Understanding

Aug 29, 2011

When I was a little girl our yard backed up to a yard on the street behind us.  The people who lived in that house were older, around my grandparents age at the time.  We moved into that house when I was 5, and after the first time their little poodle broke through the fence into our yard we became fast friends.  Shortly thereafter her husband passed, and she was alone in her big house.  My family kept an eye on her, and I spent many an afternoon plucking away on her piano and playing with her dog.  We were close, and she was like a grandmother to me.  When I was around 11 she passed away.  She spent her last months in her home, and we visited her often.  Before she passed she gave me one of the most precious gifts I have received to this day, a bible.  A beautiful blue leather bible with my name embossed on the front.  Honestly, at the time I didn't realize how important that bible and what it contained would mean to me.  I read the inscription she had entered by her own jittery hand that day, but didn't grasp the full meaning of the words. 

Ten years later, even as I was being baptized I still didn't fully grasp those words.  Who knows, maybe in another ten years I'll look back and think I didn't understand it today.  But as of right now I feel I have more of grasp than every before.

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart.  Lean not on your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your path."  - Proverbs 3:5-6

Trust - reliance on the integrity, strength, ability, surety, etc., of a person or thing.  I need to trust God?  Someone I can't see?  That is something I struggle with on a daily basis, but am getting better at.  He is the one I turn to when I can feel myself losing my sh!t with my kids.  I take a deep breath and look up to heaven.  He is also the one I turn to at night as I thank Him for my day, and ask for his continued blessings.

Lean not on your own understanding.  This is one of my biggest faults.  I assume I know what people are thinking just by reading their mannerisms or tone.  I need to not rely on my own "understanding", because more often than not my understanding is very different from the reality. 

In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your path.  This is a daily struggle.  Daily I have to remind myself to put my food choices in God's hands, not my own.  I need to look to Him for the strength to walk away.  In all your ways.  That means everything.  Work.  Kids.  Husband.  Driving.  Buying.  Sleeping.  Exercising.  Business.  EVERYTHING.  A tall order, but one I am willing to work on.

"God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength but with your testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it"  -1 Corinthians 10:13

God will never give you more than you can handle.  I can handle the emotional eating, if I turn to Him rather than food.  I can handle the stress of being a mother, a wife, and a full time out of the house employee, if I give Him control over it all. 

Things are looking up people.  :)

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