Thermometer or Thermostat

I got to go to church on Wednesday. It was a pretty quiet service. But something the pastor said has stuck in my brain and I just keep kicking it around. He made a comment about a thermometer and then said something about a thermostat. For some reason those two words stuck in my brain. Maybe because in my line of work, a thermometer becomes your best friend. Either way here's what I've been thinking on. Don't know if it will speak to you but it did to me.

I'm going through some sitations at work and at home. Hearing those two words hit me and made me ask myself "Which one am I?" Am I a thermometer? A necessary tool that tells you when things are cooked properly. Tells you if something is wrong. It basically just states the facts.

Or am I a thermostat. Something that registers the facts but then does something to change them. Hey this room is to hot, I need to cool it down some. Or brrr this thing is to cold, let's heat it up a bit. Am I set to a certain setting by the Holy Spirit within me and then adjusting the environment around me in whatever way I can to meet those settings. Or am I just stating how the environment around me doesn't meet my settings.

I hate to say it but I am prone to be a thermometer. Woe is me. Look what I'm going through. What I am putting up with. But not really trying to change it. At least in my work area I'm this way. In my marriage, I'd say i'm a little of both. I don't want to be someone who just states the facts and doesn't try to make things for the better. I want to be a thermostat. I want to be so intuned with the Holy Spirit setting within that I register what's happening and then adjust what I can to make my environment match up with the Holy Spirit's setting within.

Maybe that doesn't speak to you like it does me. But I'm telling you this has kept me up most of the night the past two nights. I want to be plugged in and sensitive to the Lord's guiding of my life. Whichever way it goes. Marriage or divorce. Job or no job. Whatever Satan throws at me. It doesn't matter. God has always been there and brought me through. Sometimes I am a little worse for ware but I make it through. Patch up the cuts and bruises. Dust myself off and continue moving forward. It's all in his hands.

Egg-stonishing

In my last post I talked about my assignment for counseling. It was to draw an egg and put in it all the things that have happened in my life. I thought it would be really hard to do. But it wasn't. I think it took me about twenty minutes to put it together. When I finished I looked at it and went "Wow. Look at all the crap that has happened in my life." But as I sat there and stared at it, something inside me began to change. Instead of focusing on all the bad that happened and wondering how in the world I made it through, I began to see all the bad stuff that happened and "Wow, I'm still here." I've always wondered where God was during these times but in looking at my egg I began to see it. There's a couple of people in my life that if it weren't for them, I don't think I'd be half the person I am. My parents have always been in my corner. No matter how much I disappoint them, I know that they will always be in my corner. But three people helped me make it through what I was going through and I don't think they even know it. It makes me sad to know that I never told them. Two I can rectify that with but one is no longer with us. My Uncle Wayne will never know just how much he meant to me. How much he helped me survive what I went through. Peggy Hensley is another one. I don't even know how to describe what all she did for me. She treated me as if I was her child and was extremely precious to her. She modeled God's love for me and taught me alot as a child in Sunday School. The other is Uncle Lawrence. I can remember all my cousins and even my sister coming over to stay with him and him making them drink cow's milk or they couldn't stay. I know it sounds silly but when I went to stay with him he never made me. That made me feel special. I loved my time on his farm with him and Aunt Fannie and it will always be some of my most precious memories.

The most amazing thing is to look at this egg and see God's touch throughout it all. He's begun a good work and me and he is faithful to see it through. The peace in my life right now amazes me. For the first time I am not feared with fear and worry over what will or won't happen. For the first time I am truly getting up every day and placing everything in God's hands and content to leave it to him. Whatever happens, happens. In God I trust. He has never let me down and he never will.