The world seems to be coming apart at the seams. North Korea keeps threatening to lob bombs at us. Evey time I turn around, some major city is having riots. Around the world, it seems like there’s a weekly terrorist attack. The world isn’t at peace. The U.S. feels like it’s on the brink of some kind of civil war. No place feels safe. Makes me want to tuck my tail between my legs and go hide in a closet. I’ll put my fingers in my ears, and you can tell me when it’s all over.

All this angst in the world. All this fear. All this chaos. I’ve been reading Eric Mataxas brilliant book, “Bonhoeffer.” In case you don’t know, here’s the cliff’s note version of “Bonhoeffer.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German Christian living during the time of Hitler’s reign. He saw Hitler come to power and saw the evil that was Hitler and the Nazis. He decided Hitler needed to die. He was evil. Bonhoeffer joined a group who conspired to assassinate Hitler. Bonhoeffer is arrested and dies a martyr’s death. Just before Bonhoeffer is killed, he is in imprisoned. He thinks he’s getting out. During this time he purposes to his love, saying he needed to say “Yes, to the earth” is saying yes to God. He rationalizes that saying yes to life is saying yes to God.

I loved Bonhoeffer’s thinking. In the midst of massive chaos and the evil that was Hitler and the Nazis, Bonhoeffer found something to celebrate, a marriage. He believed that we must live our lives, enjoying them, when we do that, we are acknowledging God. When I read that, I realized I can’t tuck my tail between my legs and go hide in a closet. I need to live life. Saying “yes to God’s earth,” is saying yes to God.

Guess what? God designed this planet. He designed you and me. He created our taste buds, so we could taste and enjoy a good meal. He designed colors, so we could see beautiful things like flowers, blue skies, and beautiful oceans. He gave us a sense of touch, so we could pet fat roly poly puppies and feel their soft fur. He created us to hear so we could enjoy birds singing, music and the sound of babies laughing. And unbelievably God designed sex. Yes, He is the creator of sex and not the devil. It’s meant to be enjoyed through the sanctity of marriage.

God is the creator. Being a Christian isn’t wearing sackcloth, never bathing, and eating only bread and water. Many people think that’s what a Christian is. A true believer will live this life. They can enjoy the things God created. When we know the creator, we can enjoy the creation.

So I need to go forth and live my life without fear. I need to march ahead, trusting God will care for me. I need to enjoy this world, since God has created all of it. It is a fallen world, but still God’s creation. So let’s march ahead and say yes to God. When I’m tempted to run and hide, grab my hand and remind me not to. And when I see you with a helmet or hazmat suit on, heading to your underground bunker, I’ll remind you of the same. We’ll keep each other accountable. Let’s say yes to God.

Southern California has no seasons. We may dip down to the 60’s during “winter.” We may have some rain, in the spring, but we really don’t have seasons around here. I wish we did. When fall comes around, I miss Alaska. Now there’s where you have seasons. You know when summer’s coming, because it gets lighter and lighter outside. And it gets warmer, so much warmer. I think fall is my favorite time. The temperatures began to drop. The darkness of winter hasn’t completely settled in yet. There’s still a nice balance of light and dark. You know it’s coming, but it isn’t here yet. There’s a chill in the air. Winter will come. It will bring the cold and the snow and the darkness. We get ready for it. You make sure you’ve got a good winter coat. We check that last year’s coat still fits. You make sure you have a good supply of socks and sweaters. You enjoy the fall and the feel of it, knowing winter is just around the corner.

I’m in the fall of my life right now. I feel winter coming on. I don’t think I’m ready for it. I don’t want winter. I want to stay in the fall of my life. But a mother’s life is a series of seasons we pass through. We have that first season, when the kids are really young and you spend your days chasing them around and eating leftover grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch. Then there’s the elementary school years. The kids are not toddlers, but more human like at this time. They walk and talk and think you’re the greatest human being that walked the face of this earth. Then we hit the teenage years. As a friend of mine said, “They now have opinions.” Yes, they do. Lot’s of opinions. There are good days and bad days. There are days your daughter gets bullied on the internet and you need to hug her and tell her how much you love her. There are days, your son reports to you, that his friend got pulled over drunk driving, with him in the car.

My daughter will be gone from my house for two months. She’s leaving this week. She’s never been gone that long, ever. I’m going to miss her. It’s getting her ready to go to England in the spring for three months. It’s getting me ready for her to be gone during that time. This is my last year of homeschooling. I see winter coming, where I have to do something different. My identity is going to change. My son very likely will be gone next year, and very likely my daughter will be too. This mother hen will have an empty nest. This is the winter I’m not looking forward to.

