The Way God Works

        I don't really know how God works but that is the miracle of life.  And finding out how He works comes usually after having experienced something beyond explanation.   It's a fact that my reality of the moment is often skewed by my lack of faith and fear of the unknown.
      I have a special memory that is still clear in my mind of something that happened a long time ago in Coyhaique, Chile.  Bruce and I were visiting for the first time.  We had left our three, then very young children, with their grandparents in Puerto Rico.  I was still in the baby fog years.  That is when thought processes are so slow that you find yourself in situations such as a soaking rain and not realizing you are wet till much too late.  In those years of fog, I knew when things weren't right, when I felt uncomfortable, and when I should try to care about what was going on around me but I often never wholly got there.
     I became more aware of this as we put miles between myself and my babies.  I think on that long eight hour flight; I must have looked at my sleeping husband beside me and really noticed him for the first time in years. I began to see him as a person with needs instead of my provider of physical needs.
       I also became of aware of my own extreme need of a deeper relationship with God.  Somehow, between all the stinky diapers and buying of food and making meals and cleaning endlessly, I had laid aside all personal desire to go deeper with God.  I was functioning on a strand of a Bible verse here and there, never constant, never sure.
     By the time we arrived on solid ground in Chile, I was starting to see, hear, and smell things.  My senses were in better working order than they had been in a very long time; probably because I didn't have to hover over kids, direct or address bad manners and stress about all the things I would normally stress about.
     I saw God at work that week in Chile and He used three different ladies.  The first one was in the home where we were hosted.  I knew this lady already as part of my church family but seeing her in Chile, smiling happily, while making meals on an old, cook stove and doting on her husband and children while living in a rundown shack with poor electricity, deeply inspired me.  She never complained. Not one time.  And she was agreeable and generous.  All things that were unlike myself and I was only just realizing it.
     The next lady was also a part of my church family in Idaho.  She and her family were trying to settle in for the long haul in Chile.  They were finding it difficult to find a place to live and were moving from place to place.  She was tired of the ups and downs of thinking they were moving, then something would come up and they couldn't yet.  One of those times were when we came into town to do a little shopping and to visit them.  This lady gulped back tears of frustration and left everything to go shopping with us because that is what her husband decided would be the best thing for that particular afternoon.  I saw her struggle of wanting to scream at the world, "No, not today!" But I also saw surrender.  I saw her giving up what she most desperately wanted and peace and joy fill her face afterward.   It was God at work in a woman's face.   He allowed me to witness this, using a facial struggle, the battle of the will, to show me Himself.
     On Sunday, we visited a church in Coyhaique, an evangelical church of some kind.  I don't remember the name of it anymore, but I know God was there that Sunday morning.   The service was in Spanish.  The singing was loud and full of life with a guitar, a keyboard, and drums.  There was also a projector for the words of the songs; so while I didn't understand a lot of Spanish, I could read it and fairly accurately make out the meaning of the words.  The songs that morning were about seeing, knowing, and feeling God presence in our lives.  Then we sat down and the pastor got up and began his sermon in rapid fire Spanish.  I understood the passage he selected, Marcos 10: 46-52.  It was about blind Bartimaeus receiving his sight.  It was spot on with my newly found senses.  I was already amazed,  my heart being flooded with lightness and a hunger for more, then the lady right behind me, leaned forward in her chair and said, "I feel led to interpret for you this morning, Is this OK?"  At that point, my heart was too full to speak, but I nodded my head.  God spoke through that woman; all the words of Jesus made clear by her obedience to a nudge she felt from God.  Afterward, I gave her a quick hug and told her thank you with tears shining in my eyes.  Her smile was humble and kind as she told me, "You are welcome, God bless you!"
     My sister Arla, Who writes on this blog:stonehousescribblings.blogspot.com, is dreading and also looking forward to giving a speech to a group of young ladies this week.  She feels inadequate and isn't sure how she will reach them and with what words.  Dorcas Smucker, the author of this blog: Life in the Shoe, recently wrote a post about this very thing, and her experiences with speeches.
       The point is that God uses unusual means to make His entrances to your heart, and the thing you thought you had of value to share might not be the thing that gets noticed at all.  God uses messes, mistakes, and disappointments of broken people to show His Ways and Mighty Power into your own personal life.
      So, whatever you have to share, whether it is in writing or giving speeches or grueling physical labor, share it humbly, simply, and unashamedly.  God will sift though the chaff of all those things and use what He wants, the way He wants.