Pivotal

Life brings those sudden, pivotal moments when you realize something unexpected has just occurred that has altered the way things are from that point forward.  And they happen all the time.  Isn't it amazing? 

While in the midst of all the election hate mixed with some decent true debate where both sides of the fence are actually honoring each other while sharing different opinions, (which by the way breeds so much respect from me no matter what side of the fence they are on.  The other... the hate words, the continuous posting of degrading pictures and comments towards one side or the other... it just makes me disappointed to say the least.) I experienced one such moment. 

It was last Sunday evening.  I was sitting in my car, praying for total strangers from a horrid wreck I had just come upon about 2 minutes after it happened on Interstate 20, about 6/12 hours from where I live.  People had already responded and emergency dispatch had already been called, so I stayed away and did what I could... I prayed.  I was very overwhelmed at what I had seen and became even more sad than I had already started the drive feeling--I had just said goodbye to my mom after a wonderful weekend visit where we met somewhere in the middle and did nothing but sit in a hotel and laugh and talk. I wasn't in the accident congestion long because I came upon it very soon after it happened and avoided the traffic that was backing up instantly behind me.  But just a short while later, I hit total stand-still in traffic again.  I was unsure of the cause and feared another wreck was ahead.

I have gotten used to traffic jams since moving to Houston.  You don't get on I-45 or any interstate headed downtown that you don't hit the traffic... no matter the time of day (though there are worse times of day and I have learned those also!).  I have learned to plan accordingly and use the time wisely.  I have learned I can either complain and view it as wasted time... or do something productive as I creep along.  One of my favorite things to do now is to search the stations for some good preaching. 

Sunday, in my sadness over goodbyes to my mom and over what I had witnessed, I was searching as fast as I could.  I needed a God diversion... and fast! The verse in the bible, "ask and it shall be given to you", so many times really means I have to wait for what I have asked for.  But never, ever, ever does God make me wait for Him to speak in His word.  It truly is alive... and I am certain, were no other man or woman to walk on this earth right now but me, He would have given that book just for me.  It's that personal.

So Sunday I said, "Okay God, I need a diversion.  Please show up on the radio.  I have 7 hours ahead and I don't want to spend it all twisted in emotions." 

BOOM.  There He was.  Speaking through a pastor that I didn't catch the name of.  I wish I had.  I would podcast all his sermons.  But God must have not wanted me to mistake the pastor as the messenger.  It was God. He was speaking to me through an anonymous source.  Wowza!

The sermon had nothing to do with what I was feeling or thinking, but instead, God refocused me to the things ahead.  Amazing, right? 

I have been teaching some teens about end times.  It is always so exciting to me... and overwhelming.  We did several weeks on it and then put that away for a while and plan to come back to it again.  I have found if we take it in pieces and digest it, it sticks.  So we are onto another topic now, but I am still processing and muling over all that God continues to enlighten in His word about the continually confusing prophetic teachings of end times.  Sunday, He threw me deep into it again... but it was built around the election coming on the following Tuesday. 

I did not early vote.  I don't know why, but this year I felt very strongly that I wanted to do it on the official day.  Sunday evening, it hit like a brick on the head on why I felt so strongly about waiting until that day.  I needed God to speak to me through that pastor BEFORE I voted.  It changed everything about my feelings going into the vote... and while I watched the results...and of course listened to the horrid bantering. 

I do not intend to even speak towards who I voted for, why, or what I think of the outcome.  My word, there is enough commentary both positive and negative on either side of that coin to last us into the 30th century!  Please know I have a strong view and deep convictions, and should a point come when my speaking those is vital, I will not stand down.  However, ranting on social media isn't my idea of vital. 

But as I listened to this sermon, I hit an unexpected pivotal moment in my spirit.  It didn't change who I voted for or why I voted the way I did.  Instead, it deepened my convictions of just what it is God is up to. There were/ are things I have been questioning and digging deeper on in scripture based on what I have been teaching those teens and questions I have in my own mind about the ever difficult book of Revelation and trying to pair it back with the prophecies of old.  Man did this man absolutely have to be Holy Spirit speaking.  It's like it dealt with exactly where I have been residing. 

