reminiscing with a great friend today about a time when both our lives where on one of those nice tracks... kids not too young anymore, busy with all kinds of fun activities, good friends, involved in the church, in small groups, exciting ministry life, vacations, year after year, no big changes, kids moving through school.. nice routines , high lights... just nice...
funny how we never even imagine that things could change... but the kids grow up, find boyfriends, move out, get married... job situations change, financial circumstances change... relationships change... not always for the better... and we do not like it...
my friend said it feels like you have been thrown in the air... funny, this is the way I used to explain how I felt... like this little train that was nicely going along in his tracks.. just to be jolted and catapulted into the air... by unforeseen circumstances.... eventually falling back down, bruised and bent out of shape... trying to find it's bearings... looking for the carts... the little ones that were attached to it... the ones it had been pulling so faithfully.... they too were damaged and hurt.... all confused...
the last 18 months we have been trying to restore some of the little train to it's old shape... sometimes with more success than other times....
some dents are only showing up now... some complications only now visible...
this train accident... not a very nice thing...
but then, there has been a brand new track... following THE track more closely.... new direction... an awareness that the One in charge of all the tracks and the trains is never more than a breath away... pushing us when we feel we can't make it up the hill, pointing us in the right direction when we come to a switch and don't know what way to go...nice...
more changes... little jolts here and there, none as devastating as that one big one was... still difficult, because, we just don't like the changes... the One, He never changes, He is the same today, yesterday and tomorrow.... He is always in control, even in the jolts, the changes, the unforeseen circumstances... He is always at work in us... and as much as sometimes we just want things to stay the way they are...He does know best....
