"Every experience God gives us, every person He puts in our path..."

"Every experience God gives us, every person He puts in our path, is the perfect preparation for a future only He can see."  Corrie Ten Boom (Her imprisonment during the Holocaust was the subject of the 1975 movie, "The Hiding Place".)

It has been almost two months since I was given the opportunity to place more Posts on this Blog.  Life has been quite busy.  These are some examples of how I have gotten to trust that the experiences that God has chosen for me in the last 4 1/2 years AND in the last two months are "...the perfect preparation for a future only He can see."

When I retired in December 2011, I envisioned retirement with certain possibilities:

• Seeking ordination as a Christian Universalist/Universal Reconciliation "pastor/ teacher/ minister"
• Helping establish a fellowship group for CU/UR in the town that I was moving to
• Doing more CU/UR writing, networking, and sharing in whatever way God had ordained the GREAT NEWS that ALL Humanity would be at the Eternal Party
• Hoping that my husband and I (who had entirely different views of God, values, and priorities) could become closer
• Being more involved in the lives of our children and grandchildren who would live much more geographically close to us (one family 5 minutes, the other two hours away) than before we retired (we had lived in Hawaii for 18 years)

But, as with the old saying "When we make plans, God laughs.". God's plan has been quite different from mine in the last 4 1/2 years.

God's plans as they occurred:

• I was diagnosed with a form of "slow moving" leukemia and another uncertain blood condition
• The arthritic deterioration of my knees (as well as generally advancing arthritis and other joint and muscle issues) continued and I had semi-successful double knee replacements. And there have been additional medical issues that have been and are "bothersome"
• Our son-in-law, a police officer, was killed, leaving our younger daughter and her two small children without him (they are the family who lived 5 minutes from us)
• Our older daughter who was 44 y.o. and her husband, who was 54 y.o. found out that she was 4 1/2 months pregnant this March - not their plan and difficult given their finances, size of their home, and many significant challenges already present for their blended family

So thinking back on my tentative plans:

• God closed the door to my pursuing ordination
• God closed the door to my helping establish a CU/UR fellowship in my town/area
• God did give me a sweet friend who helped me start this Blog, but other writing and sharing activities have been more limited than I had anticipated
• God gave me significant additional medical issues that have influenced some of my function and comfort in ways that I did not choose ("nevertheless, not my will but thine..".:)
• God chose for my husband and I to be even farther apart emotionally, although choosing for us to remain cooperatively living together
• God brought my desire to be more involved in the lives of our children and grandchildren to pass in an even larger way than I had envisioned, but He brought that about through great pain and loss for one of our children's families and with increased hardship and challenge for both of our children's families.

Right now my retirement looks like:

• Splitting my time between supporting/encouraging/helping my younger daughter and grandchildren in the town where we live (every other week) and being "nanny" for my 2 month old granddaughter for my older daughter who lives 2 hours away and who financially needs to return to full time employment (but whose boss, miraculously, said she could "telecommute" from home every other week).
• Waiting on God to show me how/if I am to continue to pursue spreading the Great News of CU/UR via Blogging, other writing, other outreach activities
• Trusting that God will continue to be in charge of the form/structure of my husband and my relationship
• Trusting that all my physical capacities (or diminishing of them) and conditions ARE "gifts" in packages that don't particularly feel like "gifts" but are perfectly accomplishing His purposes

I see throughout my life that I did my best to prepare and live my life in ways that would produce certain results that I desired (substantially always desiring God's will in my life).  Over and over again I have seen my life produce very different results than I desired.  But I do trust and practice on a moment to moment basis that "Every experience God gives us, every person He puts in our path, is the perfect preparation for a future only He can see."

And that helps me to be "content in every circumstances", and continuously desire to be "not considering the things that are seen but the things that are unseen; for the things seen are not lasting, but the things not seen are everlasting [the Real Lives for which this difficult life - this "Refiner's fire", this "Valley of the Shadow of Death", is preparing us].

My God WILL accomplish ALL His Good Pleasure. Isaiah 46:10

No one can thwart His Will. Job 42:2

June