I listened for about a solid 45 minutes with traffic barely creeping along. I am pretty sure God set the construction on that highway in that location, knowing I would hit the deadlock at just the time He planned to communicate with me. When the sermon was finishing the traffic was opening up and I was on my way.  The timing was unquestionable for me.  Some would try to lessen it to coincident.  No way.  Just absolutely NO WAY!

After he prayed, and I prayed with that unknown man through the radio, as if we were knelt at the alter holding hands, I turned the radio off and drove for quite some time in silence.  I so wanted to write down everything I had heard.  I am a strong note taker.  I am quick and fast and can catch almost every detail I desire to remember.  But I was driving and that wasn't possible.  So I tried to digest over and over the reflections from it so that it would bank deep within and not leave me before I could get home.

Now keep in mind, just before I left the hotel, I had turned to pick something up and before I even touched my hand on it, my back cracked and spasmed and for the first time, I felt what it feels like to throw a back out.  It hurt and as the day went on it hurt more and more.  So by now, sitting in a deadlock on I-20 with still over 6 hours ahead, I was really hurting.  I could just feel the hot breath of Satan trying to distract and destroy the treasures I had just received. Stupid Satan... so obvious sometimes! 

It made me so mad.

So I combated that sinister snake and rebuked his attempts and just drove, dwelling on the rich words of my Father.  After a while, I found a station and got my singing on and drove on in almost in no thought at all... about the sadness of the wreck, the loneliness of goodbyes to my mom, so far away from me again, or the burdens I feel over the ugliness surrounding the election, or the opinions of those that disagree on both sides.  I never got sleepy on the drive.  I didn't feel much other than I sang. 

It was one of the coolest drives home I have ever had. 

I thought at first I would get in and write it all down.  But by the time I got home, I felt no need at all.  And I haven't until now.  Yes, partly because I have been feeling like a 90-year-old all week and just trying to survive teaching my energetic darlings that don't slow down because my back aches, while also trying to be somewhat attentive and less whiny to my family as well  because of it. 

But even more, because I just felt like God had pressed something deep into my heart and if I don't remember all the details right now, then maybe I am not supposed to.  Maybe it is for a time in the future.  Either way, I have just felt sure it is there... He planted it... and when I need to regurgitate it, it will pour out of my heart. 

How cool is that?

(and by the way, I heard through the grapevines that saying cool, really isn't cool anymore.  Maybe I am closer to 90 than  I am to teens, than I care to realize!  Haha!)

Then this morning, I was passing a school in our community.  For a long way before I arrived, there were tons and tons of flags lining the road, with signs that said, "Please slow down, Service in session."  I had my little 8-year-old with me and we quieted our radio and drove at barley 10 miles and hour.  When we got closer and I saw the sign of what was taking place, we pulled over.  Neither of us spoke for a while.  I rolled my window down and closed my eyes while tears streamed down my cheek, as I listened to them dedicate a memorial bench in honor of a local fallen soldier. 

I cried for his parents, his family, his community.  And I cried for our country and our world. 

And then, I smiled and got excited because a week ago, I was given treasures.  They resonated all day on election day.  And today, as I felt so sad for those hurting over their hero, my heart poured out just what I needed to remember the treasures again. 

Oh! MY GOD! HOW GREAT THOU ART! ... and by the way Father, please hug my sweet little boy today in all your greatness of compassion, because as You already know, I miss him every day, but the time is in season where I ache to my very core for him.  And thinking of those hurting for their fallen war hero today, just makes it all so fresh and instant for me again too.  But OH MY GOD!  HOW GREAT THOU ART!

Love you each one that are reading this.  Whether I know you or not.  Today, democrat, republican, lost or saved, I choose to love you... why?  Because HE first loved ME!!!!

Robin