Heaven's work

I've just hopped into bed.  My feet are up and my body is adjusting to its new posture.  I can feel the days hustle and bustle leaving...I relax. 

The lasagna is in the oven and shortly I will call for the girls to come make the salad.  Burning next to me is a candle, Wild Honeysuckle, a hint of its fragrance permeates the room. Besides the note pad that I'm scratching thoughts in, Elisabeth Elliot's book, "A Lamp For My Feet," rest in my lap.  Before I peel open the pages I sit quietly: meditating on the day.  Silently asking myself the question, "Did I make the most of my time today?  Did I accomplish the things on my agenda that I feel God wanted me to...this day?"

My lips part.  They move and quietly I whisper, "Lord give me another opportunity tomorrow to live for you.  To spend my time a lot more wisely and to purpose in my heart to please you.  Forgive me of this days sins:  the known and the unknown sins.  The seen and the unseen.  I do want to live a life where I please you Lord.  Thank You.  In Jesus' name I pray.  Amen."

Will I ever get it right?

I'm baffled by my humanness.  This sinful skin that I'm wrapped in.  I realize that this day is close to being gone, and I have not stopped even once to "give thanks" or search for gifts!  The heart weeps.  Why is the spirit so willing, and the flesh...  well it's just so FLESHLY.  So forgetful.  So sinful.  Instead of searching for gifts I got caught up in the "seemingly" important things: impostor.  "I must learn to make the most out of my time."

The Lord speaks to the heart: truth words

The house is now quiet.  I'm home alone.  I sit ...lingering in thought-talk to my Father.  Apologizing for not working His program.  He says to daughter...foolish daughter:

"Daughter today your husband wanted to spend time with you so he took you to the restaurant and made you lunch.  Then he asked you to go shopping with him for the business.  Husband said to you that you all needed some time together.  You went. {heavens work}

You helped the older children with their math lesson.  Had heart felt talks with them about character, the consequence of choices.  You laughed with them, had tea with them.  {heavens work}

You've washed mounds of laundry, changed linen, cleaned bathroom, hung clothes, swept, dusted ... {all heaven's work}

And now, now, you are looking back...you are raising your heart to gratitude in praise to me.  Showing me that you care enough to ask if I am pleased with your day.  No maybe you have not parted open the Scriptures today.  Maybe you haven't gotten on your knees today, nonetheless, your work today has been "heaven's work."

And I say to Him—my Father the righteous judge," In all that I did Lord the condition of my heart was done "unto" you.  So I guess in retrospect my day was just as Godly as it was good.  Thank You Father for allowing me to tilt my head, yet again, to get a different perspective of my view."

The work of heavy highway equipment is to smooth the way for travelers by exalting valleys, making low the mountains and hills, straightening the crooked.  Obstacles—trees, rocks, houses, even mountains themselves—are put out of the way.  This is what the Lord can do for His travelers (it is promised by the prophet Isaiah), but He does it without fuss, and in response to the one who simply thinks of Him: "Think of Him in all your ways, and He will smooth your path" { Proverbs 3:6 NEB}.
The mind can build barriers, produce huge obstacles, collide with boulders of impossibility.  Strangely and wonderfully, when we turn our thoughts to Him with whom nothing is an impossibility ( and to turn thoughts takes an act of will), He smooths the path for us.  We find it possible, maybe even easy, to move forward.
Don't waste time, energy, perhaps sleep-time, thinking of all those rocks in the way.  Think of Him.  Think of Him!  You may find your path suddenly smoothed. ~ Elisabeth Elliot, A Lamp For My Feet

Blessings.  And remember, "All is grace."