Tag Archives: responsibility

The Buck Does Not Stop Here

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I know God doesn’t have an actual desk, but if He did, there’d be one of those signs on it that reads “The Buck Stops Here.”  He gave me that image the other day when I was letting myself get weighed down with concerns.  How often I forget that I’m supposed to pass burdens on up to Him, I’m not supposed to try to carry them all by myself.  Have you ever seen a little child wanting to help or prove how big they are by dragging a suitcase or carrying a bag too heavy for them?  “Here let me take that,” the mom says.  “No,” the child says as they strain and grunt to pull it along, “I got it.” They eventually have to give in because they just can’t do it without help.

Jesus said to come to Him when I’m worn out from trying to lug heavy stuff along.  He said that His way of life is light and easier to carry and besides that He’ll be with me, helping the whole time.   (Matt. 11:28)  The buck of burdens doesn’t stop with me, it stops with Him.  He’s the only One who really knows what to do with them.  He is the only One strong enough, wise enough, patient enough.

The buck of decision-making doesn’t stop with me either.  I used to work in a doctor’s office as receptionist and enjoyed greeting the patients and getting to know the “regulars.”  Continue reading →

Green Pasture

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Life has definitely taken a turn, things are dramatically different for us as a family.  It’s hard to let go of something familiar, something you love, but now it is actually freeing to take our hands off and back away.  We need some space but have such a mixture of feelings:  love for friends but the need for our hearts to move on from a chapter God’s finished writing for us.  We watch Him turn the page with some sadness, reflection, and fondness.   It was a chapter wrought with change, quite a bit of stress and challenge, but also growth, much love and joy.  Toward the end of it, some of the characters God had written in affirmed us and let us know that what we had been and done in these last few years made a difference.   I hope many of those characters will also appear in the next chapters as we watch our life story keep unfolding, as God writes it one page at a time.

I was sharing with my mom how I was intent on staying close to these friends, keeping in touch, not letting things fade away.  She understood but said, “be careful.”  At first her words hurt a little – why would it be bad to stay close with these special people who had become so important to me?  Continue reading →

Get busy and wait

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I’m becoming a waiting pro.  I’ve had much experience, especially in the last 3 years of my life: waiting on answers to prayers, waiting on direction, waiting to become more like Jesus (I’m pretty sure that’s gonna last my whole life), waiting to see the plans God has for my daughters.  Waiting is a big part of everyday life anyway:  waiting at the doctor’s office, standing in line at the grocery, in traffic, on friends who are meeting us for lunch or coffee, for fun holiday family get-togethers, for vacations, on test results, for news from a job interview, for a newborn baby to arrive…it goes on and on.

Since it is such a part of life why do I become irritated when I have to wait?  I think partly because it is a time when I have no control over the situation or the outcome.  I feel I should be doing something to help the process along, whatever that may be.  There are many things I can’t make happen any quicker than they are already happening.  It is out of my hands.

I got to see first-hand the beginnings of a house being built on Extreme Makeover Home Edition this week.  Continue reading →