I am well aware that I have reached the point where:
- People think I’m crazy, roll their eyes & scroll on by.
- People think I do too much when it comes to Jesus. (I don’t do nearly enough. Honestly.)
- I credit all things to God.
If you are one of these people, I want you to sincerely know, from the bottom of my heart, that you are absolutely right on all three.
And if you knew what I know, if you’d experienced what I’ve experienced, you’d be crazy for Jesus too, and giving God the glory.
If you are: praise The Lord! 🙌🏼
If you’re not, let this be your forewarning that I’m about to do all three again… so for your sanity, now may be the time to stop reading.
As some of you know, we lost everything we had in storage recently, which is fine. Things are replaceable, and God replaces.
He really, truly does.
Among my belongings, there was a journal. (Pictured above)
A beautiful leather journal with a tree embossed on it. It was a purchase/gift of sorts.
Some years ago, I received an Amazon gift card as a birthday present from one of my work team members & in obedience to God, I ordered myself a refillable journal that I could write in, which was radical in and of itself for me. In the past, I gave Michael the gift cards to use on himself because:
- It was money he could spend that cost us nothing.
- I can never decide what I want to spend my money on, so I do not buy myself anything.
I honestly don’t know if that journal & all of the notebooks that occupied it over the years are with Kaleb or lost.
I find I don’t really care.
If Kaleb has them, praise The Lord.
There are some hard years written among those pages that I would love to revisit someday. When I’m slightly more mentally, physically & spiritually recovered.
If they are lost, it is my prayer & hope that they find their way to someone who needs them more than I do. It truly is all I can do.
Pray that my loss truly is not just someone’s gain, but Heaven’s gain.
Now to the point of my story:
This morning, I received a gift from a new friend. A person I’ve barely known three weeks.
She met us with a couple of totes of things she had extras of to help us settle into our new living quarters. (If you know, you know. If you don’t, I will get to it. Promise.)
She gave us things she knew we could use. Things we needed that I just never thought to ask for: some trash bags, a couple of bars of soap, some paper towels, linens, an activity book for Ezekiel—which he absolutely loved—and among all of the different things, she included a gorgeous journal.
The cover?
A tree.
The title?
Tree of Dreams.
The funny thing is, this was not a purchase that was specifically for me, but just something she won it at work a few years ago and never used it. It had simply been sitting among her belongings until, for whatever reason, today she decided to give it to me. It was just something she had laying around she thought we could use.
It was meaningless to her yet it means everything to me because I know this was God in a way I cannot explain but those who have experienced it will relate.
She didn’t know that I journal, or that I lost my journals or what those pages held or what that journal represented to me.
She didn’t know that when I first realized the journal and notebooks could be lost, it was the one thing I felt the loss of.
We have already lost everything twice in the last 3 years.
Twice I have seen God replace it all. Literally nothing lost in that unit bothered me, (nothing of mine anyway) until I remembered the journals.
My old journal was called Tree of Life.
Michael and I spent 14 years building a life together before everything began to unravel. There was good in that life. There was bad in there too.
There were beautiful memories and incredibly painful ones.
There were things we did right and things we did very, very wrong.
But it was ours. The good, the bad and the ugly. Ours.
Over the last few years, I have watched that life slowly disintegrate to the point where some days I wonder if it was all a dream. Or nightmare.
First one piece, then another. Until one day what little we had managed to hold onto the first time around eventually disappeared too yet…
Somewhere along the way, God in all His glory did it so that the people we used to be disappeared too.
I’m incredibly grateful.
Tonight, I find myself somewhere I once dreamed of being, since I was a little girl, and I know that long and painful road led here.
I wouldn’t have it any other way. (Though I do still have some opinions about the potential detours we could’ve taken along the way.)
This isn’t perfect. There is work to do. There are things to figure out. There are still many needs, unknowns, plenty of opportunities for God to teach me lessons I would probably rather skip but will put my best foot forward just the same, for Him. He is worth it. His ways are better, no matter how I may feel about the process.
We prayed and He answered, but first, He needed to prepare us for the answer. Those people dreamed of this life but were not ready for it. There were things, about each of us individually and as a couple that needed to be
But tonight, I have more than what I need.
I am once again standing inside an answered prayer.
Living what once seemed impossible and should still very well be impossible if our finances had the last say.
Lucky for me, God gets the final say, not my bank account, and He is The Waymaker.
And for however long God allows this particular season to last, I get to enjoy something I have dreamed about since I was a little girl.
Despite the chaos I woke up this morning, with no coffee and a whole lot of gratitude for just being able to not just say “I have a home” but also “that only God could make possible.”
This has already been such an incredible week for us already, and so on this day of all days, for someone who could not possibly have known the significance of any of it to hand me a beautiful journal that had been sitting unused for years just waiting for me…
Tree of Dreams.
I don’t need to understand every detail.
I don’t need to know why something happens when it does, or doesnt, or what every little thing means.
I have learned that sometimes I simply need to pay attention to God, to trust & keep focused on Him.
Tree of Life carried the words of a life that is gone.
Tree of Dreams sits beside me as I begin writing whatever God chooses to do, teach or say next in our lives.
I couldn’t have planned that. I wouldn’t have even ask for it.
But He knew. He knew.
To God be the glory.
He is worthy of it all.
Praise The Lord.
“When the LORD brought back his exiles to Jerusalem, it was like a dream! We were filled with laughter, and we sang for joy. And the other nations said, “What amazing things the LORD has done for them.” Yes, the LORD has done amazing things for us! What joy! Restore our fortunes, LORD, as streams renew the desert. Those who plant in tears will harvest with shouts of joy. They weep as they go to plant their seed, but they sing as they return with the harvest.”
Psalms 126:1-6 NLT