Happy Birthday to my Dad..85 well lived years.

Dear Dad,

What I do not have here is the middle years...the Start in Sumatra, through the Japanese camps in WWII to the reconstruction years in Holland, the meeting of Mom in France, to the start of the great adventure in Papua. I don't have the years where I got to know you...the years when you parented us in transitions; the years in Holland, in Pennsylvania, in Tennessee, then back to Papua.  The years of loss and heartache are also missing in these pictures as well as the years of growth and new discoveries as you and Elfrieda made a new life.What is true about all these pictures though, is that in your 85 years  you have a life well lived, a life so loved.

Heidi 

Ponder the path of your feet...

Prov. 4:25-27

Let your eyes look directly forward, and your gaze be straight before you.
Ponder the path of your feet; then all your ways will be sure.
Do not swerve to the right or the left; turn your foot away from evil.

How easy is it for you to get distracted?  There are times in my home where I clean distracted on purpose. I pick up one things to take to the bedroom and find something in the bedroom that needs done and bounce across the house that way, eventually getting it done. I love this way of cleaning because in the distraction of the moment even though I get things done it takes on the air of an adventure.  This is course can only be done if I have lots of time ahead of me and time isn't crunched.
If I focus...what takes me all day distracted can take me a few hours.

I live life often not in the distracted way but in the wandering, what will happen today, way.  In the past I was taught that God would direct my path and I often assumed in that directing it would come out of nowhere and certainly in a momentous kind of  way.  A kind of  haphazard, hopefully God will make sense of my life as I maneuver through. Always waiting for that specific calling, direction, feeling etc. where I will know the way forward.  Waiting on the Lord seemed literally that we were sitting and waiting for that specific direction to float down into our consciousness.

What if...waiting on the Lord was kind of like pondering the path of your feet...intentionally figuring out the direction ahead.  I am not saying that God does not speak directly or specifically, but what if the pondering and figuring out is exactly how God leads you. What if it was that simple...
Keep your feet from evil...you know what that is...and ponder, move forward, ponder again and confidently move forward.  Even if it does not 'succeed'...maybe you have to change your idea of what success looks like.

Maybe for you, your life is a wandering kind of life. Maybe some are focused and efficient ...does it matter if you have pondered your path, turned your feet from evil,  kept your gaze forward/upward?

There is such freedom in that...I am where I am and will ponder when the road ahead gives me choices, knowing that if it is not towards evil, I can be sure it is the way to go.