I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come.  I say, “My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.” – Isaiah 4:10

I was cleaning out my garage at the beginning of this year.  I found an old steno notebook from 2005.  When I opened it, it was full of prayers that I had written for about three years.  Sometimes I’d write on back-to-back days.  Sometimes weeks or months would go by.  But there is only one entry when I wrote prayers on the same day.

I kind of want to just type them out, but they are super-duper personal.  But here is the gist:  In July of 2005, God was really working in my life.  I wrote notes from messages I heard where God was really speaking to me.  I knew in my heart that God was going to give Tonya and me a child.  I received what He said, and I believed what He said.  At the time, we had no children.  I was 30 years old.

On August 12, 2005, Tonya and I must have really thought that she was pregnant.  I wrote this whole journal entry praising God, thanking God, and letting Him know how I see what He is doing.  I even wrote this whole line about Him getting all the praise, honor, and glory.

On that very same evening, I wrote a very different prayer.  I’ll write part of it:  Lord, I have to vent.  Cast all my cares upon You, right?  Well here goes, I don’t have to tell you that we did NOT get pregnant this month.  I’m so bitter and mad at You!  I really don’t want to be.  To Whom else will I go?  You hold the answers to life and death.”  According to that entry, if I had thought there was somewhere else to go . . . I would have gone.

My prayers after that are mostly just me examining my own heart, wondering just what the heck is in there, and asking God to make me like Him and help me to get on His timetable and off my own.  Only looking back now could I know that in 11 short months from writing that prayer, we would be holding our daughter in our arms.  

More than ever, I just want to place my life in His.  I am more than reminded that God knows the end from the beginning.  I can only see this little moment right here in front of me.  Yet, here He is already standing at the end of my life.  He sees it all.  How could I possibly refuse to place my entire existence in His hands?

Lord, it is so cool to see how You grow people.  In so many ways, I’m still immature.  Yet in other ways, You’ve worked in my life and I’ll never be the same.  I place the years that I have left in Your hands.  I sure wish I could go back and do it as a teenager.  I’ve wasted a lot of years, but You are the great restorer of years.  Bless me indeed.  Increase my territory.  May Thy hand be with me.  May You keep evil from me.  Help me to always remember that You know what You’re doing in my life . . . even when I don’t.  Amen.