Hi, my name is Maggie, and I am a planner.

Admitting you have a problem is the first step, right? 

  One step forward, two steps back.  That’s what life has been lately. It’s also probably what life will look like a lot in the future as well – it’s just the name of the game working with an organization at the stage of life that Samaritan Village is in.

 

  Our current forward/backward motion, though, is in trying to follow God where he is leading us in this crazy journey.  The steps backward are due to us taking too many steps forward at a time – trying to walk in front of God doesn’t seem to be a great idea.

 

  Really it’s just my human nature wanting to have it all planned.  Wanting to have it all laid out like a map that already has the trail marked.  It’s funny how walking by faith doesn’t generally work like that.  God is the lamp unto our feet – not necessarily the streetlights to our highway – and feet move much more slowly than cars.

 

  Currently we are running into this minor issue called selling a house.  Lots of us have been there – you’re gung hoe and ready to  move where God might take you and then find out that, well, you probably paid a little too much for that house you call home.  We are right there (due to the circumstance, it was worth every penny!), and we’re trying to figure out what we need to do to said house to get what we need out of it.  You know, cause it’s hard to move to Africa when you still have a mortgage.

*Update:  after some more research, it looks like getting what we need out of the house isn’t crazy.  Yeah!

 

  Of course to God these are small issues.  Not in an insensitive, get over it kind of way.  In a ‘I’m the creator of the universe, I can handle things like selling houses’ kind of way.  I just need to let go and know that even the bumps in this path are in fact part of the path.

 

  Some of the ways that we will be serving Samaritan Village, we can do from here.  The organizational, how things flow, best practices kind of stuff.  It is also abundantly clear that they need a couple of people from here to go do a lot of work from Tanzania as well.  It’s difficult to see that need and know that we might not be able to go right now – that God may have us wait a bit.

  So, maybe we’ll end up working for Samaritan Village for a while from the States until God says it’s time to go, or maybe things will work out one bump at a time and we will end up leaving sooner than later. 

  Either way, as long as we are serving Him in the way that He wants us to, we need to be good with that.

 

Of course, it naturally raises all kinds of questions.  Do we continue to foster in the meantime?  How aggressive of a timeline do we shoot for?  Should we even have a timeline?  Oh, and, why can’t I stop planning???

I feel a tap on my shoulder.  “Maggie, I am the lamp unto your feet.  I am the light to your path.”

 

  Right now, one of the keys for me is to see His purpose and His hand in all of this.  These trials that we face en route are just as much a part of where He has us as reaching the perceived ‘end’ will be.  This is not all about the end, but also about allowing Him to grow us in the journey as he lights one footstep at a time.

 

 

Psalm 46:10

             Stop striving and know that I am God.