What Does the World Know?

There is no blessing I would withhold from those who walk in obedience to Me - who follow when I call, who respond when I speak to them. Near to My heart and precious in My sight are those who have eyes to discern My purpose and ears that listen to My direction.

Do not be intent on great accomplishments. By what standards do you judge the importance of a matter? It was a relatively small thing that Hannah prayed for a son, but what great things I accomplished through Samuel! (From the book COME AWAY MY BELOVED by Frances J. Roberts)

Today I got to sleep in. My work day usually starts in the infant room at YMCA Learning Center South at about 7 am. Here I am, well past 7, inhaling the stillness and solitude of an empty apartment on a cloudy morning.

I am now the assistant teacher in the Preschool Room. While this is refreshing, it brings about a variety of uncertainties. Secretly I keep thinking, isn't there something more for me? God, is this really where you want me to be? Thousands of dollars to various colleges, and this is where I end up? Making less than I ever did while pursuing my degrees?

My dream was always to be a counselor or maybe some special play therapist for children - I had big hopes. Of course, NEVER a teacher. Never ever, though many told me I would be excellent at it. Some days I wonder...yet what I do now may be right on the button of what I have always wanted to do, I just was very unaware of how little someone is payed for such a job...sadly.

This brings me to perhaps my biggest dream - to be a mother. Once again, this would never be until I got older. Well, older, here I am. Working with infants made me want to conceive a child desperately some days, while others it was definitely a good birth control for me. But as I slowly move to working with an older group, the more I wish I had my own.

The desire comes and goes. I realize having a child is forever. Nothing will ever be the same. I am still half gypsy that just wants to escape, explore, and find the world, but the older I become, the more I realize that many of those desires and dreams are lived through having a child.

I read the passage above from one of my favorite devotionals. I received this devotional from my sister Kaare and thought it was WAY over my head. Obviously, I was not spiritually ready for it. Then one low day I found it in a stack of my old books in a box - it was meant for THAT time.

I cracked it open this morning, praying a naive prayer of Lord, show me what you want me to think about. And sure enough, this passage.

My struggles with making something of myself and living the all American dream overwhelms me sometimes. What if I am simply content being a mother and/or being a loving adult figure to the children I serve, even if I don't make a hefty income?

Do not be intent on great accomplishments. By what standards do you judge the importance of a matter? It was a relatively small thing that Hannah prayed for a son, but what great things I accomplished through Samuel!

I take heart in that.