He delights to take over our small worries

With my dear friend Amy now living in her new home, it’s the weekends that seem to be hardest for me. Probably because of all of the unstructured time, I miss how we would just spontaneously go exercise or watch something or talk or whatever. Last week I was really dreading the weekend. I definitely had things to do and stuff scheduled, but especially on Sunday I wasn’t sure how I would feel just being at home during my down time. Thinking through how many friends I have and how blessed I am in that, my instinct was to call people and just pack the whole weekend in with stuff to do. However, when I thought about that I realized that God might be giving me a gift in this down time with less distractions to trust Him to prioritize my time and just be patient to see what happened. I decided not to make concrete plans and kept praying for God to show me how to use my time.

Mid- week of last week (around Wed, Nov 30 probably), I got a call from the youth director of one of my supporting churches, Intown Community. He was looking for a speaker for Sunday because they were in between series and needed a guest speaker and wanted to know if I would come and talk about Ethiopia. How cool- I definitely was free and agreed to do it. Between going to that and then staying for the Sunday morning service, I had that morning time now taken care of. Ok awesome. So the rest of the week went by. Saturday I helped celebrate with Amy and probably about 40-50 people (including so many fun kids!) who came by for her housewarming party. What a gift to see people willing to celebrate this journey with her and her house looked so fantastic. I was pretty exhausted by the end, but in a good way. Sunday morning came and I went and gave my talk about my Ethiopia ministry, sharing too about how I got into the counseling field primarily because of the counseling I received after my mother’s death, and how God worked to lead me into that career. After it was over, the youth director told me that a member of their group recently lost their mom to cancer, and he appreciated me sharing that part of my life with them. I actually hadn’t planned on sharing about that at all but it just came out. Clearly God had a plan for that! After my talk I went to church and got to sit by my awesome friends the McNay’s and just a few seats down from the Joiner’s who are also awesome. I hadn’t been to Intown in a while and it felt like being back at home. After church I felt pretty tired and wanted a little down time, so I went home. Huh. Maybe this free time was a good thing just to rest!!! Just as I was ready to make a decision about doing something else, I got a txt from a friend who needed some emotional support. I went to her house. While there I got a call from my Ethiopia teammates who are in the U.S. on furlough, Michael and Emily Treadwell, saying that they were on their way through Atlanta and wanted to know if I wanted to go to dinner with them.

You’re catching my drift. It’s times like this when it’s so evident of God’s hand and guidance. I just have to be willing to listen and be available to His leading. It’s just so hard not to take control. I couldn’t believe how I actually felt pretty anxious in the days prior to the weekend, and God just worked it all out. He delights to take over our small worries!