Only God

Only God

     One of my best friends recently told me, "Robyn, you have to tell that story!"  So here I am telling…when God does something only He could do, yes, we are compelled to tell it.  After my year of "recuperation" from homeschooling, I found myself needing to increase my work hours.   I had been praying for months that God would increase my piano students to 20 ; over three times more than last year.  He didn't.  Why didn't God answer my prayer?  

     Last year  I did  some volunteering at Wake Med Rehab in Fuquay-Varina.  I started by playing the piano during lunchtime and one guy asked me to sing.  I told him I could not because I would need a microphone.  That wasn't the whole truth, but it sounded good; in fact, I was too embarrassed to sing alone.  I can carry a tune, but always sang with a group in the past.  Some time later a different  man in a wheelchair asked me to sing.  How could I keep refusing to sing for people who could not walk or even feed themselves?  Feeling guilty, I reluctantly agreed.  To my surprise,  they loved it and began to sing with me every week before and after lunch was served.     

     We had many monthly recitals there;  a woman my age began singing at the last four or five.  I continued to play at Wake Med until they closed in August, moving all the residents to other facilities.   Needing another place for our recitals I called some other assisted living communities.  In the process of scheduling I discovered that they hire people to do activities with the residents.  I did some fast thinking on the phone, and offered to play piano and lead singing.  They took me up on it!   After years of taking students to assisted living centers,  I now have five facilities that have hired me to lead hymn singing and I love it!  It takes me way out of my comfort zone, and I often have perspiration rolling down my back, but it's the best job in the world--and the best thing about it is that I get to talk about God in between songs.   Hymns are the gospel message we are to be sharing with the world.

      I recently told Rachel that I would love to combine ministry and work--bingo!   God did answer my prayer, just not the way I thought He should... It's not important that I don't have a solo voice--What I lack in talent, I make up for in enthusiasm!  "God does not call the quailfied, He qualifies the called."  Praise God for the ultimate job!   

What is clinging? Heb. 12:1-17 ESV "Old Rugged Cross"

Like a Thief in the Night

Like a Thief in the Night

         Saturday morning comes and it's my time to take a break……………. It's the only morning I can do this.  Sometimes I go to yard sales and sometimes I go sit in a corner and write.  Sometimes I study scripture and make videos.    Sometimes I go to the park and cry--whatever I feel like doing at the time.  Saturday, Jan. 18 I am on my way to Chic Fil A in Cary to meet two of my best friends, Liz and Kim.  We have a GREAT time talking, laughing, quoting scripture, and crying.   After breakfast I had to pick Becky up from babysitting in Fuquay.  On the way home Jenny called. " Mom, did anything happen to our house? " Since I wasn't home I didn't know.  I did have a tornado alert come on my android smart phone, but Becky and I decided not to pull over.  I didn't think much of it until I approached our neighborhood.  I wasn't prepared for what I saw.  Our trampoline was in pieces between our yard and our neighbor's yard.  The side of her house had a number of shingles missing.  Her adult son was outside picking things up that had blown around.  

      Walt walked out of the house.  "Have you been out here?" I asked.  "Yes," he answered.  Then I noticed our fence.  The entire back side was lying on the ground.  Boards had been blown off the front left side, and the front right side also laid on the ground.   There was pink stuff all over the side of the house, on the crate beside the house, and all over Walt's car.  The winds had thrown open the utility shed door and sucked the insulation out of our roof.  There was also a hole in the roof.    "Oh my gosh!"  I exclaimed as I stepped closer to see the back of the fence.  "Ouch!"  I didn't see the nail sticking straight up from the board I stepped on.  The nail went straight up my foot.  I hobbled inside and removed my shoe, then my sock.  Blood.  Great, when was the last time I had had a tetnas shot?  There I was…an hour after I had been having a great time with my friends….shocked at the damage,  trying to stop the bleeding, and determine if I needed to go to Urgent Care for a shot.  

       Faster than a tornado blowing through, God's word says that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.  (I Thess. 5:2)   We don't know the day or time.   Are we ready to meet the Lord?   What if He came today?  If we knew when He was coming in advance would we change anything?