I know not how

Once I had my own plan for my life....

Ruth Simons of gracelaced.com wrote in a recent blog post:

We tend to strive and maneuver ourselves to gain the life we think we want, but I dare say, the Lord is merciful to cause the most wondrous blessings to occur apart from fine-tuned plans and well-rehearsed strategies. That's how he gets the glory and we get to be his children. He delights in using those who think they've been forgotten, whose giftings aren't fully realized, whose daily decision to be faithful right where they are trumps being fabulous elsewhere. (emphasis original)

I so relate to this. I strove and maneuvered through my 30's for my own ambitions, only to crash and burn. Now I sit feeling forgotten and like I've failed in realizing my giftings.

I'm focusing on the wrong part of her sentence.

Ruth Simons is writing from the other side of this experience, the blessing side, and it gives me hope. Hope that the place where I'm at could lead to God using my talents for His glory. That He would delight in that?

I don't know what that might look like. One "daily decision to be faithful right where I am" means working full time at an office. I used to dream of writing full time while my husband supported me (until I made the big time anyway), but that's a dream I've given up on. His disability check all goes for his medical care, the part that my company-sponsored insurance plan doesn't cover.

I do have an unexpected blessing in my job--I'm now writing for a living. It's technical writing, documentation for the software my employer produces. I'm thankful to the Lord that He maneuvered me into a corporate writing job. It certainly wasn't by my maneuvering!

I still feel drawn to writing that's a little more creative, and I still feel the Lord wants me to blog. I decided I should write one blog post a month for the first half of 2016 and re-evaluate mid-year. So here I am on January 30th banging out a post that will go out today or tomorrow, ready or not.

If the Lord's plan for my writing involves more than software documentation, it'll happen on the Saturday mornings and the occasional other little chinks of time between work and laundry and dog-walking. And the following scripture indicates to me that I don't have to know how it's going to happen.

And he said, “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how. The earth produces by itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. But when the grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.”--Mark 4:26-29 (ESV)