For over seven hours we were at the hospital yesterday. During Tom's surgery I sat at a tiny Bistro table in a windowed corner and read A Year On Ladybug Farm, drank coffee, ate snacks and stared out at the bare trees and grey, grey skies. Then during Tom's recovery I sat beside him, stared out more windows and watched the nurses and listened to patients ordering ginger ale. It felt almost like a bar back there with fellow non-alcohol drinkers, but of course.

How wonderful to arrive home! I printed out your notes for Tom (and those at Facebook, too) and he wanted me to tell you thanks for your kindnes, prayers and good wishes. He appreciated them so very much.

And now we enter the healing season...

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Bonnie in Nebraska left an interesting comment to my previous post about keeping Jesus, first:

"I have been holding onto something sooo long. When it becomes part of you (as often things do when we hold onto them for dear life), it becomes difficult to figure out if God put it there or if we did. Any thoughts on this?"

I smiled at the, "Any thoughts on this?" part for, alas, Debra has thoughts on everything. heh. That's what buys her trouble sometimes.

But here is the short version of my thoughts concerning Bonnie's question:

Often one of two things happens. One, it's possible to throw ourselves into a 'ministry' (or a job, a calling, a years-long good deed fest) which God never even asked us to do. And then, along the course, we begin grabbing from this ministry lots of 'food' to feed our ego and make us feel special or needed or important. When actually? It's Jesus, Himself, who desires to meet those specific needs of our heart.

So when He begins convicting us about leaving that self-appointed ministry, we panic. Where will we be without all those kudos which have been keeping us going? Or we might disguise that thought with, "What will the people do without me?" But shouldn't the goal be, "How can I help these people appreciate Jesus more?"

Or the second thing? God, Himself, did choose a ministry/calling/job for us and we did just as He asked. For awhile. But then all the me, me, me stuff which I mentioned, above, takes root in our heart and what began as a ministry to and from and about God becomes all cloudy and turns into a ministry to and from and about us. And it's just as possible to delude ourselves into thinking we're still all about helping others and obeying God when, along the way, it became about helping ourselves.

Of course, sometimes God just finishes using us in an area. But if we're too connected? It's as though we're left sitting upon a dead horse, shouting for it to run! as it once did.

Trust me. I know about this one, for I've done it both ways. I've started out wrong and ended up wrong and started our right and ended up wrong, too.

But oh, how it blesses God's heart--and the hearts of others--when we start out right and finish right.


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Proverbs 16:2

"All a man's ways seem innocent to him,
but motives are weighed by the Lord."

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Have an extra two minutes? You might like this post from another blogger along similar lines.