New Seasons & Surprises in Life

I knew retirement would be a new season of our lives, but as we were planning Bob's retirement, we also discovered 2016 would be full of surprises. 

Surprise!!! Your husband is having 2 eye surgeries back to back just weeks before your daughter's wedding, just weeks after a not so well hernia surgery which cancelled our last Thanksgiving with our family in Maryland!!!

Surprise!!! You're in stage 3 adrenal exhaustion with undetectable hormone levels!!!

Surprise!!! Your only daughter's wedding is just around the corner!!!

Surprise!!! "We're pregnant!!!" You're going to be a Nana!!! Such great sadness...How could you do this...NOW!?!

Surprise!!! It's time to pack the U-Haul truck and say good bye to all you've ever known!!!

Surprise!!! You get to drive 1400 miles with 2 dogs in the car for 2 very LONG days!!!

Surprise!!! You get to unpack your new home all alone!!!

Surprise!!! You get to live alone for 3 LONG months!!!

Surprise!!! Your only daughter calls to tell you she's expecting her first child!!! NO! How could you do this to me!!! Now.

​Surprise!!! There are no ladies Bible Studies and no one cares that you are alone!!!

Surprise!!! Your first Grand Little arrived early and you are now a Nana just in time for Christmas!!!

Surprise!!! You get to celebrate Thanksgiving, Christmas and every other holiday ALONE!!!

​Surprise!!! No one cares!!!

Retiring to Texas has been like relocating to another world all to itself....alone and forgotten. So, I felt called to a Daniel Fast for 21 days. Press. Press hard into the Rock. 

"Open wide your mouth and I will fill it!  With Honey from the Rock I would satisfy you!"
Ps 81:10, 16

El-roi

God who sees me

In this season of life, I've had a flood of emotions: Joy, sadness, loneliness, friendship, exhaustion, energy, vitality, strength, sickness, health. They've been full swing, all over the board. I had expectations that were destroyed with a sledge hammer. 

SMASHED! CRUSHED! DEMOLISHED!

It wasn't until summer 2018, that I clearly heard the Holy Spirit reverberate with a loud but gentle voice:

IT'S NOT ABOUT YOU!!!

​The first time I asked God "why have you left me alone in this dry and weary land", and He said..."It's not about you"...I must admit, I didn't get it. I know, I'm dense. It took a couple times of asking, WHY? before I got it!!!

IT'S NOT ABOUT YOU!!!

Finally, it was like a lightbulb moment....and I said out loud....OH!!!! I GET IT!!! IT'S NOT ABOUT ME!!! IT'S ABOUT YOU DOING A WORK IN "THEM"...and whoever that prayer was about...God was working in "them". Of course through this, He's working in me too....but what He was doing wasn't about me. 

He has just called me to STAND...and when I've done everything…STAND.

And so, even in my tears of loneliness, I've had to press hard into God, the only one who will never leave me. I've had to come to the realization, that it's "not about me". I will continue to choose JOY!!! I will be who HE has called me to be. I will continue to seek HIM, even in what sometimes seems like a dark and weary land....a land of foreigners and strangers. A land of Giants. 

El-roi The God who sees me

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Be Sweet,
​Diane