Pulling out of our driveway, turning onto streets and not giving it any thought. Driving Gideon into Charlotte three mornings a week before school, I know that right before exit 2 I need to be getting into the left hand lane and that the traffic will move faster, I know that by exit 4 I need to be making my way back over to the right hand lane or I'll be stuck in traffic. I know that if we leave before 7:15am the roads will look one way and if we leave closer to 7:30am they will be a totally other story.
I have banked at the same bank for almost seven years, it is right across from the preschool my youngest two children have attended for the last four years, I know the woman at the window is Barbara and she knows my name as Mims.
I know the back roads and the side roads and the two or three or four different ways to go to one destination.
The Fort Mill/Charlotte area is familiar. It has been home. It has been a place of great transition. We have walked the seasons of this place, as in Ecclesiastes.. it has been a time and place for all seasons. We have rejoiced and we have mourned, we have been added to and we have been pruned, and the cycles of seasons and life have come and gone
Enter change....
Jim Elliot's quote.. "He is no fool who gives up what he can not keep to gain that which he can not lose.."
The words of my friend from Virginia, telling me how on a Saturday I am going to have to be careful of traffic and where I go, run through my head.... this is after all Virginia Tech country, and it is Blacksburg, Virginia. I don't know the fullness of any of the meaning of those words. I know they are passionate concerning their Hokies and their orange and maroon. It is theirs. It hasn't become mine yet.
I know not any of their back roads, and I don't know if on a game day I either stay put at home or vacate the premise but have to do so before certain hours or after. I guess I'll have to check the times of the game.
This morning I got an email from a coach of Gideon's, they know him... they know where he is strong and amazing and yet the team has been affected by the practices he has had to miss and the times he is hunched over in excruciating pain. I had sent an email saying maybe we should sit out this AAU season, he emailed me back testifying to his knowledge of Gideon. His understanding of how much Gideon loves basketball was conveyed, and the most amazing selfless words of a coach flowed forth... Acknowledging that his health is most important, he also stated that when and if he is up for it he can always return.
Why did they write that? Because they know him.
At the school level they know him, they know that last year after missing 6 weeks he caught up quicker than they thought possible. They know he is intelligent and they know what he is capable of and they know. They know because they have journeyed with us since last year.
People, places, things..... they can not be held onto. The provision of today will not be able to meet the needs of tomorrow.
Today's "manna" will be spoiled by the morning, yesterday's is already infested with worms, not edible for today. There is not the grace to be stuck in the Blacksburg traffic of Virginia Tech football, nor is the grace for fearing what roads are known and unknown... those things lie in the future... as it is written in Matthew 6:34: "So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."
How often does the wealth of grace and peace for today get robbed away from me because I linger on the unknowns in ways that do not convey the belief that come that day there will be grace?
Instead of hearing the teasing hurtful words of the enemy concerning how I will get lost, how I will get stuck, how I will lack, what I won't have, what I am leaving behind; the taunting of the holding out of the familiar for things that are in question... instead of being tossed around, I am learning to stand in the simple provision of today...
My Father who cares for the birds of the air and the flowers of the field makes provision for me today. He watches over me and directs my path.... Does that mean that I won't get stuck for an hour as cars wait in line to enter a football stadium? No there is not that guarantee....
What there is a guarantee of is His goodness. There are many things I can not hold onto... there are many things I must hold with an open palm and not grasp tightly to... There are many things I do not know... but I am known in all things and in all moments I can acknowledge grace.
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