Grasping Yesterday or Excited for Tomorrow?

How did those child raising years go by so fast?  We have 6 kids and it still seems that it is over in the blink of an eye, leaving us a little off balance.. how do you get your bearings again when all you have ever known for the past 28 years is devoting yourself to home and family?

God has been speaking to me.  He tells my heart, "THIS is the day that the Lord has made, I WILL rejoice and be glad in IT."  This day exactly how it is!  The child-raising years are just one part of the good works that God created us to do.  They seem so long.. and in our culture we focus on them so much and in certain ways we see them as, the essence, of the best of our lives.. But that can't be.  Every stage of our lives is just as wonderful and full of potential and God's Spirit as any other.  He is never done doing AMAZING things!

When the pain of the end of this season hit my heart, his word came right behind it, Is 43:18-19.."FORGET the FORMER things!  Do not DWELL on the past.  See! I am doing a new thing!  Now it springs up, do you not perceive it?  I am making a way in the wilderness (the place where no life was previously) and streams in the wasteland."

Even now, God's new things are springing up from under the ground in our lives!  Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen (yet!)  Times of transition are times of faith. Times to remind ourself of all the good things God has done and brought in our lives from ever since we can remember!  We won't be able to doubt when we look back and see all those wonderful things He has done.  It's all in where I set my eyes.

So don't, self, grasp for those former things!  Instead, turn your eyes to the tender green grass that is shooting up even now!  Get excited, new life is coming!