In The Blink of An Eye

Can you answer these questions for me?  How can my house be shiny and tidy one day and dusty and messy the next?  How can my fridge be clean and full of good stuff one day and messed up with nothing appetizing to eat the next? How can my grand kids be struggling to stay upright on a bicycle one day and driving a car the next?  And the biggest poser of all is this, how can my grandsons who were playing "Heaven" and "David and Goliath" one day be getting married the next?

How does that all happen?  It seems like "Abracadabra" and little babies become little boys. "Hocus pocus" and little boys become young men.  Then poof, young men have become husbands.  Over night, in the blink of an eye, a snap of the fingers, the babies are gone and men have appeared in their place.  It doesn't make sense, does it?

Oh yes it does. It took those babies several years to learn what they could and couldn't do, touch and not touch, say and not say.  Many more years were required to learn to settle disputes with words instead of hands and feet, to respect and obey their parents, to work hard and cooperatively.  They needed more time still to learn about the mysterious opposite sex, handling money and busy schedules, and holding jobs.

Woven throughout all their learning was God. From a childhood game when the oldest grandson couldn't play God's guitar because it was too heavy for him to lift to the compassion of the younger brother who cried because we didn't comb Great-grandma's hair before we left the nursing home (she had had an oil treatment to her head) God was evident in their lives.  There were church services, Christian schools, mission trips and youth groups to encourage spiritual growth. And, there were the prayers of family and teaching of parents.

Many of our prayers, offered up in faith and rooted in trust, have been answered. It is so exciting to see those babies/boys/men take on the world as men of God. Even more exciting, at least to me, is meeting the young women who are now my new granddaughters. These are the little girls I prayed for years ago--unknown to me, but known to God.  I prayed for their parents, their families, their protection and their safety. I also prayed for their spiritual development. Now I am getting to know them as the beautiful women they  are.

Well, it has taken twenty plus years for all this to happen--for prayers to be answered. And, it is not over yet.  There are more prayers to be prayed, prayers for vision and guidance, children and ministries, safety and health, wisdom and faith.  Oh, the list is long.

Then, twenty years from now, which will seem like over night, in the blink of an eye, a snap of the fingers, and a poof, we will once again shake our heads and ask ourselves my original question.  Does it make sense that everything seems to have changed over night?

Of course it does.  God's plans, when we think about them, always make sense. His way is so perfect.

As for my house and refrigerator, God doesn't bring about changes there,  He has to keep me motivated to bring about order to my chaos. He is an expert at that. I wish I could do it like he does, by just speaking the words. Maybe......?

"Let the carpet be vacuumed."

 It didn't work.