Little talk...

I am taking a detour from my "Bucket List" conversation to have, well, another kind of conversation. It involves fire, ashes, and a pit. Hmmm...

Earlier today I told a friend, "I just had a talk with my employees here, a pep talk of sorts. I said, "we need increased faith to go forward, we need God’s provision. No longer am I willing to live with losses, breaking even, just getting by... we must prosper. WE MUST PROSPER! It’s a new day and God has shown up. Praise His Holy Name!"

This conversation came at the beginning of our work day, but by no means the beginning of mine. It started at 3:37 AM. Just a twinge at first, in my mind, slowly becoming a full blown worry. Everything, and I do mean EVERYTHING came crashing down around me, at least in my dream, my nightmare of what I felt was coming - at least at 3:37AM.

I popped out of bed, not wanting to disturb my sleeping spouse, and headed for the dreaded bench of worry - my sofa. Yes, I have gotten to know the sofa well since starting a business of my own, and not because I take a lot of naps. But I diverge from the story...

As I lay there in the dark, I pictured my life as I feared it might be in the "future," filled with unpaid bills, unfulfilled dreams and angry people. Angry for who knows why, but possibly that was my way of expressing anger at myself for being so...well, you get it. Deeper and deeper I sank into the sofa, lost in my now 4:10 AM anxiety. Lost to faith, lost myself, lost to God. Or so I thought.

"There comes a clearing," my friend Dean Rhodus once wrote. Well -

So I come to work. Not intending to be a leader, not thinking that leadership is even possible with the state of mind I had awoken in. But as I talked with my colleagues, my past kept coming to mind, miraculously, thinks I. Not the negative cassettes I often play, but the many moments of triumph, victory, answered prayer, relief. Then the story, my story of once having NO money, a huge financial need and two weeks in which to pay it. I told the story to Erik and Rachel. Subdued at first, but growing more animated as I recounted the slow rise from defeat to victory. The dread of the journey at first, but the rising chorus of victory as miracles began to happen. And happen they did, one conversation at a time, one step (read leap at first) of faith, one push through the fear. This was a "hard work miracle," God at my side, me dialing the phone, getting people excited to send me on my missionary journey. It was amazing!!!!! I believed first, then it HAPPENED. Do you, can you imagine my surprise that something actually worked?

I said in my post of a few days ago that Jesus often shows up in the light of the past. That's where we can say, for certain, YES, I SAW HIM, I SAW HIM, HE WAS RIGHT THERE BY MY SIDE! He did not abandon me then, HE WILL DO NO DIFFERENT NOW. He is here to stay! Can you see HIm? I can. He is there, as surely as, in 1986, he took me to India two weeks after I started the long, dreaded journey to pay my obligations. A journey that was neither long, nor difficult.

There comes a clearing...for you and me.