Hand to Hand Combat...with a Cat

Okay...so my wife chides me all the time about the amount of time I take to get ready in the morning. One of her favorite areas to point out is my shaving. "You are going to have to learn to shave faster than that when you got to CHOBC." Well, that does not take into account that when I get ready I have to deal with my cat: Mittens. When I get up to the sink to lather up, she prances back and forth in front of me seriously hampering my progress. It is like I am doing a hand to hand combat drill. I thought this morning "This will be a lot easier when I am in CHOBC!"

We planned to have a garage sale yesterday before moving. Weather prevented us so we hauled three truck and trailer loads to the garage of a house a church member offered to let us stay in until the end of March. The garage sale will proceed in a couple of weeks pending more a more temperate climate.

I just finished reading an awesome book: Through Gates of Splendor by Elisabeth Elliot. A few months ago, I read a biography of Nate Saint to my little girl, and we watched the documentary of the five missionary men who died reaching out to the Aucas (Waodonis) in Ecuador back in the 1950's. The movie "The End of the Spear" brought the story to the lime light a couple of years ago. The last chapter of the book captured my attention the most. Elliot gave her musings about all that happened in a very honest way. Certainly she attested to the fact that the sacrifice of those men opened the doors for an amazing work for God. She honestly shared however that not everything wrapped up nicely, neatly, and tidily. She pointed out many of the problems that arose from that situation as well. She made a statement that really hit me. She said that when we try to make everything fit together perfectly we knock God off of His throne.

Elisabeth Elliot showed the most amazing faith of all in that story. She looked with faith's eyes to continue to see God's hand at work while still observing the serious pot holes in the road the death of her husband and the four others caused. I know I have struggled with thinking that all details must flow together perfectly in order for me to have assurance that a particular circumstance is God's will. The problem is that rarely (if ever) does anything happen without difficultly of some kind. If you read earlier blogs of mine, then you know that God acted amazingly bringing many details together in our journey toward the chaplaincy. However, I know that great difficulty lies ahead. We have already been through great emotional difficulty in coming to terms with God's leading for our lives. I remark at the amazing faith with which my family approached this. We experienced shock, dismay, fear, reluctance, and even anger. They looked at it with faith, though, and chose to say to God "Not our wills, but thine be done." As I have said, I have really struggled with the thought that if I am in God's will then I will not struggle. On this road to the Army, He has been teaching me that is not the truth. When I get ready to leave for three months to CHOBC and shortly after that when I get ready to leave for a year for deployment, it will not be easy. I expect that we will all experience a new range of emotions...but I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that it is God's will to use me and my family in this way to touch soldiers' lives with His love. I just pray that I have the faith that Elisabeth Elliot had to hold onto God's will even when the very fact of being in His will has caused great difficulty.