Today is my middle daughter, Amber’s birthday.  She was even born on a Wednesday.  I’ll never forget my principal walking into my classroom that morning telling me I needed to let her take over my room and head home.  I needed to take my wife to the hospital.  So, just like that–I was on my way!   That was April 13, 1977.  Happy birthday Amber!

I actually need to go back to yesterday and tell you about “the rest of the day”.  God is teaching me something this morning I want to pass along to you.  When I prepare for an assignment and complete it for “man” I usually know how well I’ve done–this is in my adult world.  In my younger years, I always had to wait until I got the assignment back to know if I’d done well by seeing what the teacher comments were or the grade on it.  Now that I know I’m completing assignments for God rather than completing events, I need to know what to do once the assignment is completed.  Yesterday was a great lesson day for this and I was not prepared for it.  Read on and I’ll explain.

Kathy went with me yesterday and a friend also went with me who is the dad of the program’s host.  It was nice to have their presence.  What I wasn’t prepared for was the return home and the rest of the day.  Kathy was staying in town completing errands and going to a doctor’s appointment.  She and I walked out together and went on our separate ways. I drove back to the school district I’ve been working with and helped with an issue there and left within 30 minutes.  I got home and realized I was emotionally spent but it was only 10:00 am.  I needed to get a couple gardening things so I decided to go into town and keep my mind occupied with gardening.  As I drove into town I went by Southwest District Health’s building where a man was on his knees placing no less than 50 blue pinwheels in the lawn (these represent April’s theme–childhood abuse protection.  At that moment I was listening to a song called, “I’m His” meaning Jesus Christ’s.  I just started crying as I’m doing again now typing this.  I forget to prepare for the aftermath of “rawness”.  All the emotions I’d buried for so long emerge and Satan has a temporary hay day reminding me of my once-thought worthlessness.  A couple friends called and asked how I did and one asked how I was feeling.  I stepped into this a little but for the most part, I spent the day alone.

This morning I was asking God about what He wanted me to know about yesterday.  He reminded me that there are three things He wants me to do and each of us to do when we complete an assignment for Him.  They are simple:  Thank Him for the opportunity to serve, Praise Him for being with me and continue to obey Him in the aftermath.  For me, this would be to remember to focus on the reality that I’m a new creation and these “feelings of old” were just that–feelings that are of my past and not my present.  They were no longer the truth of who I am.  So, next time–I’ll prepare for this!