Back In The Swing Of Things

Last night my living room looked like a bomb went off as Hubby and I worked diligently at taking down the decorations from our memorable Christmas festivities.  I always hate this moment when the warmth of the twinkle lights gets replaced with the starkness of the every day decor.  I'm just reminded as I type those words that sometimes that's how my life feels when I lose the warmth of The Light by replacing it with the stark coldness of the things of this world... (but that's another topic for another day's post).


I had originally wanted to keep the tree and decorations up another week or two as the season is so short and hauling it all out from under the stairwell is too big a chore for a few short week's enjoyment, but in the week ahead life gets back to "normal".  Kids head back to school tomorrow morning and the highways will be jam packed again with all the workers having finished their vacation days.  For me, although I don't necessarily have anywhere pressing to go, tomorrow signifys the day of getting back into the swing of things.

I've spent my quiet Sunday afternoon working on preparations for this week's kickoff of Abide.  Wednesday night I'll be hosting the PM group (as our regular hostess is unavailable this week) and Thursday morning we get back to our regular AM group.  Our topic from our book study this week is Bowing My Times of Waiting.  No one likes waiting, do we?  The author, Linda Dillow, reminds us that we often try to take matters into our own hands, like Sarah, or like Peter, we rebuke God when He doesn't do things on "our" timetable or the way we think He should do things.  But David had it right and is our example of how to bow our waiting to God as worship and learn to trust in His timing and make good use of it.

I'm in the middle of writing the chapter review for this week, but I can't help but remember my huge time of waiting and how I too often was a combination of Sarah and Peter.  Finally, when God brought me to the end of myself, I learned to accept my season of waiting and relinquish it to God.  Even though in the end, I never got what I was waiting for, the lessons learned in the process were invaluable.  I learned that His plans and purposes were good, even if they looked completely different from most everyone else's.  I won't lie though - sometimes Hubby and I still grieve the hope of what could have/might have been, but when those thoughts pop in, we just place them back on the altar.

Praise be to God for never giving up on me in the midst of the waiting!  Praise be to God for His great grace that IS sufficient for even me!