For all that has been, thanks! For all that will be, yes!

I am overwhelmed as I write this blog.  It is the final blog for "My Unplanned Journey."    It is bittersweet. Many of you leave such sweet comments, and you share your own stories with me.  I will miss those. That is the bitter part.  But the sweet part for me is that I feel as if I can honestly say that I am now okay.  The journey isn't over, but God has brought me through the first leg.

Dag Hammarskjold said:  "For all that has been, thanks!  For all that will be, yes!"

Today I read this passage from The Saga of Life.

"I loved my uncle's ranch when I was a child!  There was space to run unhampered, freedom to explore.  The dust lay inches thick upon the trails, and running barefoot down the path of sifting powder was a sumptuous sort of feeling.  The barn was my playground, full of animated toys.  In the loft there were hay and mice and fairly friendly spiders.  The mint grew wild and plush beside the creek, and  my aunt made berry pies and the smell would seek me out wherever I played around the house.  I rode my cousin's palomino horse through fantasies that never seemed to end.  If I am not careful, Lord, I can edit out these memories and forget that I got a bee sting where I picked the mint and burned my tongue time and time again on the berry pies because I never seemed to learn and couldn't wait.  Or that the barn smelled just awful or that the horse made my bottom sore and the dust that felt like sifted powder made me sneeze all summer.  If I am not careful, I can forget all these things.  But if I'm wise, I will remember that all of life has both these things in it."


John Claypool goes on to comment about the passage.
"It is very important that we never conclude that only the pleasant and the beautiful have positive value.  The truth of the matter is that life is a bittersweet reality, and that is its essence and its glory.  For the final outcome both the sunshine and the shadows are needed.  A belief in providence, in a God who is at work in all things for good, can lead to that perspective on the past that enables one to say:  'For all that has been, thanks!'  It is one thing to look back and say:  'For some of what has been, thanks!'  To embrace all of life in that thanksgiving is something quite different, but it is the perspective that a belief in God's goodness and wisdom provides.  Understanding life as a destiny, not happenstance, and acknowledging God's hand as having been in it all, does make for gratitude, acceptance and the ability to end one's days at peace with the past."


This weekend, God handed me back my quilt of life.  Some of the pieces in the quilt were beautiful.  They were the precious memories of happy times.  Other pieces were not as appealing.  They were the dark days and difficult moments.  At first, I didn't know if I liked those pieces, but then I realized that those were the pieces that gave the quilt its strength and its warmth.  And when I stepped back and looked at the quilt, I realized that when it ALL came together, it was beautiful.  I will be able to use it to help give warmth to many who are facing the cold realities of a harsh life.

Thank you for sharing this part of my journey in life.  I said in an earlier blog that a part of my dream is to help others.  Please feel free to e-mail me through the e-mail listed on my profile if you just want someone to listen and pray for you as you travel your own Unplanned Journey.

Philippians 1:6 (New Living Translation)

And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.

For all that has been, thanks. For all that will be, yes!