Turn Around.....GO BACK

 

"TURN AROUND....... GO BACK"

LizSekerke

This picture of my almost 95 year old Dad is a picture I took yesterday of a man and his daughter enjoying a burger and a kids meal at Brahms together.

You see, this man and his youngest daughter Softie knows what it means to let the Lord direct their steps, even when those steps don’t seemingly make sense to us.

Almost a year ago, those steps took Dad from his home of almost 60 years to his current home an hour away. I won’t lie; he wasn’t happy about it at the time and felt he was being “incarcerated” (his words) while struggling to find his footing in this new place his kids felt he would be safer and happier in. But that smile on his face today is genuine. He would tell you he can see with clarity God’s reasoning and purpose for “incarcerating” him a year ago as he drove down Hwy 67 to his new home.

And that daughter sitting next to him in that Brahms Ice Cream booth....well, she also was taken down a God road she didn’t fully understand this past year.

After much prayer and research, Wayne and I chose the town of Mansfield a year ago to build our home in. It was Wayne’s home town of 30 years and 60 miles from where I had been living. We watched as the house grew, excited to have a home we owned and built together. We bought light fixtures....decided on flooring....and daydreamed about all the wonderful things we would do with the community that was surrounding us. It placed us closer not just to Wayne’s long time friends, but also to my sister, niece and dad who I was super excited to be living down the road from......and although we adored living in Allen and all the friends and family nearby, I was ready to recalibrate myself to a new surrounding.

But then......God placed a boulder in our path as we neared the finish line of the building of the home we lovingly built in Mansfield and clearly....CLEARLY said to us,

“I Need You To Turn Around and Go Back.”

We still don’t understand why God would have taken us within sight of the Finish Line and then u-turned us. But what we do know is, we heard Him as clearly as if He were screaming it through a bullhorn.....“TURN AROUND...GO BACK.”

So we did.

This past weekend, after 3 weeks of living in a hotel with a cat, dog and a litter box, we moved to our new home in Fairview, Texas....to mature trees, nature trails, lakes and pickle ball. Oh ya....we have pickle ball!

And we’ve discovered in this strange turn of events, the meaning of Proverbs 20:24:

“The Lord directs our steps, so why try to understand everything along the way?”

It’s not ours to understand......it’s simply ours to obey. With each passing year of my life, I find it’s less and less necessary for me to know His plan in order to know He has a plan. A plan that is far far better than our plan could ever be. And I believe His plan was to take us on this bizarre year-long journey of Excitement, Disappointment and Peace. And some day I hope to know why.

But for today…..We - Are - Home.

#Tuesdayswithpappo