I would love to tell you that I have returned full of wisdom and inspiration, but alas, I have not.
The past couple weeks have been more about survival then deep reflection. We have had a truckload of unexpected things come up and each day has been a challenge to accomplish only what must be done for that particular day.
Some the these unexpected events I probably should have foreseen, anticipated and planned for. Perhaps they would not have left me reeling if I had only been more organized and more intentional with my time and our money (oh that 20/20 hindsight). But some of these unexpected things were just that, unexpected. Sometimes there is just no way of knowing where God is taking you.
In the past 2 weeks Erik and I have had over $1000 in unexpected car repairs (praise God for savings). We have both had friends separately come to us with heartaches that required us to drop everything and just sit with them and listen, rework our schedule to make time for follow up visits. We have been called on to make a last minute trip to Minnesota instead of my hometown for Thanksgiving to sit by Erik's 93 year old grandma while her health continued to decline. We had the unexpected expense of 16 hour car rides, 3 nights in a hotel and 4 days of a family of 5 eating out (praise God for end of the year bonuses). We had an unexpected "accident" of an iPod touch (my son's most treasured possession) falling 13 floors in an elevator shaft. And the unexpected expense of a new iPod touch being added to the Christmas list! There have been unexpected sick days, unexpected programs I forgot to put on the calendar, and unexpected fun that made all the rest of this bearable.
I know I shouldn't complain, life is full of the unexpected.
Over 2000 years ago, something else very unexpected happened. Salvation came. In the form of a baby, born in an unexpected place at an unexpected time. It wasn't convenient. Not for Mary when she found out she was expecting a baby no one would believe was conceived by God himself. Not for Joseph when Mary came to tell him about the baby. And it wasn't convenient for either of them to travel in final weeks of her pregnancy to a town that wasn't expecting them. They were unexpected visitors and no one was prepared to receive them.
But that didn't stop Christ from coming.
God's plan is often unexpected. It was unexpected 2000 years ago, and that is still often unexpected today. I imagine when Christ comes again it will be equally unexpected. Will you be ready to receive him? Because honestly, whether you are ready or not, it won't stop him from coming. He won't wait for you to be ready. We are assured that he will come and win he does, he will come unexpectedly.
There is much in life that is unexpected, that we simply can't be ready for. But not Christ, we can be ready for him. The question is are you?
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