God’s Plan…Our Journey…HIS Grace

AN UNEXPECTED CHANGE
Our journey began in the year 2000; we had just celebrated the new millennium. This was the year, I promised, that would be my daughter Rebecca’s happiest and most fun ever. After all, this was her senior year in high school— after graduating she would embark on a new adventure in her life— going to college. Moving forward as a family would bring new adventures and challenges.

I had no idea what lay ahead, but I did know that God would continue to walk with me and lead me. I knew that my wonderful husband of then ten years loved me and that my two children would continue to grow before my eyes and someday become adults. Their foundation was built on putting God first. I knew they would become the individuals that my husband and I cultivated from early on in their lives, to love and serve God, to love who they are, embrace life to the fullest, and most importantly, to be themselves.

Becky claimed her promise in the following verses from the start and I continue to claim them today.
 “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.”
Jeremiah 29:11-14 NIV

In the NIV Student Fire Bible it is explained that the above verses were written by Jeremiah to the Jewish exiles taken captive in 597 B.C. and were probably written a year or two after they arrived in Babylon. God gave them specific instructions and told them they would not be returning to the Promised Land until the end of 70 years. At the end of 70 years in captivity, a portion of people with renewed faith and desire for God, would desperately and sincerely pray for restoration – natural and spiritual. God would answer their prayers and restore His plans for them. Strategic timing is often involved in the fulfillment of God’s promises. He fulfills His Word and promises when the time is right to accomplish His purpose of bringing more people into a right relationship with Himself and also in response to His people’s sincere prayers. God would listen and respond to those devoted people, working through them to fulfill His promises of restoration. These circumstances reveal two spiritual principles: (1) When God desires to do great things for His people, He inspires and impresses them to embark on a time of intense and persistent prayer; and (2) The timing of God’s answers to these prayers is often linked to God’s purposes for His people as a whole.

In 1996, Becky prayed a prayer at a fall youth retreat; she was 15 years old at the time. Neither she nor I would realize that the answer to this prayer would come in the year 2000, during her senior year in high school.  She prayed and asked God to use her life for His purpose and His Glory in whatever way He needed to. She prayed this prayer with her young tender heart open to His plan and devoted to His Word.