...the countdown is on... skipping along the path He has for us...

it's 18 days, 9 hours, 26 minutes and 8 seconds until our wedding...

or at least that's what my countdown app tells me.. ( I am pretty sure it's accurate )

it's early and I have been up since 5, again...
after giving all the things that stress me out to my Daddy in heaven, trusting Him and expecting His peace to guard my mind and my heart,  eventually I let go of the idea that I should still fall asleep again and get my laptop out..

reading through some of the memories of the last few years that Timehop and Facebook reminded me of, I am blown away by what God has done in the last 5 years 7 months and 11 days...

this is what I wrote about 5 years ago:

"I am excited for the man I will get to share my passion for ministry with... I am excited for where He, the Lover of my Soul and Daddy in Heaven will lead me and take me.... I am held... I am where I need to be.....I am weak and vulnerable, but that's when He is strong... His grace is sufficient for me and I am  so thankful... eternally thankful....
Oh what a blessing to be used by God... what a tremendous privilege, to be part of what He is doing......... I love Him with all my soul, heart and mind....
so... whoever this letter is to... my prayer is that you would be on fire for Him, and that together we will be skipping along the path that He has for us....
I can't wait ;)"

we are about to start skipping...  we are about to start our lives together and it is exciting...

a lot has happened in those 5 years, bad things and good things, but all along the Lord has been in control,
all along He has been molding and shaping, all along He was working in our waiting,
at times He turned up the heat and brought the imperfections up to the surface to skim them and get rid of them.. He has chiseled away and, most of all, He has grown us..
He has revealed Himself during those hard years and we are so much more intimately acquainted with Him..
He has considered us worthy to face more difficulties and has shown us just how strong our faith in Him has become..

and now, in 18 days, 9 hours and 16 minutes ;) He is going to bless us even more...
through the blessing there will be new things, exciting things and difficult things, new and kind of "foreign" maybe even scary things, there will be a lot of adjusting and figuring things out, there will be a "letting go" and a "receiving" ... basically He will be continuing the refining, all because He IS going to bring to completion the good work he started in both of us..

He will use us to minster together and I cannot wait to see just how that will look...
the little battered boat Miriam will no longer sail the seas all by herself, and you have no idea how thankful I am for that.

Our God is an awesome God
He reigns from Heaven above ( in our lives )
with wisdom, power and love,
He really is an awesome God.
All Praise is due His name!

..."ifs", "buts" and Goodbyes...

on my own, not feeling very well, I kind of need to write some stuff down to try and figure it all out..

looking back to a year ago or so, I am so thankful that today I am exactly 4 weeks away from marrying the man that God brought into my life almost a year ago

a year ago today I would have been carrying most of the same burdens I carry today, dealing with some of the same stuff I still deal with today.. and I would have been carrying them on my own

a year ago today I was not sad because this man that I now love with all my heart had to leave ( and there are 11 sleeps separating me from seeing him again :O )

talking about this before he left I reminded both of us that it is a blessing to have someone in your life that it is so hard to say Goodbye to...

today I am facing some new challenges and they are a direct consequence of starting life with this man after God's own heart in a month or so..

today I have been thinking how wonderful it would be if my life had not been this broken mess. if I was now married for almost 30 years to the father of my children .. if our families had a strong and godly heritage and not the messed up dysfunction that has been my reality all along..

I have known for a very long time that ifs and buts are not helpful, but I guess being confronted with the challenges my happiness now brings to my life and the lives of my children, I was a little down today...

if I had been living happily ever after in one place and my children would not lose the home they have known for the last 5 years in the town they basically all grew up in... if I wasn't moving 5 hours to a totally different country. if we could all continue to be part of what this life has been for us over the last 20 years... and then again.. they, all but one, have already moved on and are hardly back to visit... and still, as the mother I am wanting to and am expected to provide that safe haven, that stability that is getting totally tossed up now..

I wish I would not have to leave my friends and sisters in Christ that have been such an integral part of my life for so long... I wish I wish I wish...
and at the same time I am so happy, I didn't even know there was something that amazing out there...

ok, enough of all that...

He, the God who created the Universe and all that is in it, He has been planning this all along. He, who loves each one of us so much more than we can ever even comprehend, is going before all of us and He has and will continue to make our paths straight...
He is at work in the life of my 18 year old who has to share me now... who chooses to move to a different continent to go to school, who is excited and scared at the same time, trying to figure out who she is and what life is all about... He has prepared the people she will meet and what she will be experiencing... including in this plan the good and not so good choices she will inevitably make.. working them all out for the good of her, and that's because she loves Him.. yup... I know that for a fact...
He is at work in the lives of my more grown up daughters who struggle with this change in my life and how it affects them...He will not waste any of the sad moments we all will experience because of that very joyous change in my life ..

He is trustworthy and faithful .. He is ABLE more than able, to deal with all of those things and He is going to receive all the glory that is due His name.

phew.. so good to know where to fall back on when the going is a little tougher than it usually is once in a while.

blessed to have so many that saying Goodbye to will be so VERY hard... I am rich on a deep heart and soul level... and it is all a gift from Him...