Welcoming Interruptions

Awaking this morning in the 6:00 darkness that makes you question whether it is really morning or not, I do my first and favorite thing on these fall and winter mornings and light the candles on the kitchen table.  Somehow this simple act of bringing light and beauty in a small way wakes me up and lifts my spirits and thoughts upward.  “What is important for me today?”, I ask Jesus.  “Surrender your day.” I felt the immediate reply.  Surrender my day, yes.  I would like it to be as normal as breathing when I wake up, but how often do I charge into my day without giving back to my Creator and Giver of Life the upcoming hours, and minutes, the details and the plans and surrender to His bigger plan for me.

Why is it so easy to hold on to what our flesh wants most- our plans, our desires, our hopes for the moment.  Why do I often find myself completely inconvenienced by the very gifts that God has given me?  Those precious children that I asked God for arguing AGAIN, or up all night, or remembering the oral presentation that is due the next day just as I sit down.  How quickly I forget the great gift I have of being a mother and the gift also I have to serve Jesus in this way because apart from God’s help, let’s face it, it is easier to have our eyes and thoughts on what we need after a long day!

If your day is at all like mine in this busy world we live in- you’ve got a calendar.  A calendar that is quickly filled with detailed lists and times and places to be and things to be done and if it doesn’t all fit together like a perfect puzzle, like it usually doesn’t, then what?!  I was really humbled this weekend as I started out my Saturday morning driving to pick up my sweet Madelynn from her slumber party a half hour away.  I drove past a house and noticed that smoke was billowing out of the roofline.  Just as I passed the house it registered that this was a major problem and that I had seen no one there helping, addressing the situation, no one at all.  My thoughts quickly went to my list for the day of getting Madelynn picked up in time to pick up Anthony’s friend, in time to get Alden to soccer, in time to get Madelynn to soccer….and you get the picture.  I was shocked at the inner struggle going on inside of me even in what was seemingly a life or death situation!!  I was horrified at the focus on “me” and my plans.  Thankfully, God knocked some sense into me and I turned the car around praying for strength and wisdom to know what to do, and thankfully all that smoke billowing out was from a major construction project going on in the front room.  I was relieved but also very aware of my need to give up my agenda.

 A favorite spiritual mentor of mine, Amy Carmichael takes this surrender a step further and calls it “welcoming interruptions”.  “Welcoming”… the word takes on a more positive note and adds a spirit of expectancy.  This day belongs to You, Lord, this night, this life….What are you up to?  What better thing do you have for me?  What good are you going to bring out of this because it is a complete mystery to me?!  I think at the root of this surrender, in welcoming interruptions, is a spirit of trust and faith in the goodness of our God and in His ability to make the crooked things straight and bring light into darkness.  It is also in trusting His timing- that He is never 5 minutes late. And it is rooted in the hope of heaven and a place someday where we will not have to deal with the frustration, pain and consequences of living in a fallen world. 

As 7:00 rolled around this morning and my youngest boy was lying sideways on his chair at breakfast, lying on the couch to put on his shoes and eventually throwing up, I knew that God had whispered those words to me an hour earlier….”Surrender you day”.  I had needed to hear them and in having surrendered already it was much easier to except my new day’s schedule with expectancy and thankfulness that I can care for my boy today.

Lord Jesus, Please give us childlike wonder and expectancy and trust in your plans for us.  Turn our interruptions into opportunities to see You and give us patience and faith to believe in Your power and ability to do “exceedingly and abundantly above all we could ask or think”.  Amen.