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“I will lead the blind
by a road, they do not know,
by paths, they have not known
I will guide them.
I will turn the darkness before them into light,
the rough places into level ground.”
Isaiah 42:16 (NRSV)

A journey in time.

In an effort to capture and share lessons God has taught me about His truth, strength, and most of all His love, I am going to take you on a journey.

At my birth, I was placed into the arms of two people who loved each other and the Lord.

I learned about Jesus.

“Jesus loves me…this I know.”

Through the flannel-graph lessons at Victory Baptist Church, I learned that Jesus performed miracles all the time. He used a very large fish to show Jonah that when He speaks and gives direction, He means it. When the large fish puked up Jonah, he was a changed man and headed in the direction God had told him.

And then there was a man named Zacchaeus.

“Zacchaeus was a wee little man; a wee little man was he. He climbed up in a sycamore tree, for the Lord he wanted to see. And the Lord said, ‘Zacchaeus, you come down, for I’m going to your house today.’”

What did I learn from Zacchaeus? Jesus WILL come to us when we LOOK for Him.

During those eighteen years at home, those life lessons taught me about God.

His love…His strength… His faithfulness

God was preparing me to leave the walls of that haven.

My sweet sisters, you may not know all the details or the lessons I have learned since leaving the security of the home I was raised in, but you know enough to fill in many blanks here.

Because our paths have crossed through the wonderful ministry of AWM, you know I am traveling down a path much like yours. Today, as I look back on those early years of spiritual training at home with my parents, I realize God has used every season to prepare me for everything I have faced in my life.

When the cart is empty.

Headlines: Texas Wildfires – August 30, 2011 – Midnight – Aisle 5

Steve and I stood on, let’s say, Aisle 5. We had one cart, no list, and no earthly possessions. No home. No salt or pepper, clothes, shampoo, blow dryer, or curling iron. No glass to hold water for a drink or faucet to run. Nothing to clean up, or lock up…no alarm clocks to set or bed to sleep in.

We looked at each other, no words spoken at all. Where do we start?

The cart is empty, and the list…well it was very long.

The day Steve and I came into this world, God began gathering all we would need. He began to prepare us for that day when our cart would be empty. At that time, all the thirty-nine years of marriage, filling our cart with His blessings materially, spiritually, and emotionally, were leading up to the day when our cart would ‘look’ empty.

Standing there that night, EMPTY was all we could see.

But, I want to tell you,

God does His very best work…when the cart is empty.

When ‘US’ Becomes ‘ONE’

July 17, 2016, leaving a hospital in Wichita Falls, Texas, my cart was devastatingly empty. This time, Steve was not standing with me to face this empty cart.

You and I could sit and share many wonderful testimonies of God’s faithfulness as He worked in our lives…with our husbands as part of those seasons.

But what do we do when we face the empty cart alone?

As we look back over all the seasons of our lives, we realize that God’s hand has truly been guiding, teaching, and equipping us with armor and weapons — everything we would need for all seasons coming. Even this one.

Before we even recognized our need, God was already on the scene and at work.

I pray if you are facing an empty cart in your life, you will realize God is there and is filling it!

Dear Father God, I am thankful for the precious memories we have of our husbands. I am beyond grateful that one day, we will sit down by a beautiful river and remember all You have done for us. We will be perfect and whole, and there will be no more sorrow or separation ever again. Amen