Seasons

There has been a long long loooong blogging drought. I have felt a lot like a hamster in a wheel for a long time. Only I was running in place because we have been in a season of waiting.

Waiting for Lost and Found Ministries to take off. Waiting to hear what the USAF was going to do...would Big Daddy get cut in the RIF, would we move to Langley, would Big Daddy get into AFIT?? All waiting for life changing events that were out of our control.

It appears that our season for waiting is over.

Lost and Found Ministries was officially granted 501(c)3 status by the IRS this month. The USAF did not cut Big Daddy, he DID get into AFIT so we will not move to Langley. We get to stay here until next summer when we will move to Ohio.

And just like that we feel refreshed and ready to run the courses set before us! It is a hard thing to try to be ready to run when you aren't sure which way you will get to run once you are given leave to run.

In regards to Lost and Found, we have been waiting so long that it almost doesn't seem real even now.

The last four or five days EVERYTHING I have heard in church and at the ladies' retreat and in my personal time has been directed at me in applicable, challenging and encouraging ways. I don't know why the season of waiting is so hard, but it is. It seems harder than the season of running. One would think the season of waiting would be a season of rest. And maybe it is supposed to be and I just was striving within the waiting and the rest I was supposed to be having.

The sermon two weeks ago by Ty Schentzel of The Hope Center was about the crock pot of character and letting God "cook" that character in us while we are in the crock pot and that most of our life is lived in a crock pot rather than a microwave. The reason? Success before character development is disaster. Think about that.

Success before character development is disaster.

That is absolutely the truth. He talked about becoming "pregnant" with his vision for The Hope Center and waiting 7 years in that crock pot from conception to birth of the vision God gave him. The week after that sermon, we heard from the IRS. It has been 9 years from vision to "birth" for Lost and Found Ministries. I look back on those 9 years and wow have tons of things happened and changed and molded all three (and now four) of us into who we are and the team we have come to be at this point. I see how God has woven things together in regards to contacts and support we have and character development in each of us. I know I am not the same person I was 9 years ago...or the same person I was four years ago when we were state recognized but not IRS-recognized.

I could go on about the other nuggets I've been given through speakers lately. But instead I will share what I came across this morning. I've read Acts a lot. It's one of my favorite books. I love the missionary-ism of the book. :) The stories and miracles and the way God was moving is just exhilarating. So I actually read a verse I had previously highlighted....though I don't know that I had ever read it like I read it this morning. This is after Christ's death and resurrection when he was meeting with his disciples in Jerusalem before his ascension. I will back up a verse for context:

Acts 1:6-7, "So when they had come together, they asked him, "Lord will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" 7 He said to them, "It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority."

The disciples weren't asking for Him to do something bad or wrong. They were just wanting something prematurely....and 2000 years later, it is still premature. Talk about a season of waiting!

So then the next verse is one that is often quoted and the one I had focused on primarily in the past:

Acts 1:8, "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth."

Cool, eh? Here's my paraphrase:

"Don't worry about when I'm going to do what...that's for Me to know and you not to worry about. But, here's what I need for you...I'm going to give you power through the Holy Spirit and that will enable you to be witnesses for my power and salvation everywhere you go....while you wait and while you run the course I put you on."

This post doesn't really have much of a specific point other than after I read Acts 1:6-8 this morning I felt like sharing....so this is me sharing. :)

Maybe this means a blogging drought will be over...and maybe not. I learned over the weekend the importance of margin in my life so the last thing I'm going to do is add one more task I feel like I need to do. :) I'm working on tending the fields I have already purchased and tending those to grow fruit before I buy any more fields. :) (Prov 31:16)

Til next time--

T-Rae