Jesus, that's all

The thing about road trips is that they give you time to think. 

Last week, I took a quick overnight trip to Tulsa to see my podiatrist. (I have tried a couple here in St. Louis but neither has inspired the same comfort/confidence level as my Oklahoma doctor.) 

It's about a six-hour drive from St. Louis. So I had plenty of time to think, and as seems to happen sometimes, the things I found myself thinking about were of the worrying, anxiety-producing category, things like, "Where will we be next year at this time?" and "Where did the last 10 years go?" (Make it stop!)

About halfway through my trip, I stopped off for gas, and the sky looked like this. 

The weather for the next hour is what you would expect from a sky that looks like that. Add white knuckles to time to think.

Last year, my husband left his lifetime vocation of church musician to attend seminary full-time. This coming spring, he will receive his vicarage assignment, which is essentially his on-the-job training to be a pastor. It's possible that assignment could be local, but it's also possible it could be somewhere else. At this time, all we know is that change, of some kind, is coming. It's something to which we have become accustomed. In the last 33-plus years, our life's path has taken us from Texas to Illinois to Oklahoma to Missouri. When we first started this journey, our firstborn wasn't even a year old. Now he is married with two children of his own. 

Last week, after seeing those ominous clouds and driving through a blinding rainstorm, I was met with something else: an Oklahoma sunset. There is truly nothing like it (if you've seen one, you know what I mean). Because I was driving, I couldn't take a picture, but here's a photo I once took of another Oklahoma sunset:

As the sun continued to go down (it was like watching a slide show, every slide with its own unique combination of light and hue and accompanying details), I looked to my right, and there, on the back of a semi truck traveling in the next lane, a Bible verse was printed: 

"For He will command His angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways" (Psalm 91:11). 

And then, not five seconds later, I looked to my left, and on the opposite side of the interstate there was a large, white billboard with one word centered in enormous black letters: "JESUS." At the bottom right corner of the billboard, in much smaller letters, were the words, "That's all." (Gotta love Oklahoma.)

I don't know what next year is going to bring. What I do know is that those who trust in our Lord's plan and provision for His children as revealed in Christ's work on the cross for our salvation know that He works all for our good. How many, many times I have seen this play out in my life and my family's life. I'm about to see it play out again.