Miracle #4!

It's 5:20pm.  What I should be doing is preparing dinner for my family.  What I want to be doing is pouring my heart out on this blog.  I guess it will have to be a little bit of both...I just paused to boil some water.  Our luggage saga continues...we're almost to Day 10.  Our bags are still missing and this morning was another two hours of filling out paperwork for the airline headquarters.  Needless to say, this has been a stressful situation.  But, why?  Well, obvious reasons I guess.  It would be stressful for anyone to lose their belongings.  However, it hit me today that I have been letting this get to me way more than I really should.  I have so much to be thankful for.  I still have my husband, my kids, my family and my friends.  We didn't lose ALL our belongings.  Maybe some favorite things, but we still have our home and everything except what was in those two bags.  There are a few things in my bag that are pretty much irreplaceable.  But, they are just "things." 

I remember a time about 14 years ago when I was in the middle of packing up my things to move back into my parents' house after my divorce (If you don't know me well, you may not know that I was previously married when I was very young.)  Anyway, I had kept several cardboard boxes in a detached garage that were filled with various things like books, older clothes, paperwork, etc.  However, there was a box that held almost everything that I had kept from my childhood.  There were my girl scout uniforms, my vest full of patches, clothing and gifts that my Dad had brought back from various countries, a jewelry box that my Gramma gave to me when I was a young teen, all of my high school t-shirts that were painted for football games and senior year, my graduation cap, a quilt that my great-grandma made me when I was a baby...the list goes on and on.  Out of all the boxes in that garage, only one was completely destroyed.  Can you guess which one?  My box of precious memories.  What was even worse was that it was destroyed by sewer rats.  Apparently my great-grandma's quilt made a very nice home for them.  The smell was revolting and nothing could be saved.  I was already experiencing so much "loss" at the moment that it was almost more than I could handle.  Earlier in the day I had been working on dividing up our dishes, pots and pans, furniture, etc.  I was losing my marriage, my step-son, (who I dearly loved), my truck, my house...it was heartbreaking.  Losing all of my sentimental things was the topper of my emotional meltdown.

I have to admit, I cried for a week about those things that meant so much to me.  Some of them were things I had hoped to pass down to my kids.  In the end, I realized that they were just "things."  I got over it.  If our bags are never recovered, I know I will get over that as well.  It's amazing how quickly our focus can get skewed.  We can so easily get distracted from what's really important in life.  (Hang on, I need to answer the phone...)

NO WAY!!!  That was a very nice man from the airline calling to say he has our bags in his possession and that the driver will be here within the next four hours to deliver them!  Praise God, Praise God, Praise God!!!  I wish I could upload a video of my happy dance I just danced.  Unfortunately, that would be extremely embarrassing and something I would never want on YouTube.  I am so excited!  Wow, OK, so the rest of this blog will be very different from what I had planned.  God's timing is perfect.  I think he was just waiting for me to completely give up this situation to him.  I mean really give it up, which I did about an hour ago.

Why do we wait so long to trust the Lord completely?  Why do we hold onto things that we have no control over, somehow thinking that we still have control?  We would spare ourselves so much grief if we would just trust him instantly and let His peace flood our lives, taking away our anxiety.  What an amazing lesson this is for me tonight!  You would think I would have learned this long ago, especially since I've even blogged about it before!  You must know, everything I write on my blog, I write for my own benefit as well as the people reading it.  It sounds strange, but I guess I kind of learn from myself.  Actually, I learn from the Holy Spirit.  From now on I will try to learn a little more quickly.  His still, small voice is what tells me, "Hey, everything is going to be OK.  Trust me.  It's in my hands."  Yet, He can't force us to trust him.  That is a choice that we make all by ourselves.

So, I am completely trusting in the fact that my bag will be in my hands in a matter of hours.  I will rejoice when I open it and see all of my "things."  But, you know what?  I would have rejoiced anyway, even if I never saw my things again.  That is how I know I'm trusting God...and I will never doubt Him again.