Ever notice...

....how when you're waiting for something really, really, really important to happen that TIME sometimes doesn't seem to cooperate?

I'm thinking in particular about my dad---he and my mum and brother were hit by a drunk driver back in November and the residual effects/post-whatever/"after" of that event have been astronomically great in our life. Nothing is the same and nothing is simple.

It seems like it's been such a LONG time since November and we've been waiting and waiting and waiting for Dad to "get better," yet the better part has been slow-going. We get better to a certain point, and then stuff happens and we have to get MORE better. Like better isn't good enough...we need to get better-better, whatever that is.

This Thursday Dad's going in to have his shoulder/rotator cuff repaired for the second time. He'll be on no duty/light duty for TWELVE WEEKS! I look at that and wonder why on earth couldn't the first 11 surgeries have been good enough---why do we need to have yet another surgery? Why do we have at least 3 more on the docket? Why can't we just be done with this whole ordeal? Some days the adage, "One step forward, two steps back" is so vividly personified in our life. My dad is literally taking steps forward, inch-by-inch, foot-by-foot----yet we are continually sideswiped by other problems. Progress in one area; setbacks in another. Joys and sorrows. Highs and lows. Hope and frustration.

What gives? What's God trying to teach us? Are we really this thick-skulled/hard-headed that we don't get it? Or perhaps we've gotten it and He's simply reminding us that HIS TIME isn't necessarily OUR TIME and we have to rely on HIS SCHEDULE? Or maybe He's teaching us patience and dependence? Perhaps He's trying to get our attention? I have SO many questions, yet very few direct answers.

In the midst of so much uncertainty and frustration, I am drawn to the passage in the prophets that speaks of God's thoughts and ways as being so high above our own. Who can comprehend them? Certainly not I! Can I continue to have faith in a God who seems in no particular hurry to answer my questions? In a word: YES. Why? Because I am firmly convinced of the character of my God----I may not know His ways fully and I might not be able to make heads or tails of what He's doing every step of the way, but I am without doubt certain that He is the God who does what He says He will do and is who He says He is. And I know He has a place for me in His plan-----"In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps; Many are the plans in a man' heart, but it is the LORD's purpose that prevails" (Prov. 16:9; 19:21).

The Lord's ultimate purpose----what does that look like in my life? Apparently I love one-word answers because I've got one for this question too: JESUS! All the major/minor details of my life, everything that happens to me is for one expressed purpose----that in this life God might be glorified through my becoming more like Jesus Christ.