Someone brought the coolest thing into our store.

A small old-time, hand-held pinball game.  You know, the kind where you pull back the spring loaded lever, little white marbles shoot forward and you try to get them to land in various little “pockets” to earn points.  (Enter flashbacks of childhood for all my middle age and older readers. Self included.)

After the glee of finding such a treasure wore off I realized something.

I AM that little white marble right now. Flying in different directions looking for a place to land.  Wondering which pocket will be my destination.  Hoping the game (limbo) doesn’t last forever.

Mark heads to San Francisco again this week to give a presentation which is part of the interview process.  More waiting.  He leaves today to prep with people and fine tune his project.  He will do an amazing job.  He is incredible at what he does.  Socks will be knocked off and people will be blown away.  I have absolute confidence in his ability to rock this thing.  No fear there.  He’s got this.

I don’t fear the possibility of moving.  At all.  In fact, the thought excites me.  I love having a new house to make a home.  The thrill of meeting new people and seeing new things.  Our nest is nearly empty with all my kids nestling into their own sweet lives as wonderful adults.  The timing is great.  No fear (or very little) there.  God’s got this.

I don’t fear the possibility of staying here, either.  I’ve got wonderful friends, a job I love, and two of my kids close by.  I love my home and neighbors.  The weather couldn’t be better.  Colorado is the ideal place to live.  No fear there.  God gave this.

So what is it that I DO fear?  What makes me feel like that little white marble?  The waiting.  That’s what makes me crazy.  No concrete place to “land” right now.  Am I coming or going?  Do I make plans this way or that?  A kind of holding pattern that leaves me with this sense of fear – not fear of the future, but fear of the present.  Fear of dangling feet with no place to stand firm.

But wait.  What’s that you’re saying, God?  I DO have a place to stand?  A solid Rock to plant my feet on?

It’s You, God.  You are my Rock.  My Foundation.  My Firm Ground.  Even when everything else around me feels a little like shifting, changing, moving sand.  You never change.  Your love never wavers or morphs with the change of my circumstances.  Not even in the excruciating waiting.

You know the pocket I will land in.  You’ve already prepared it for me.  But until then, help me enjoy, or at least not hate, the limbo game, knowing that I’m in the hand of Him who holds my future…

Matthew 4:24-27 – “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”