To all that shall be - Yes!

Packing your stuff out of house you've spent almost three years integrating into can be a discouraging activity.  "This is mine, that is yours..."  It seems endless.  I've been doing it for a few weeks, and today is the big push.  (Mostly because a few men are coming over to carry heavy things this afternoon, and I want to have as much as possible ready for them.  Thank you, Father, for giving half the population extra arm strength!  I like the way You think :)

It's been a cloudy sort of activity, this packing up of life.  Particularly as everything I own is going to go into storage except for my clothes and the food from my pantry.  The new place is too small to hold anything else, and I only plan to be there a few months as I look toward the future, and hopefully a home of my own.

Yesterday I suspect my sister(s) were praying for me.  After coffee with Jesus and Annie, I had such joy.  All day.  Anticipation, even.  I have always struggled with fearing the unknown.  In fact, when Ravi Zacharias gave the commencement address as I graduated college, I know the Spirit specifically gave him words just for me.  I watched his back from the stage and let his quotation of "The Gate of the Year" settle in deep:

And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: 

“Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.”

And he replied:

“Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God. 

That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.”

I remember if every once in a while.  Sometimes with a little guilt that I still need to hear the same thing, that my soul still hates the unknown.  At its core, this seems a distrust of God.  I have been feeling this distrust again, as I've looked into the unknown days ahead and sometimes quaked.  A lot of prayer has been going into this area recently, in the private sharings from my heart to His.  Yesterday's joy was a real victory.

This morning, unbidden, Dag Hammarskjold's words slipped into my mind. I think God dropped them there, and I found that they really did reflect my heart - a miracle of sorts coming at the end of what has been a difficult process and the beginning of months that seem potentially dreary:

For all that has been - Thanks!

To all that shall be - Yes!

Oh - my heart really said this!  Thank-you God!  But, was it just my mind?  Would I feel differently tomorrow?  Was the comfort brought by yesterday's whispers from Jesus in Luke just a temporary thing?  I need more assurance that He is really working inside - and I don't feel guilty about it.  He never minds when we want to be sure of what He is saying and doing.  Still, I set the thoughts aside and began packing.

Can you resist old photo albums and journals?  I can't.  But I was determined to be disciplined with my time and not get caught up into reading old things when I should be packing them away.  So I didn't.  But in an instant of forgetfulness my fingers just slipped open an old album on its way down into the box.  On the first page was a quotation, beautifully written out by a dear friend long years ago.  What do you suppose it was?  Of course.

Now.  When I have overcome my fears - of

others, of myself, of the underlying darkness:

at the frontier of the unheard-of.

Here ends the known.  But, from a source

beyond it, something fills my being with its

possibilities.

Here desire is purified and made lucid: each

action is a preparation for, each choice an 

assent to the unknown.

For all that has been - Thanks!

To all that shall be - Yes!

   -Dag Hammarskjold

I'm joining you, Dag, and to God I can honestly say:

For all that has been - thank you!  To all You will do - YES!