God's Timing or Random Happenings

The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord and he delighteth in HIs way. A long time ago a lady told me that she thinks the STOPS are ordered by God as well. That is something I am trying to grasp right now....because I am in a STOP position. Let me tell you....

a lovely pink explosion

the happy couple

Carlin's creation

The coffee shop has been coming along quite well. It has taken longer then we planned but it is getting done, thanks to a contractor from my church that is doing a fantastic job! However I have ordered natural gas since the middle of May and it is still not here. They told me then that it would be 2-3weeks. Its a little longer then that by now!! I am told the problem lies somewhere in a VDOT office where a new lady sits at the desk. The gas company is ready to do my job but she needs lots of paperwork that they have never had to do before. I cannot open until gas is here since my fryers and oven and water heater are all gas. We have started the final cleaning and have set up the dining room and within several days or a week we should be ready ......gas is the drawback!

I have been trying to figure out if this is all a part of God's timing or if its an annoyance I have to deal with because somewhere a woman is being difficult. I know...you are thinking that I need to commit it to God regardless of  the reason and I agree with you.... It seems to me that if I would know that this is God's perfect timing then I could rest better. But when a human being is actually making life difficult, well then it's just hard to be Ok with that. I found this quote and thought it was really good.

                    I CAN REST IN THE FACT THAT GOD IS IN CONTROL
                  WHICH MEANS I CAN FACE THINGS THAT ARE OUT OF MY CONTROL
                  AND NOT ACT OUT OF CONTROL.
So I'm sure I need to rest and let God take care of it.

Some exciting things have happened here as well! Grandbaby number 3 is well on the way and SHE will break the tie on the guy girl amount in this family. The girl number is growing! Justin's will welcome the little miss in Nov. They did a gender reveal one evening and when he shot into the ball that had been prepared ahead of time the pink powder puffed in a large cloud and this grandma did some noisy loud happy sounds! Jonathan would LOVE this! I am having so much fun buying girl clothes, toys and hair accessories. I am really terrible at fixing Mckenzie's hair tho'. It's not hard to tell that this grandma has had no experience with keeping hair out of a little girls eyes.

isn't she adorable

So by the looks of things I was not very successful in not having a garden. It is true that I thought I wasn't going to plant much. And I only planted 4 tomato plants and about that many pepper plants. And there actually were quite a few things that I did  not plant that  I normally do. I bought green bean seeds, corn seeds and sugar pea seeds and onion bulbs. The rest of the stuff was old seeds left over from last year. I had several packets of cucumber seeds and planted them all because I did not expect them to grow very well. In fact its probably the first time in 15 years that I did not trellis the plants. I didn't think it would be worth going to the extra work since last year they did horrible and I didn't pick even one. Well they grew like crazy and I have picked pickles by the buckets! And I do not want anymore after Monday. My green beans produced like crazy and I'm done with them plus a friend picked enough for 30 qt. I only planted wrinkled old potatoes from last years harvest and they are growing amazingly well. Not a bug in sight. A friend informed me that if you wait until June to plant potatoes you will not have bugs. It sure has worked here! The corn is what is making my garden look huge again. I thought I had planted all the corn we would need and I even had plenty of empty space in the garden. I planted 4 rows the first time, the next time I planted 10 rows, that was supposed to be enough for all of us to freeze for the winter and my neighbor usually wants several hundred ears to freeze. But it came up terrible! So spotty and the rows were not full at all. I was so disappointed! So I decided that I had better plant some more since it looked like we were only going to get a half crop.  And I planted 7 more rows. The garden is still not full, so I really did plant less then normal. Well about the same time that I planted the last corn it also rained. We had had a little dry spell. And of all things ....the corn seeds that had not come up suddenly popped right out!! I don't know why . I don't know that that ever happened before! It still looks really weird because the same rows have many different sizes of corn! And of course the last 7 that I planted are just growing by leaps and bounds on weeks like this with so perfect weather. So I have lots of corn planted and if no disaster strikes and the critters don't eat it all we should be a bunch of corn fed people. And I have been pulling weeds this week...it was really bad!! But, you know what? Even tho the garden is work and I really hate when it is covered in weeds, I still love the feeling of crawling on my knees through the rows and getting dirty, hot and sweaty! There is something about the clear air and green plants that help to clear my brain, that take the fog from my body caused by intense business decisions. I get to be in the garden totally alone( have you ever heard of teenagers doing garden volunteer work) with my thoughts. No, I haven't been very successful at not having a garden, but it has been good therapy.

Recently I picked up a book at Goodwill, that is still the first section I walk to when I enter Goodwill, and the title is..When God Winks At You. It is one of those little books that has short little stories that you can read anytime anywhere. He says those times when a "random" good thing happens to you it is not a happening at all but it is one of those times when God specifically did something special for you. Its like when you are at the table and you look up and someone is watching you and smiles or winks at you. That is what those "random happenings" are to you. A Godwink.

I'm going to tell you about one that came to me on Fathers Day morning June 2018. I hesitated to tell this story because it is very personal and also it is so random I could not believe God would do that for me. After reading the book I decided I needed to recognize God's kindness.

Father's Day crept up quietly on us, I knew all week it was coming but the boys and I did not talk about it. However by Sat. night it hit me that I was going to sit in church the next day and listen to a Father's Day message. I was dreading it! I went to bed thinking.....I don't want to go to church....but I have to go to teach the youth girls sunday school class....I could leave right after that....but then I'd come home and sit by myself and have a pity party...whats so noble about that? I could sit on the back pew so no one sees me cry...and on and on my sorry thoughts went. I woke up Sunday morning with the same nasty train of thoughts. I didn't want to go to church but skipping was not going to be fun either. I took my Bible and sat at the picnic table to study the Sunday School lesson. I would deal with my sorry thoughts later. I was aroused by my phone ringing and it was the church phone relay. They said ," Due to power outage at church and several homes in the surrounding area services will be postponed 1 hour and if power comes on we will have Sunday School." I listened, stunned, in absolute amazement!! Why is the power off on a perfectly clear Sunday morning in VA? No storms, no accident, no fire. Just simply no power!! How can that be? My heart took on rejoicing because now I did not need to sit through a Father's Day message fighting my emotions. I was sooo happy. But I still found it hard for me to grasp that it really was a gift from God to me. Afterall, my thoughts were not very noble. And so I only told a very few chosen people. But after reading the book I  decided it was right for me to accept it as a gift from God because He really does care about my pain. So if I actually do hit the SEND button you will see that I believe "random" happenings are God's gifts to you and me. And I have made a new determination to recognize those "random" things and thank God for them.

I also want to be very clear that I do not think preachers should stop preaching Father's Day messages because it could be hard for someone sitting in the pew. No, not at all. I simply believe that God showed me in a very personal way that He cared about my pain that day.

Tell me about your Winks from God.