I want them both to stay home with me, but they can’t. I don’t want things to change, but they will. I want to go back in time and be the mom to small kids again. But there’s no such thing as time machines. So here I face the on coming winter. I need to get ready for it. I don’t want it, but I must.

The Lord is my only life line. I won’t be able to move forward without Him. So, with anxiety in my heart, I get ready for winter. It is coming. I’m not sure I will be ready. Our pastor said this morning, “We can’t know the future, so we must trust in the One who does.” That’s all I’ve got. But it’s proved to be true over and over. My winter is coming and I just need to trust in the One who knows the future.

I think I may have broken my little toe tonight. You know, the baby toe that’s supposed to go “wee, wee, wee, all the way home.” Yeah, that one. I was coming down my stairs and I don’t know what happened, but I fell right on my bottom, on the last stair. I landed where my toe smacked onto the hard surface. It’s really swollen right now. It looks like it’s pregnant. I have a little pregnant toe.

I can’t figure out what I did. I was coming down the stairs to get a glass of water, when “bam!” I’m sitting at the bottom of the stairs. I wish I could say there was a sock or slippery banana peel there, for me to slip on, but there wasn’t. I can’t come up with a cool skiing story because, well it’s not skiing season. It’s 84 degrees outside, right now. Of all my plans tonight, breaking my baby toe wasn’t one of them.

But then, my life, usually doesn’t follow any script. A few weeks ago, my sixteen year old, told me he was in a car with a drunk driver. His friend got taken away, and my son had to find his own way home. That wasn’t part of the plan either. I would never want either of my children, in a car with anyone drunk. It’s like a parent’s worst nightmare.

Back in November, on voting day, my car got smacked into by a lady going at least 70mph. I was coming home. I was literally thirty seconds from my house, when she destroyed my car. I couldn’t even drive it off the road to move it out of oncoming traffic. That was really not part of my plan. I don’t think car accidents would ever be part of anyone’s plan.

None of us knows what the future holds. None of us plan for accidents to happen. They just do. We go cruising through life, when bam! something knocks us out. We didn’t expect it. We didn’t ask for it. Who would ask for a car accident or a broken toe? Only someone crazy. I don’t count myself as someone who is crazy.

If we can’t tell the future, what do we do? If God doesn’t give us specific instructions as to what happens next, how are we to survive this life – this crazy, unpredictable life?

Since we can’t predict the future, our best plan of action is to trust the One who DOES know the future. For the believer, God holds us in His hands. He knows what’s going to happen next. He guides us through it all. He guided me through my car accident and taught me some things along the way. He protected my son when his “friend” was pulled over, so that my son was totally safe. I’m not sure about my little pregnant toe right now. I’m not sure how God will use that in my life. But God is the consummate teacher. He loves to mold us and shape us.

Now, more than ever, we really need to trust the One who knows the future. We’ve got North Korea throwing practice bombs our way. We have riots everywhere. Texas just got hit with hurricane Harvey. Every week, it seems, we hear of a new mass killing of people. And my little toe hurts like crazy.

If you need comfort, trust in God. If you need healing, trust in God. If you are scared, trust in God. It’s all we can do. It’s all any of us can really do. Just trust in the One who does know the future.

Ilike to tell God how it should be. How it should all work out. Okay, Lord, this is what I want. And this is how I should get it. It’s only one way. I pray my will onto the Father. Thus sayeth, Wendy, do thou.

Me: Lord, here’s the plan. I need this to happen and the only way I can see it working out, is if you follow my instructions.

God: I love you dear daughter, but no.

Me: But Lord, you don’t understand. I really need this to happen and it won’t happen any other way.

God: No.

Me: Don’t you love me? How come you say you’ll give us good gifts and you won’t give me this?

God: No.

Me: (sobbing) God I need you. I need you so badly. Please help me.

God: I see all things. I know all things. Let me do my work.

Me: (very quietly) Okay.

God isn’t Santa Claus. Though, at times, I kind of wish He were. He’s not the fairy godmother of our lives, waving his magic wand, granting us our wishes. God wants to mold us and shape us into His image. He never misses an opportunity to teach us. Never. Every answer to prayer is a learning experience.

