When I was a child I was given a needlepoint gift by Mrs Wilda Clark that proclaimed Psalm 34:4 which says “I sought the Lord and he heard me.” I still have it to this day.
Tomorrow I have to start back to work part time. I definitely never thought I would want to be a stay at home mom, but I find myself wanting only that! I have been scheming and trying to find ways to stay home, but to no avail. Tomorrow will come and I will have to go to work.
I have been praying that God would direct my life in a way that would get me more of Jesus. And I have been simultaneously holding onto the pride and comfort I get from being a mom to a thriving baby girl. Which oddly enough, has little to do with my parenting skills. My biggest excuse for not wanting to work has been that Willa refuses to drink from a bottle and how can I work if she won’t eat? I have also been praying that a million dollar check would appear in my mailbox so I would not have to even consider a job. While I do fully believe God is capable of the check-in-the-mailbox scenario, I have yet to receive it! 🙂
This morning at church we talked about Genesis 37 and Joseph and his coat of many colors. I’ll just paraphrase the good parts here: Joseph’s brothers were jealous and angry and they sold him into slavery and he was taken to Egypt.
Surely Joseph had some questions for God; surely he cried out to be delivered from those circumstances. Now, a part time job is no real slavery, I realize, but I have definitely prayed that anything else would happen so I could stay home.
But Rodney (our pastor) said something that stopped me in my tracks – the thing that Joseph was asking to be delivered from was the very thing God was using to deliver him.
God was never not at work in Joseph’s life. Every moment of his life led him to Egypt, to his position of power and to ultimately save his family.
It really did hit me like a ton of bricks – this job I have been asking to be delivered from is quite possibly the very thing God is currently using to deliver me from my pride or selfishness or any part of me that still doesn’t look like Jesus. Just like I had been praying. It just didn’t look like I wanted it to. But – spoiler alert! What my selfish heart wants is not very much like Jesus. I am thankful that God would patiently mold and make me all that he created me to be.
So tomorrow, my job starts. And tonight, my sweet Willita who has refused a bottle for the past 4 months finally drank a bottle before bedtime. My million dollar check got here just in time!
Simply Snows 