I’ve considered starting to write “So I was thinking…” blogs. Because I spend a lot of time thinking about things. Here’s a “So I was Thinking” blog for ya.
So today I was thinking about how God plants seeds in our lives, and when he plants seeds in our lives. Have you ever noticed when God is doing that? I’m not sure I ever have. But it sure is a neat thing to see the results of those seeds and look back and say, “Hey! God did that!” Let me share my favorite example from my life.
When I was little, my favoritest book EVER was Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst (READ IT!) I mean, five year old me could really relate to this Alexander. Poor little guy. Nothing was going his way. And nobody cared. It was just awful. I’m sure at one point I had the book memorized. If not me, most certainly my parents did. Years later, dad remembered that this was my favorite childhood book and he bought it for me as an adult. I loved it. I didn’t reread it at the time, but tucked it away to read to my children one day.
And that one day came. I pulled the book off the shelf to read to Eric, so excited to share with him a book that brought me so much joy. I smiled as I read it to him. I had forgotten the story all together by this point, so it was fun reading it again. And then I was stopped short. The book took me back, but not back to being 5 – back to my junior year of college.
Anyone who knows me, knows I am a homebody. To the extreme. Wherever I am is home and I’m not much in the mood to leave said place (whether it’s “home” or not). I never had a desire to leave the country. Fear of the unknown was paralyzing, and though it must be neat to visit other countries, I planned on leaving that to others to enjoy. But, God moved me my junior year to go on a mission trip. I didn’t know why, but I was ready to take that step and leave my comfort zone. Well, not completely.
I always knew that if I got brave enough to leave America, there was only one place I would go. Scotland. My parents had been there and gushed about it. I knew people from there, I had seen video from there, I was familiar with the food, the scenery, the accent….everything. I knew I could handle that. And it turned out that there were 2 mission teams going to Scotland. I knew the leaders and I knew the people on the team. Nothing could be more perfect. I went to sign up. Scotland was nearly full, there wasn’t much more room left. I could still sign up to go if I wanted, but they wanted to know if I would consider going somewhere else.
Uh? No? But I looked at what was available. As many of you know, I ended up going to Australia that summer. There on that empty sheet of paper was a country I knew NOTHING about, with leaders I didn’t know, and only 1 student signed up for. And I signed my named. What? What did I just do? What did I get myself into? What kind of place must Australia be if nobody wants to go? Yet…it seemed the right thing to do and I didn’t know why. I met Jim, the other student signed up to go and we pulled together a rag tag team of people to go with us. Nobody fully understanding what they were getting themselves into, but willing to serve God regardless. And it was the most amazing summer of my life. I was far more blessed than I can ever describe to you.
For years, I laughed at the craziness of it all. I didn’t know why I felt moved to go to Australia, when I knew Scotland was where I wanted to go, but I was thankful all the same.
Excerpt from Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day:
At breakfast, Anthony found a Corvette Sting ray car kit in his breakfast cereal box and Nick found a Junior Undercover Agent code ring in his breakfast cereal box but in my breakfast cereal box all I found was breakfast cereal.
I think I’ll move to Australia.
I hope you sit on a tack, I said to Paul. I hope the next time you get a double-decker strawberry ice-cream cone the ice cream part falls off and lands in Australia.
That’s what it was, because after school my mom took us all to the dentist and Dr. Fields found a cavity just in me. Come back next week and I’ll fix it said Dr. Fields.
Next week, I said, I’m going to Australia.
It has been a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. My mom says some days are like that.
Even in Australia.
Little seeds. Isn’t that neat? I watch my boys and wonder what seeds He may be planting in them right now…..
Want to know something even more neat? Because I went to Australia, I met Doug from OVC. Doug wanted me to come to OVC, but I was happy at Harding. Turn of events, and I left Harding. During my year off of school, I came in contact with Doug again. He asked me to come to OVC. I did. Guess who God had waiting for me there? :) I totally owe Alexander.
Or God. For planting those seeds! :)
T