Our lives are a yielding to God. We began to drift away. and God calls us back. We have a car accident that we walk away from. A near miss. Our children are in cars with drunk drivers only to get pulled over by cops, another near miss. We cry out for God to give us that one person we think will be perfect in our lives and He says no. Only, to find out later, that person was FAR from perfect. God did have another person picked out and because He knows all and sees all, that other person is a perfect match. We fit together like peas and carrots.

Every time we drift, God reminds us who He is. I always think of Job. When he sat on an ash heap, scratching his sores, he cried out to God and God answered him with, Do you know who I am? Seems a strange answer to a desperate prayer. “Get me off this ash heap Lord!” “Take away these sores, Lord!” I’m sad, Lord! And God says, “Do you know who I am?’

Do we know who He is? Do we know who we are speaking to? God proceeds to tell Job exactly who He is.

God asked the same question of Peter. “Who do the people say that I am?” He asks Peter (Luke 9:18). Then He asks Peter who does he say Jesus is. Peter declares Him to be the Christ (Luke 9:20).

Do we know who God is? In our minds, do we view Him as a fairy godmother, here to grant our every wish. Or, do we really know Him?

As I walk this earth, raising children, and praying all the time, I don’t think I know God. I would like to say that I do, but I don’t think I really do. I know Him as my Savior. I know the Holy Spirit lives within me, because I am a believer. But I think I’ve just scratched the surface, of really knowing Who God is. It’s what I seek to do, but not all the time. I get caught up in meals to be cooked, groceries to be bought, toilets to be cleaned, etc, etc. Often, I find myself slowly drifting away, only to have God call me back and bring Him to the forefront of my mind.

Hopefully, you are better at it than me. Just be warned, if you are a true child of God and you drift, He will come find you and bring you back. You don’t want to be too far away when He does, because it can be painful.

I prayed for last week to happen. Well, I didn’t pray for that exact thing to happen: my son in a car with a drunk driver. But this “friendship,” my son had with the boy who got caught really bothered me. Every time my son left to go with the “friend,” I began praying for him.

He was a neighborhood friend. Their family moved out of our neighborhood a few months ago, and I thought that was the end of my son seeing this kid. But it wasn’t. The kid kept calling my son and asking him if he wanted to go to the beach. My son can’t resist the beach. He loves the beach and he loves surfing. So off my son would go and my heart would grow heavy and I would start praying.

I made comments to my son about the boy. I said I didn’t like him hanging out with him. My son’s cousin stayed with us, and my son and the “friend” went out with my nephew. My nephew quietly reported to his mom, that he didn’t like this boy. He was mean to my nephew AND mean to my son. I told my son what his cousin had said, so he wasn’t allowed to hang with the “friend” while the nephew was visiting us.

Now, since the incident last week, my son knows he’s not to see this kid ever again. I asked my son if he learned anything and he said, “Yeah, I need to get better friends.” Well that’s an understatement.

God is so exact. God’s work in our lives is like a surgeon. He goes in, with a scalpel, and very carefully cuts only that thing that needs to be cut out. God’s work is precise, smooth and perfect. He removes those things or people in our lives, just like a surgeon would. There is no extra cutting. Like a surgeon, He only removes that bad thing. Nothing more. God’s work in our lives is not a bulldozer, where it’s loud and noisy and knocks us down and runs over the top of us. Picture a surgeon at work, cutting into someone’s body. His hands are steady. He takes a small, very sharp scalpel and goes in very carefully, only to cut out that one thing. The work of a surgeon is careful, precise and afterwards, the patient should be better.

God took that “friend” out of my son’s life with a sweep of His hand. That boy can’t drive anymore. My son is not allowed to see him anymore, even if he could drive. My son has no desire to see the boy. Just like that, the problem is gone. God spared my son’s life and body by not allowing the boy to get very far in the car before he was pulled over by the police. My son was able to get a ride home with another friend.

My son wasn’t hurt in an accident. The “friend” was whisked away in a police car, to spend the night in jail. He’s twenty, so he’s officially an adult, though he’s still under legal drinking age. But like I said, just like that, the “friend” is out of my son’s life.

So, don’t get me wrong. I did not pray for my son to get into a car with a compromised driver, and hope they got pulled over by the police. I did pray for God to work in my son’s life, that he would follow God and do what is right. My son learned a hard lesson. And God, the surgeon, cut out the bad thing that needed to be cut out. That’s how God works in all believer’s lives. God is the gentle surgeon.