Opportunities

So sorry to my readers that I haven't written for what, 10 days now. wow. I have had a full house with family for a couple of weeks and now I am doing some major catch up - on top of that I believe that God has been doing some more shaping in me. (He is never done with us.) I was going to blog today and just checked a voicemail from a dear mother/friend back in Michigan. She called to check if I was ok since I hadn't written in a while. I love this lady.

I started reading a book that someone recommended to me that changed their life. I will tell you more later but a quote from the book "All of my servants on their way to the high places have had to make this detour through the desert. Here they have learned many things which otherwise they would have known nothing about."

(pulled off the highway and took this picture)

Are you in a desert? Have you been in one? I am sure that we all have at some point. The desert is a tough place to be. When we were driving through the desert in Arzona this past June I thought it was so awesome. We would stop here and there and get out. The ground was hard, rocky and sandy and of course it was HOT. Now imagine wandering through it for days, weeks, months and years. Our hardships in life can feel like we are wandering forever in a desert but I/we must be open and available to allow God to teach us things that we would not have known otherwise. Sure I would love to learn without all the hard stuff, but if everything was always easy we would never learn. In the movie Evan Almighty, Morgan Freeman, who plays God says:

Let me ask you something.

If someone prays for patience,
you think God gives them patience?

Or does he give them
the opportunity to be patient?

If they pray for courage,
does God give them courage,

or does he give them opportunities
to be courageous?

If someone prayed
for their family to be closer,

you think God zaps them
with warm, fuzzy feelings?

Or does he give them opportunities
to love each other?

See the opportunities today.