was talking to the Lord about some things that were on my mind. I was trying to quickly wash my hair but it seemed that almost as fast as the shower was spraying me with water so quickly was the Lord showering me with thoughts and ideas and filling in 'blanks' in relation to a lot of things that have been going on the past few days. That experience was awesome and I thank the Lord for it.

I was not ready for my children's class at church but we did it anyway. I had not had a class for three weeks. (Two weeks the church got closed down because of inclement weather and last week I ended up in Florida.) but the children seemed to enjoy what I did have for them.

God's form of Judgment includes 'revealing' in ways that enable correct decisions to be made.

God has been revealing to me things about me that need changing through many of the experiences of the past few days. I believe He also wants to 'reveal' what He is like as well through all who are willing to let His love flow through them to others in His time and way.

It is getting late so I must go.

May God's kind of peace be in your heart, but not the pieces that are the result of 'any other way' than God's way and will for you.

Yours in Peace,

Maiden, Bringer of Peace