Cross Country Cookie Conversation

It's Cross Country season!

This year we have two high school boys running!

During Cross Country season, Thursday nights are Pasta Party nights for the boys team.  They all gather at the host family's home for a carb loading dinner to prepare for the race on Saturday.  So that means that every Thursday, I'm busy baking and icing...

Sugar Cookies!

Okay, pasta and sugar cookies might not seem like they go together, but four years ago I made cookies for one of the first Thursday night dinners because that's what my son requested.  The team loved them!  So the next week, my darling boy wanted to bring more cookies.  They are always iced with the school colors of blue and green, but each week of the season I try to send a different design.  My sons still laugh about the time I tried to make jaguars that ended up looking more like spotted cows.  However, I have heard from one mom that there was a small chase and battle through her home for the last cookie one week.

Tonight as my mixer hummed and sugar became colorful, ooey-gooey paste to spread over the cooling shapes waiting on the table, my mind's wandering thoughts became a prayerful conversation with God.

*****

We do that a lot, God and I.  It's how I live out 1 Thessalonians 5:17, "Pray continually."  I just talk to God in my head.  Then listen.  I don't hear an audible voice.  Often my thoughts tumble in a new direction.  I recall a Bible story or verse or just have a new perspective or insight.  If I had to generalize most of these kinds of prayer times, my part would be whining to God about something or wrestling with Him, and His part would be a divine gentle spanking or corrective discipline.

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Pondering my own life's journey, specifically within the last decade, I struggled to understand where I have traveled and why.  I wondered why I had been lead down certain paths but never reached what I assumed was an expected destination.  Why endure struggles, challenges, and pain only to change course?  Especially when I don't feel like I know where I am going once again?

I want big answers!  

I want to know the plan!  

I want to know what my purpose is!  

Uhm...nope, God did not flash a neon sign across the sky to answer my questions.  A God ordained life plan did not drop in front of me.  Instead, He took me on a journey of memories...

Life experiences and the lessons I learned along the journey flashed across my mind.  

The process of God shaping, molding, and refining my life for His glory might be compared to a rollercoaster of highs, lows, twists and turns.  However, chatting with a friend a few years ago, I decided that the roller coaster imagery doesn't acurately express how life feels to me.  With a roller coaster, you can stand back to view the path the car will take you on before you step into line.  There is this known factor in the experience, even if you don't fully know how you might respond once strapped in and ready to take off on the adventure.  

Honestly, my roller coaster days are OVER!  

There are a few that I will endure for my kids.  Most of the time, I just sit down to enjoy people watching while guarding the stuff for my the Wacky and Wild within Wade World.  I don't need any more excitement in my life.  I easily survey the coaster and opt out!

I think the imagery of the ocean better depicts life's journey.  

The tide ebbs and flows in a rhythm and pattern.  Waves roll and crash, froth and foam.  Paradoxically, the oceans is unpredictable, ever changing, never the same.  Calm seas become stormy.  Gentle waves lapping at your ankles on sandy beaches can become powerful, massive, and destructive.  Frightening raging storms emerge from the same waters that leave one awestruck at the beauty of God's creation.  

Life has seasons, rhythms, ebbs and flows.  Storms come and go.  Waves gently rock and comfort or crash around us, leave us bruised, battered, and broken.  We build sandcastle dreams and weep as the tide washes them away.  We follow the winds and stear towards the horizon of the future or feel the undertow rip us away toward an unknown destination.  Like Peter, I often find myself overwhelmed and drowning in the deep, crying out to God to rescue me from the waves of life and my own doubt and unbelief.

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I wish at this point that I could tell you that my cookie conversation with my Big Daddy God culminated in a peaceful resolution.  It didn't.  Instead, this journey of memories only lead me to more whining and complaining...

Why? 

Why, God?  Why so much pain?  Why so many struggles?  Why this journey?  Why that path?  In all of Your divine sovereignty and wisdom, Lord, couldn't You have found another way?  It hurt so much!  It was too hard!  

WHY!!!

*****

God hit a rewind button.  All these same memories replayed.  The same journey, but now from a different perspective.  Instead of focusing on the lessons I learned along the path of life, I saw faces and people, relationships and connections.  A web of lives unfurled before me.  I began to see that God was not just molding me and shaping me, but that each detour I saw was His direction toward someone for purposes and reasons I could not see or understand.  

Humbled once again by this God...

all-seeing,

 all-knowing, 

all-powerful, 

All Mighty God

Icing the final cookies, my heart repented from its arogant stubborn nature as the peace, joy, and contented, rest-filled awe washed over me a fresh.  This is my God.  The God I love and serve.  Creator of the universe. Who promises never to leave me or forsake me.  Who passionately loves and pursues me, even when I run and hide from Him.  I can surrender my life to Him, trust and believe Him, because He's got this.