Isaiah 26:3-4

  Tonight Marlin is flying across the wide, wide world to the States for a week to spend time with his parents. His father is having open heart surgery and Marlin and i both felt he needs to go spend some time with them. The only problem is, I MISS HIM!

  Terribly.

  That's a side effect of living together for over 18 years. It's what happens when you laugh together, cry together, and argue together. It's what happens when you surrender to each other. You become joined in ways you never knew possible.

  He makes me laugh as hard today as he did 18 years ago. It's pretty amazing when a woman still thinks her husband is funny after dirty socks and natural childbirth.

  I can't believe that he not only still loves me, but he LIKES me. There's a difference, you know. Especially after he's had to put up with hormones and swollen ankles through 10 pregnancies. I'm just not always sweet and cheerful when i'm waddling and there's no question about it.....I am no longer a 20 year old and certain things change after this many babies. But he still calls me beautiful.

  And he means it.

  So now he's gone for a week and tonight i found myself restless and struggling with an indefinable something. I thot maybe it's guilt for not taking my vitamins and cod liver faithfully. But that didn't make sense because i haven't struggled with a whole lot of guilt before. I wondered if i'm afraid to sleep in Africa without my man beside me but i knew it wasn't that. And then i knew. I'm afraid he won't come back. That his plane will disintegrate, leaving me with 9 children and a broken heart. I thot of those stories where the husband and wife separate for a short time and then something happens and they don't see each other for months. Years. It wasn't a paralyzing fear, just a nagging feeling.

  The more i thot about it, the more i realized that the fear fit in with some other nagging feelings that have been haunting me.

  How do i KNOW that God really has our future in His hands? Since when would He care about what we do and where we go? He's a big God, i'm a puny (in a spiritual sense, not so much physical) human and i'm supposed to believe that He cares about small details? Such as whether we're having a boy or girl. Or where we go when our plane leaves Kenya. How to raise these boys and one daughter. Why my ankles are swelling and what if this baby is not ok. On and on. Quiet doubts that slowly undermine my faith and make me try to pick up the control i've worked so hard to lay down.

  Tonight i came across this verse and satan's lies retreated.

"You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on You, because he TRUSTS in You. Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord God is an everlasting rock. 

Isaiah 26:3-4

  Amen and Amen!! Get thou behind me, satan! 

  I still miss Marlin. We all do. They adore their daddy and lets face it. He gets obedience in ways i only dream of and that helps too.

  But tonight i'm taping this verse up behind the bathroom door (i'm pregnant, where else do you think i spend the majority of my time?) so that i am reminded of who really is in control. I handed that control over 13 years ago and i have no intention, by the grace of God, to pick it back up. 

 Tonight i go to bed with my heart full of peace.