Seventeen?

October 18th

 Tales from the Pumpkin Patch...

What a precocious little fellow you were.  Now that you are a man, we expect great things from you.  Keep trying to pick up the pieces, please.  

Just a mention of my personal devotions! Pray my strength in the Lord.

 Job 1:5  

And it was so, when the days of their feasting were gone about, that Job sent and sanctified them, and rose up early in the morning, and offered burnt offerings according to the number of them all: for Job said, It may be that my sons have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts. Thus did Job continually.

My Dearest “son of my Vows”,

what a bright and resourceful young man you have become.   I feel that I can share more with you now because you have struggled some in this COVID time.  I feel so much in common with you, although I am eldest child in my family and you the youngest.   So much struggle has made you very sensitive and careful as a communicator and as a peacelover in the family.  I love to watch you carefully tread through the minefield of personalities that it is your providence to endure.

This morning, it was the providence of God for me to begin the book of Job.  I really think this is my least favorite book in the bible and yet perhaps the most endearing to me.  I put on the seatbelts of my mind, every time that I get to this reading.  I prayed to God to give me strength in the form of a very deep sigh! and I pressed on.  

Lord,  this is Christmas season and you know how this book will carry me through seasons of memories that are difficult for me to get up from.  Yes I was this impertinent to the Lord, all the while knowing that He can carry me if I fall from this Christmas meditation.   “You need this right now”. I felt that His silence and comfort confirmed this and I pressed on.   Of course I can choose to wriggle free from this providence and go on to a happier book.  A less personal book, etc.

We were in the book of Job as a family in devotions, when Baby Benjamin passed away.   It always carries me right back to the last day that I held him in my lap and cradled his tiny head in my hands adoringly.

I considered rushing through the book seeing that it is 42 chapters long I thought perhaps if I read 6 books a day I can get through it in 7 days instead of dragging this all through the Christmas season.  I knew in my heart that this wasn’t going to edify my soul to rush through this difficult and blessed expression of God’s heart to me.  So I am trudging through it and I intend to drink every lesson from God as He holds my hand and walks me through the many years of Job’s life and the many years of my life where there are questions and lets me see His sovereignty, even here on earth, before I face Him in the true judgment.   I trust Him to settle my soul.  I will be 59 this year and I trust that God will renew my strength in this reading as He has so many times before.  

I ask for your prayers and hope that you will grow to know and love the Lord and see Him working in your life in His wonderful and sometimes scary ways!  Love, Mom