A Weekend of Surprises

I seem to be in that sweet stage of life where I can see God working all around me. After such a long time in darkness, it feels great to be able to see once again. So, Surprise Me God . . . this is having the effect that I had hoped in that I find myself talking to God often during the day. The loneliness that used to be so crushing seems to be fading away as God is filling more of my life with him -- and with the people that he is bringing into my life. Top Surprises for the Weekend:

Friday -- this one started on Thursday. I got a little angry with a coworker on Thursday afternoon, and convinced I was right, went on to tell several others about the incident. Later that evening, as I was sharing with another friend, he tried to say something about maybe I was wrong, and I went ballistic. And then I heard the voice of God saying, "You could be wrong, Melissa . . . and even if you aren't, you are not acting in a loving way towards this coworker." Yeah, I guess you are right was my only reply. And I knew then that I would have to make amends to this person. In the past, I would have made huge deal of this and would have sacrificed many hours of sleep and productive work time obsessing about what I was going to say. But Friday morning, I woke up, knew what I had to do and did it. This simple act of saying, "I’m sorry", was just that -- a simple act of obedience that did not need to consume my life. But in the past it would have. A gift of grace from God to me on this day. And certainly a big surprise for me as to how good it felt to walk away from a conversation and know that God was pleased.

Saturday – I’ve never been good at making decisions when I have a multitude of choices. Abundance paralyzes me. That’s one reason I liked Kazakhstan so much. If we found cheese, we bought it. We didn’t have 50 different varieties to select from. It was just cheese. Milk was the same way. No options between different brands. Not even the choice between different fat contents. Milk was just milk, usually unpasteurized, and almost always straight from the cow that morning. We could buy two kinds of bread – flat or loaf. It was really a gift for me to live in such an environment.

For the last 14 weeks I’ve been able to set aside Tuesday evenings as night to “date myself.” I have about two hours between two separate meetings and this has been set aside as my time – to read, to pray, to cry, to sing, to browse at Barnes and Noble, or to talk with a friend. I also usually go out to eat somewhere. When I first started this “date myself” night, I thought that I would try out a whole bunch of new restaurants. But the reality is that over the past 14 weeks, I’ve gone to on place 11 times, another place twice, and one place only one time. Once again, the pressure to make a choice among the hundreds of eating establishments available to me forced me to go to the same place. I’ll probably be there again this week!

That’s the background. Saturday night we went to a concert (which was also a wonderful surprise) and at the concern they had children from World Vision that could be adopted. When I walked in, I stopped to talk to Marcia, who was working at the World Vision table. I told myself that I couldn’t even look at the pictures there because I wouldn’t be able to choose. After listening to a World Vision presentation, I felt as though I needed to adopt a child, but my mind was also running wild with excuses. I went back to a smaller table (less children to select from and Marcia was standing there) and started to look. I immediately got overwhelmed and decided other plans for my money. And then I saw her. Sheron – the child that God had selected for me. I can’t tell you how I knew – I just knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was the one.

It was so good to just know that God wanted me to adopt her. It felt so good to finally dismiss all the excuses for giving. I’m really excited about what starting this means for me and more importantly Sheron and her family. I’ll share more about her late (and a picture)!

Sunday – Another day filled with surprises. It’s hard to pick just one. Today at Church the sermon was on I John 3: 11-18 – the passage on love and seeing others in need and being active in our love towards others. This goes right along with the books that I’m reading and the things that I have been thinking about. And God gave me the opportunity to reconnect with an older man in our church who actually lives on our block. I learned that he is moving to a nursing home early next month and that his family will be heading back to Japan (they are missionaries there). He was so delighted to talk with our family, and we’ve made a commitment to continue visiting him. What was most surprising to me about this event is that immediately after a sermon where I was just longing to show love to another person, God literally put that person in my path. He almost made it impossible NOT to do something. It’s been a long time since I have heard those small promptings of God in my life. And while at times these promptings have “wreaked havoc” in my schedule, they have also brought immeasurable joy into my life.