It feels like you are getting to just follow along with my adventures these past couple months. I am writing again with the knowledge that I will be going to be facing a challenge this week.
I am scheduled to have surgery on Wednesday to hopefully fix the issues I have had with my right shoulder over the past 15 years. I have used and abused that shoulder and it has served me well.
I have played competitive volleyball in my adult years as well as shot a bunch of archery both for fun and in competitions. Not gonna lie… I was pretty good! But this has left me a bit of a cripple.
I want to keep adventuring as I get older and the last thing I want to have happen is for my right arm to decide it’s not strong enough when I have ½ way through a rappel and I take a fast trip to the bottom!
I always hoped my death would be an interesting one but that definitely does not make the cut for ways I’d like to exit the earth!
Not gonna lie, this is causing me to feel a bit fragile and old. I am feeling my age if I’m being honest. This will be the 5th surgery in as many years.
I have always been a healthy and active person with minimal health issues. These past few years have definitely caused me to be grateful for the time I have spent healthy and without health crisis.
Both my husband and I have realized that we have spent a lot of time raising kids and following up with all those important stages but now we are realizing that what we have left the older parts of our lives for ourselves and our own adventures… and we’re moving half speed!!
We are praying God still grants us some adventures before we get too tired to get up and get moving! Why say all this?
Gods calling on your life can change over time. What I was called to do 20 years ago is different than my call now. I am no longer driving around kids to sports, putting Band-Aids on knees or whipping runny noses. I am no longer holding a crying daughter when the boy she liked dumped her or giving tips on being a good student.
My kids have finished that part of their lives. I am now sometimes giving relationship advice to young adults who are probably going to marry their significant others. Am I needed any more or less now than when I was needed for survival?
Maybe I am not needed to the level that if I don’t feed the kids, they would starve to death, but the relationship or job advise is possibly just as valuable… at least to them at this time.
Do you think God calls you to be different things at different times? Do you think he has it all planned out ahead of time to keep you with a purpose in every stage you walk through? I think He does!
I have been thinking more often lately how amazing it is that God has put me in this time and place. I was not born in 600BC or 1246 AD or even 1934. I was born in the time and place that He designed for me which is in the NOW. I am born for Now, in this country and state, to these parents. God has a purpose for me now… not 200 years from now. I have a purpose… His purpose.
Doesn’t that warm your heart a little bit? With whatever you have going on. Whatever difficulties you have. You were made for now.
“For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” – Ephesians 2:10
God planned in advance for what he wanted you to do!
“The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.” – Lamentations 3:25-26
“Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, ‘This is the way; walk in it.’” – Isaiah 30:21
“In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps.” – Proverbs 16:9
“For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope.” – Romans 15:4
When worry creeps in, hang on to the promises that God has given. His word is full of them! Promises for hope and your future! Even as your body and mind are aging and changing, He still has plans for you. Till the moment he chooses to bring us to Him we have a purpose to fulfill.
So don’t give up hope! Even if you are getting more frail or having struggles in any other area. He knows that. He has already accommodated for it and has you on point for your next task. He is good! He will challenge you. Would you want it any other way? I want to run this race with endurance and hanging onto the hope that he gives us.
Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.