This week God has answered SO. MANY. PRAYERS.  I really can’t tell you about any of them, but trust me when I say He has been coming through BIG TIME!

So why am I sitting here on a Friday afternoon in a grumpy old funk?  Because I’m letting some ‘things of this earth’ cloud my view of my ‘treasures in heaven’.  It is really that simple.  Yet I can’t shake it.

And, truly, I’ve even been blessed this week by some of the ‘things of this earth’.  I am well-fed.  I’ve made it to the gym three times. I have worked with a half dozen students.  My husband made it across the state and back in the middle of this treacherous winter.  Our car continues to start even when the temperature is well below zero.

In fact, there are really just a couple little ‘things’ that are bumming me out.  Our tax man called to tell us the opposite of what I hoped he was going to tell us. (I’m telling you, God really wants me to learn this trust lesson right now.) And, we had to cancel a trip to see the grand baby because of a winter storm warning.  In the grand scheme of life, these are small potatoes.  I can’t tell you how many financial crises we have survived through the grace of God.  I can’t tell you how many trips to see family or friends we have had to postpone due to weather.  These things, too, shall pass.  So why am I letting them cloud the joy of all the answered prayers I have personally witnessed this week?

Because I am a selfish human being.  I want things all figured out.  I want what I expect.  I don’t like change.  I am still learning to be still and know that He is God and I am not.  I am such a slow learner.  Funny, I know.  The teacher struggles to learn.

Here’s what I am going to do.  I am going to give myself exactly sixty minutes to wallow in disappointment and self-pity.  I am going to feel totally horrible about the fact that we have to pay more money to the IRS.  I am going to mourn the fact that I am not going to get to hold ten pounds of sweet-smelling perfection this evening. Then, I am going to pick myself up, dust myself off, and fully celebrate.

Because I have so much to celebrate!  I have a team of friends that has been praying with me over a situation for about two weeks.  The strength of that team has bolstered me when I have felt like sagging and flagging and dragging.  They have asked, sought, and knocked with me.  They have been relentless.  Not only that, my favorite person in the world, my husband, has been walking with me hand-in-hand through the ‘all things’ of life.  He has been my confidante, my teammate, my partner, my encourager.  And most important of all, the Creator and Owner of all things, the Great Teacher, the Father of all, and the Commander of the Weather has promised to “work all things together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose” (Romans 8: 28).

Can I trust that right now?  Can I trust that a tax bill and a cancelled trip can be knit into God’s plan for good for me and those that I love?  Why not? He has worked much greater and much lesser things into goodness in my life.  Why, oh why,  would He stop now?

Ok, maybe I won’t need the full sixty minutes.

Psalm 28:7

The Lord is my strength and my shield; in Him my heart trusts, and I am helped;

my heart exults, and with my song I give thanks to Him.