Sometimes, a grace

Sometimes the big stuff is not as bad as we expect.
But sometimes it is a grace that we don't know what's coming.

Yesterday was one of those days.

I ran a marathon that wasn't on my schedule.

We think that we want to know everything on our path.
But I am glad I did not.
My little adventure at the dentist became more of an endurance test than anyone anticipated, the trouble in my molar far deeper than the scans revealed.  Bless his heart, the dentist worked for three and a half hours. I closed my eyes.  And I prayed for everyone God brought to mind.

No amount of worry would have made it easier.
Any amount of worry, and I would have fled.
It is not that I should go around ignorant and vulnerable,
but to go and know 
            that God is my strength and shield.
Even in this.

I once asked one of our daughters what she thought about when running up hills.  "It's not how steep the hill is," she replied,  "but what you are thinking about as you run it. The more you dwell on it, the steeper it becomes.  Think about something else."

God's deliverance is not always being plucked miraculously out of a flood, but swimming miraculously through it with a strength that is not my own.  As the hours built up yesterday, I thought, "Don't dwell on what the dentist is doing."  And God implanted others in my thoughts to pray for, like people standing in line to greet me.

Learn to seek God's strength even in the "little stuff."
Because there is nothing inconsequential in His eyes.

God does not just get me through

                                      the impossible.

But He always has extraordinary purposes in mind.

The eternal God is your dwelling place,
and underneath are the everlasting arms.

                             Deuteronomy 33.27