Ready, Set, Go!

Sunday, 17 Aug 2003

I suggest that you finish what you started a year ago--
2 Corinthians 8:10
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Last October we drove to Tahoe to celebrate Phil's first birthday in heaven and what would have been his 17th birthday here on earth. On our way to Tahoe, we stopped in Sacramento and ordered the home we live in today. This home sits on six wheels, is 39 feet long, has approximately 400 square feet of living space and hooks up to a medium duty Freightliner. Five and one-half months after ordering our new "home," we took possession of it, and have been living in it ever since March.

While living in it, we have taken a few small trips, but nothing huge. We have, for the most part, continued on with our lives here in the Bay Area--thanks to our kind friends who have allowed us to park our home on their property for the last four months.

With our old home now occupied and the passing of time to prepare our hearts for departure, it looks like we will be pulling up stakes in the near future. We are ready--ready for what God has waiting for us out there, wondering just what that might be, and excited to see. After Jim and I discussed this recently, not sure if it was time, I read this passage in Corinthians.

Now you should carry this project through to completion
just as enthusiastically as you began it.
2 Corinthians 8:11
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I wondered, is that you talking to me God? So many times I have turned to the Word and found the answer I was seeking. So many times God has answered my prayers in that way. Was He doing it once again? It seemed so.

The comfortable, easy thing to do now is to stay put. To remain where we are parked, enjoy the deer outside our door, get to know our new friends even better, and not risk anything. But, is that what God is calling us to do? I doubt it.

Since first ordering our new home in October, God has provided everything we have needed to prepare for life on the road. He has given us the time to get ready, helped us tie up loose ends that needed tending to, and continued to heal our hearts for a new adventure.

Now comes the time of decision...and time for another step of faith. Why does our human side get scared at times like this? Why do we question if we are on the right path? If this is really what God intended all along? The spiritual battles begin in the mind, and if allowed to overtake our thinking, could destroy a wonderful plan that God has for our lives by invoking fear into our souls to the point of causing us to freeze in our tracks--to not move, and to miss out on God's great blessings.

In 1989, I sat in our living room in Fremont, California. We were preparing to move to England for four years, and I remember wondering why? As the sun came through the window, I remember thinking how perfectly happy I was right there...what were we doing? We did leave for England soon after, spending two years there and then another six years in Germany. Those were some of the best years of our lives, and a decision we never regretted. The people we met, the things we experienced and the amount of time we were both able to spend with our boys were truly gifts from God. But we didn't know then, what we don't know now...what the future held when that decision was made.

Look here you people who say, "Today or tomorrow
we are going to a certain town and will stay there a year.
We will do business there and make a profit." How do
you know what will happen tomorrow? For your life is
like the morning fog--it's here a little while, then it's gone.
What you ought to say is, "If the Lord wants us to, we
will live and do this or that." Otherwise you will be
boasting about your own plans, and all such boasting is evil.
James 4:13-16
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Back in 1989, we had three young boys ages 3, 8 and 11. Jim had a good job that was taking him overseas and would provide wonderfully for our family. Still, it was difficult to pull up stakes and leave our families behind as we left for this new adventure. But, we did, and we were never sorry.

Today, we still have three boys, but they are not so young. Jimm is 25, Chris is 22, and even though Phil will be forever young, he now lives on eternally in heaven. It is just the two of us now in our 39 foot home, and we are starting a new life. What seems like the second half of our lives. Some say we are pretty young to be looking at the second half of our lives already, but we wasted no time in getting started. We were married at 19 and 20, and started our family soon thereafter. Thus, leaving us in our mid-forties with the freedom to venture out to wherever and for whatever God calls us to.

The only thing that would stop us now is fear.
Fear of the unknown because we are not leaving with a secure job that will provide for us along the way. We are stepping out on faith that God will provide the jobs when needed and the places to stay. We will be living each day looking for God's provisions and His blessings. Fear could stop us right here and now, but then the problem would be:

Remember, it is a sin to know what you
ought to do and then not do it.
James 4:17
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We know that God has brought us to this point. We know that He has provided our new home, has taken care of our old home, and has prepared our hearts for this very moment in time, and so if we don't take this step of faith, is it sin? I believe so!

Would God send lightening down from heaven to strike us?
I don't believe so.
Would we miss the will of God for our lives?
I do believe so, or a great part of it anyway.

In Gerald L. Sittser's book, "The Will of God as a Way of Life," he says:
"God will always love us, always forgive us, always welcome us home no matter how wayward we have been. But disobedience can change our minds about God." He says "it hardens the heart."

When you lose someone, there may be only two courses of action. The heart can either soften to allow God to mold it as He chooses, or it can harden to keep God out of it. There may not be much middle ground with either one of these choices. One makes us vulnerable to the love of God and His will, one distances us from His love out of mistrust and unbelief in a god who could ever allow such a horrible thing to happen. The only middle ground may be the time spent between one of these two courses of action, and that middle ground could last our whole lives I suspect, if it's the one we choose.

