Happy Monday my friends! Today is the last day of the 3 day weekend for Memorial Day in the USA. The kids are back today from their mom’s house and I’m ready for another week ahead.
This morning I woke up early, as usual, and sat down to have a nice breakfast and tea. Over by my breakfast table I have family pictures of the kids and I. On the counter a certain picture caught my eye – last year we went to San Francisco for a weekend get-away. During the few days we were there, we visited the Golden Gate Park. In this enormous park is The Conservatory of Flowers. This is a beautiful white ‘glass house’ building with the most beautiful flower species and insects you could ever see and get close to. The weekend we visited the Conservatorium it was displaying a Butterfly Exhibit. The kids attend a Montessori school in Apple Valley, CA; that month they were studying the butterfly, how cool, the kids got to see the life-cycle of the butterfly in real time, not just in pictures and in text books!
Why post about butterflies? Well this post is no so much about butterflies, more than the life-cycle of the butterfly and how [we] go through our own life-cycles too! Recently I wrote a post about my ‘whole’ transformation and used the term – ‘metamorphosis’ to describe that transformation and changes I had experienced since my divorce started.
Yesterday at church I got an opportunity to speak about ‘My Story’ to the congregation. Someone had asked me how did I find this church and how do I know the Rucker’s? Well a long story short, it was a call to an EAP Hotline at work that got me here and saved me. This one phone call lead to me meeting Nancy, then to the Harvest Church Divorce Recovery Group, an invitation to visit the church on Sunday morning, a lunch with Pastor Don and Darla, a call to help with a small CIA project, a request to stand in for the Tech team at church and now I’m a staff member and the director for CIA. Now it didn’t happen that quickly or was easy to make the decisions to take the necessary steps, but it was God’s plan… not mine!
Last night I attended another church Life Group – this is the ‘oldies’ group at church. The ‘young guns’ meet on Thursday nights; that’s my usual life group. Tonight I had done most of the talking at this gathering. But I had learned something else different about me during the discussion, especially when we closed in prayer. As a new Christian I was always afraid of praying out loud… stupid I know; but I was not comfortable because I did not want to sound silly, or thought I did not know how to pray the ‘right’ way! Well I have ’metamorphosed‘ again. Now I pray everyday & everywhere I go - in the mornings during my quiet time before the kids wake up, at breakfast with the kids before school, at work, whenever I’m troubled and when I am joyful and blessed; I now pray in public with others, and I even pray in small intimate groups such as Life Group. What was I afraid of to begin with? Nothing really, I just did not step off the spring board quick enough, I did not trust my God that he would listen to me and then be able to help me. But now praying in public is not an issue for me. Prayer is important for meditation on God’s word. It’s a conversation just between Him and I, where We can ask the questions and seek the answers We need - “Listen to my voice in the morning, Lord. Each morning I bring my requests to you and wait expectantly.” Psalm 5:3
So as I start a new week. I continue to pray and seek the answers to my questions. But I also give thanks and praise for the blessings & favor I have received, and dutifully given back through tithe and service. My friends, may God bless you, and I encourage you to seek Him through prayer today.
Here are a few photos from the San Francisco trip.
