GOD SURPRISES

I'm sitting on my couch Indian style with my computer in my lap as I type away.  Empty bottles that need to be washed and a Diet Dr. Pepper waiting to be finished are to my right, along with my ever-present iPhone.  On my left lay sweetly slumbering babes who just finished the aforementioned bottles and are snuggled under blankets.  I can hear Lily downstairs in our playroom where she "naps" as she talks to her Lambie, the play horse and the puppy dog.  Bella is strangely quiet, but I can be almost certain she is not sleeping, but instead wrecking some kind of silent destruction that I will encounter in about an hour.  William is stirring, because he does that more often, but he loves his paci, and he is making sweet cooing noises.  The applique crab on his outfit is grinning up at me, and every so often, I catch a glimpse of a grin on his face as well.

I am often surprised at my life.  I'm not sure what I expected, but I don't think I got it.  I got so much more.  I never expected to adopt - it was not in my plan at all.  I never expected to have a husband who owned a restaurant.  I didn't fully expect to be a stay-at-home mom.  So many wonderful surprises and gifts that God has graciously given to me.



Every June in Arkansas, just as it is starting to get hot, the mimosa trees start blooming.  (Truth be told, I had to Google what they were called just to write this post about them.  I have been mesmerized by them since I was a child, but I am no botanist.  My thumbs are black.)  What always amazes me about these trees is the fact that they are everywhere here.  I mean everywhere.  And I never notice them at all until they are blooming their delicate fuzzy pink flowers that seem to love the heat and soak up the sun.



I feel like it is a wonderful God surprise every summer.  Most trees have flowered out and lost their luster that gives way to their normal green leaves.  But out of seemingly nowhere, the mimosa trees start to shine.  They remind me what a creative God we have to give the gift of flowering trees in the middle of the hot summer in places you wouldn't expect them.  When I researched them a bit, they are apparently a bit of a weed of a tree.  They grow just about anywhere and drop a ton of seeds in the fall and even into the winter, so their proliferation around the South especially is not a surprise to anyone who understands how these things work.

I feel like those vivid pink blossoms wave to me out of a mass of other plain green trees and say, "Just wait!  You never know what God will do and when!  He will surprise you when you least expect it!"  And this has been true all along.  I am so thankful.

But you and I both know that not all surprises seem good at the time or good in light of our finite human vision.  I've experienced those already enough to know that bad surprises come along.  Sometimes I can get fretful, especially when I think about my children's futures and what surprises that I will never be able to control or predict.

It all comes back to whether or not I trust God.  Do I trust his character?  Do I trust that his ways are good and always better than my own?  The answer is a resounding yes, but that doesn't mean that I don't keep asking the questions.  I have to ask the questions in the face of everything we see and experience here on Earth.  So many hardships.  So much pain.

But, God is good.  All the time.  And he brings good God surprises that shake up our lives and draw us to himself.  As I look ahead, I wonder what other surprises are in store.  As I look ahead, I am so glad to follow a God who knows what is ahead and promises to walk with me.  Following a God who brings the delights of unexpected summer blooms will never be boring.