A lot can happen in 10 years……

Ten years….. a lot can happen in ten years!  I was recently brought to think of the “10-year mark” because of the 10th-year anniversary reflection of our dear friends the Tyson’s.  It’s a worthy read on their Caringbridge (Abel Tyson) site or on Rachel’s blog racheltyson.com as they considered the past 10 years of their lives..  I’m so excited for them to be having an amazingly wonderful 10th-year adventure right now with their precious Abel in Hawaii, as they mark this 10th year. Yes a lot can happen in 10 years.

Rachel shared in two of her most recent blog posts about her reflections on healing and prayer during these past 10 years.  It truly is a worthy read and I hope you’ll check it out at Living the [Broken] Dream.

As always, I’ve been reading their posts with much interest.  These are, after all, people I love.  But I had no idea that God was also going to give ME a 10-year reflection.  I was looking for something this afternoon ….. you know, one of those “go to the basement” kind of retrievals!  I didn’t actually find the specific thing I was hunting, but I did come across a journal….. a journal with it’s first entry dated August 3, 2007.  A lot can happen in 10 years.

Journals are not uncommon to me.  I used to journal all the time.  Daily.  Somewhere down there in the basement are huge storage boxes filled with my thoughts and prayers.  But at some point I quit journaling.  Most assuredly I do still pray, but I no longer put a pen to said prayers.  Instead they just seem to continually encircle my head and heart, wafting up to the Heavenlies! 

Evidently, judging by how the journal entry of August 3rd started out, I must’ve decided on that particular day to pick back up my pen again.  Perhaps God had me pick it up that day, just so I could reflect back on it today! What follows is the written prayer of that day…. a reflection on prayer — which is kind of interesting to me, as the Lord has been taking me on a journey of late, reflecting on who I am as I pray and what is it, exactly, that I should be praying for the people around me that I love and care about.  I find it fascinating as I get to see where I am now, while looking back at where I was 10 years ago!

August 3, 2007

Lord, I’ve been gone awhile — gone from this written word format.  But this morning I felt pulled back.  Specifics perhaps.  To “write it” brings me to specifics.  Sometimes I wonder if I’m really “praying” — is “to think of it” considered “to pray for it”?  I guess it could be, if one were in the right mindset of that mentality of “considering You”, thinking of it in direct relation to what You want and how You feel, as opposed to just thinking of it and the tragedy of it and the trauma and the need and that they have a huge dilemma that needs fixed and what will they do?  I read in the paper about the little boy Chase from Piney Flats and all that this family has gone thru and has yet to go thru.  He was on our prayer list.  Bridgette sent us word of him — I remembered him.  But how much did I really pray for him?  Do we read the prayer list just to see what’s going on at church…..?  Or do we read it to truly pray for these in such dire times?  I think of the Tysons and of all they’ve been thru — so hard, so very very hard has been their road.  But they aren’t lone travelers on the road of despair.  So many, so very many travel this road.  We ask for deliverance for them — for all of them.  We want them delivered up off of this road of despair and we want them placed back on the road of the Good Life.  The Good Life — the life of no problems, no worries, no fears, no threats — but on that road what do we learn?  Do You allow so many long hard roads because it’s on the long hard road that we see You?  On the road of brokenness of spirit and mourning and meekness and hunger, we become empty of self and self’s propensity to any semblance of “the Good Life”.  We come to the place that all we have really is You.  All else that we tried to rely on or put our hope in has been stripped from us.  On the long hard road, we see You.  We rely on You.  We trust You.  We cry out to You.  Perhaps the cries start out as “put me back on the road to the Good Life” but at some point they become cries of surrender.  They become cries of “show me Your Kingdom of Heaven”, give me Your comfort.  The verse says “inherit” the earth…. for one to “inherit” there must be a death — is this death to self, perhaps.  Bring me to be satisfied in You.  Bring me to see You, to be content with what You define as mercy.  I’m Your child.  I wait for Your great reward.  Or maybe I wait no more…. YOU are the Great Reward.  Lord, help the hurting to find You on their long hard roads.  You have brought me to the Tyson’s road.  I first was just a bystander — watching and listening.  And then You made me a cheerleader — encouraging them to keep traveling.  But now You’ve made me a traveler with them.  It is way too bizarre that on Rachel’s homecoming that there is nobody but me to pick her up at the airport tomorrow.  We’ve never even met and I’m the one they asked?  The circumstances of this whole situation extend and exceed all that’s logical.  And thus the key flag of it being You…. totally composed, orchestrated, and played by You.  How I got brought into 1st string is beyond me.  Yet here I be.  I give it to You — the Author and Finisher of all.  Lead me, Lord.  It’s Your song.  It’s Your dance.  Let the music begin and I’ll join You there.  Let there be dance.

The timing of this August 3rd prayer is all the more pensive to me because this prayer was written the day before I was to meet Rachel for the first time!  I had never met the Tysons before August 4, 2007.  I had only heard of them through a prayer request and I had done just that….. I had prayed for them.  But I had no idea that this family would become so important to me.  Oh the marvels of our God who chooses who He chooses!  It’s fascinating, actually.  And I will be eternally grateful that He chose me….. He chose me to pick her up from the airport on August 4th, He chose me to be the one to take her for her OB doctor’s appointments while Adam was still in Memphis at St Jude’s with Abel, He chose me to become a kindred spirit with His child Rachel. 

A lot can happen in 10 years.  And we do well to pause and reflect and consider!  It brings us to know that God is ALWAYS at work…… even when it doesn’t feel like it.

Psalm 42:5  “Why are you in despair, O my soul?  And why have you become disturbed within me?  Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him for the help of His presence.”

The Beatitudes  – Matthew 5:2-11   And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying:     Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.  Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.  Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.  Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.  Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.  Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.  Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.  Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.