"P" Soup: Reflecting on 2011

I am thankful and thrilled to be part of this team for Kingdom Bloggers. Just to give readers a short introduction, I live and work in Rochester, New York; we moved here in July 2010 when my husband took on his first pastorate after 20 years in business and three years of seminary studies. As for me, thirty years ago God placed a radical call on the life of an ordinary Irish girl from New England. He changed my life trajectory completely, for which I am very thankful. I love God, people and the hope we have in Jesus Christ. I have degrees in English and counseling, and enjoy reading, writing, cooking, and touching others with hints of God’s love, especially scones and tea.

This week, we are reflecting on our “Top Five Blessings for 2011.” Most of us have heard the modern exhortation, “Don’t live in the past. ” But even the Apostle Paul--who tells us in his letter to the Philippians that he leaves behind the past and presses on toward the future (Phil. 3:13)--understood the value of reflection. Just read his self-assessment a few verses earlier. So, being a cook, here is my own 2011 "P Soup" as I reflect on a difficult, but fruitful year:

5. Pressure--2011 presented pressure for many people in our sphere. For our family, we were adjusting to a new city after six years on the North Shore of Massachusetts (the longest we have lived in one place), a new church (where my husband Tim is pastor), a new high school for our youngest, being a significant distance from family and friends, and my needing employment--and that’s the short list. But the pressure presented opportunity for #4:

4. Perseverance--“Thus far the Lord has helped us” (1 Samuel 7:12). God has always pushed us to “new places” but he has shored us up with his grace, strength, mercy, and a sense of humor.

To help my sanity and to challenge myself, I set a goal to read 50 books in 2011 and write about it on Facebook--52 books later, with a lot less television, and a sense of accomplishment, I did it! We have had to persevere in trusting and hoping for #3:

3. Provision--Alleluia! Tim and I minister and collaborate at our church, our daughter loves her school and joined the crew team, our older daughter Maggie had a dream trip to Ireland (where my mom was born), England and Paris, and is in her freshman year at her dream school, our son Sam got engaged to his high school sweetheart and they will both graduate college this year, and our entire family participated in my sister-in-law’s wedding (including Tim performing the ceremony, his first!). God blessed us with not only one mild winter here on the “North Coast,” but two!

2. Pals--God knows how important relationships are to me, and not only did he move our family closer to longtime friends in Ithaca, but also gave me some great friends here in Pittsford I cherish. A new friend and I started a book group last year, and it is thriving. Since our older children attend college in Boston, I have opportunity to visit dear friends and family members a few times a year in CT and MA! Now, if we can only get these people to drive to Western New York more often ;).

1. Presence--2011 was a tough year, but it was also a blessed year because God’s presence was with us, encouraging, exhorting, renewing. This list of Top Five may seem a little odd because the content includes some tough categories, but it is through the challenges of life we remember to lean on the only One who can truly help us, and save us! His presence is our peace.

God Knocks on the Door of Blue Trailer

God has done some amazing things for me. When I was an adolescent I happened to be in the middle of a prayer meeting. People were giving words to each other and doing the “sit in the chair so we can pray for you.”  After telling everyone else that they were going to do amazing things for God,  they realized that I was there. As sort of an afterthought, they decided to let me sit in the chair. I was thirteen. I wanted to hear like a friend who was a bit older than I was, that I was going to marry a godly man and be a missionary.  This friend did tell me afterwards to never repeat that to anyone. I don’t know who she married but I don’t think she was ever a long-term missionary.

So as I waited expectantly for powerful words of my future, I just knew it would be amazing.  Maybe they were tired, maybe they thought I was young and insignificant but finally, someone, my youth pastor, said “Thus saith the Lord: I will never leave you nor forsake you.” WHAT? That’s a Bible verse. I knew that… what kind of “word” was that!? I took it as a rejection at the time. I was devastated. I said a few thank you Jesus’ – I was well trained in how to behave spiritually. I wanted to know I was going to be some great for God.

However, over the years I’ve learned that the fact that the great, all-powerful, all-knowing, omniscient God would never leave me to be the most wonderful way God shows how big he is. As I have pondered the bigness of God I have realized He is most big in my life when He is the most person and intimate. Times of worship, times of repentance, times of fellowship with God are when He is biggest in my life.

There are many times I’ve realized He had never left me. Oh sometimes I think He has, and then He shows up. As a young mother, living alone in a rather trashy trailer court. Having been abandoned by my husband, their father I lived on welfare, food stamps, commodity foods, WIC and anything I could find to get by.  I couldn’t get a job so I was in college. I had a long-range goal to be able to always provide for those children.  I knew an education would be my ticket out of the trailer court.

I always went to church. I had three small children and we would sit in the back of the church, barely known to those around me. But I was faithful, and people knew my name.

The blue trailer I lived in, a 12x65 single wide had an empty middle kitchen. Like Old Mother Hubbard, my cupboards were bare. I lived out in the country on RR#2. One day, a white-haired woman came to my door. Her name was Bea. We may have spoke briefly or shook hands at church. I didn’t know her, or she me.

I was shocked to see her in front of me. How did she know where I lived? Why was she here? With embarrassment, I invited her into the trailer. We sat on my orange couch and she told me the most incredible story. Like every day, she started it with a time of prayer. During that time, she said God told her to come to my house, that I had a need. 

She called the church office; it was closed. Determined to find me, she did the most unusual thing. She asked God to show her where I lived. This was before Google map, this was before MapQuest, and I didn’t even have a phone so my address wasn’t in the white pages. With an address like RR#2 you are pretty hard to find.

I still have no logical explanation for her visit. I’ve tried and tried to figure out how she got to my house. Her answer, “I prayed and God told me which way to turn and then when I got to the area, He told me exactly what trailer you lived in.” She only knocked on one door, and it was mine. She spent her afternoon at the grocery store buying food that filled my empty cupboards and my children’s empty stomachs for days to come.

A God, my God, the God of the universe, the Creator, decided to show a poor single mother in poverty, the person everyone over looked, just how big He is by using a virtual stranger to fill my cupboards in run down blue trailer. God was big enough to come to a trailer court, just like He was big enough to come to a stable in Bethlehem and grow up in Nazareth. 

He has never left me nor forsaken me. Since that promise is the Bible, you don’t need a prophetic word to believe it. He’ll never leave you nor forsake you either.