Jim and I have chosen the path of allowing God to mold our hearts. We have chosen to believe that God is still good, that He is still in control, and that He does have a perfect plan even if at times it causes our hearts to break completely apart and be in need of repair.

We have chosen to dedicate our lives to Him and follow wherever He chooses to lead us, and since we now live on six wheels, pulled by six wheels on our truck, in our fifth wheel "home," that could be just about anywhere the road goes.

C.S. Lewis says, "If we start to feel secure, we will try to make the world our permanent home. Our Father refreshes us on the journey with some pleasant inns, but will not encourage us to mistake them for home."

Where we sit now in Castro Valley, has been a very pleasant "inn." If we make it our permanent home, we miss the next step along the journey. God is calling us to our eternal home, but in the meantime, he is calling us to keep travelling toward Him here on this earth. For some that may mean living in the same town, perhaps even the same house all their lives as they "journey" through this life following God's will for them there. For us, it means actually pulling up stakes and venturing out across America, following God's will for us there. The time is coming soon to do just that.

This last Thursday I gave my notice at work. I'm leaving the job that I love at the church because it is time. Not because I want to, not because it is easy, but because if I make it my "permanent home" because it is safe and comfortable, I may miss out on what God may be truly calling me to do for Him. Life is much too short for that.

I wondered the other day, if my time were short, what would I be doing? I know that it would be exactly what I am doing now. That is a good feeling. I know how quickly life can change. I know about those kinds of phone calls, those kinds of diagnoses, those life-changing moments in time. They weren't for me, but since they were for my child they might as well have been. Phil's life, his diagnoses affected almost every part of me also. When the doctor called that day in April to say the cancer had returned once again, I took the call, I delivered the news to Phil, I sat on the couch with him and cried with him as if it were my very own body. He was part of me and we were as close as any mother and child could be, my whole life was affected too.

As he got sicker and sicker, he sat on that same couch slowing down as the days went on. I sat there with him one day and explained to him as kindly as I could that he may not get better again. That if there was anything he wanted to do, to let me know because we should do it now. He calmly said that he had done most everything except to visit the Aquarium in Monterey, and we were going to do that on Friday, and we did.

Was his life well-lived? I believe so. Not that this world offers all that we need, only our Father can do that, but God gave us this world to enjoy for the time we are here, and we can do that.

Stop loving this evil world and all that it offers you,
for when you love the world, you show that you do not
have the love of the Father in you. For the world offers
only the lust for physical pleasure, the lust for everything
we see, and pride in our possessions. These are not
from the Father. They are from this evil world. And
this world is fading away, along with everything it craves.
But if you do the will of God, you will live forever.
1 John 2:15-17
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It is okay to have possessions, it is okay to have physical pleasure, to enjoy what the world offers, but we must hold it all with an open hand. We must never cling to it so tightly that we lose sight of what is most important--our relationship with Jesus Christ and His saving grace. When that saving grace becomes the center of our lives, when Jesus Christ is above all else and we will follow Him anywhere, the rest is just the cherry on the top. It just adds to the enjoyment of life, but it is not an integral part of what makes us tick. The will of God is what makes us tick, and living forever with Him gives us our only true hope.

Phil knew his only true hope was in Jesus Christ. He knew he might have to leave this world, and it looked like it might be soon. His hope was alive in Christ, while his body was finishing up with the things of this world that he did enjoy. It was a pleasure to help him do just that.

I may not have tomorrow, but I do have today. Jim and I have today together, and today we choose to give our lives and our whole hearts to serving our God in heaven. We choose to follow the path that will lead us to Him and to seeing our son again. It is what brings us joy, and it's what gives our lives purpose when this world does not hold our attention like it once did. When even the Alps in Austria, the flowers in Germany, the rolling green hills in England--although very beautiful--fade in comparison to what God is preparing for us all in heaven.

It is by our actions that we know
we are living in the truth, so we will
be confident when we stand before the Lord,
even if our hearts condemn us. For God
is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.
1 John 3:19-20
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Someday, we will all stand before the Lord. How confident will we be? Those are the decisions we are making today. To live for ourselves, or to give ourselves completely over to God and to live for Him. When we give up all, we gain so much more. When we lost our son, it seemed that we had lost everything but it was only the beginning of all that God wanted to do in our lives.

An easy road? NO, not at all! But well worth every mile travelled when our focus is on what is waiting at the end--an eternity of never having to say good-bye again, and standing before God confidently having lived our lives for Him and Him alone.

I suggest that you finish what you started a year ago--
2 Corinthians 8:10
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Come October, we will celebrate Phil's second birthday in heaven, what would have been his 18th year on this earth, by pulling up stakes and finishing what we started a year ago--what we believe God started and is His will for our lives. It is the unknown, it will have its rough spots along the way, but there will be plenty of golden sunsets, colorful rainbows and starry nights to enjoy also.

Phil knew this was a dream of ours before he ever left this earth. Our other two boys live on their own and are doing so well--we know God has provided for our departure. We hope to see many of you along the road of life, and share God's goodness with you as I continue to write along the way.

Living in His peace and joy,
Diane