Dear Reader:

Tuesday was a benchmark closure day for me. I had to complete one last thing to get my old license plate (that I loved so much I wanted to keep) updated so “Surcie” would be a legal vehicle on the highways and I could throw my temporary car sales ‘license plate’ away.

For some reason my updated decals (for paying my taxes) on the former Saturn Vue were pulled off during the  time the car was taken. I got the license plate back… before the Vue was sent to its final resting place…with the decals missing.

So I was forced to go to my least favorite place- the DMV- To my happy surprise, however, I ended up waiting only about 10 minutes and then 10  minutes later I walked out the door with my new decals (hot off the press) having paid a small stipend of 6 dollars. Surcie lives now in my driveway, locked up always…her new home.

A big check-off to the end of a long set of circumstances that ended in joy and happiness! October 3 my car was stolen and now on January 22 it ended in victory and a special “Thank You”  God for being with me through it all.

During the months of being “wheel-less” and “home bound” friends would call and ask how I was doing and I would usually answer something along the lines of “Under the circumstances…everything is going okay.”

Last night I started on my second book in the Mitford series and I experienced a much needed “Aha” moment. Father Timothy was remembering a “salty old evangelist named Vance Havner” who  preached at his mother’s church one time (while he was still a youth) and did something Father Timothy never forgot.

“How’re you?” the preacher yelled out to the whole congregation one bright Sunday morning… and then proceeded to singled out one member to reply.

“Oh, pretty good, under the circumstances?” came the response.

“What I want to know,” said Havner, peering intently at the congregation, “is what is a Christian doing under the circumstances?”

(Father Timothy asked himself the same question…”What, indeed, was he doing under the circumstances?” “Straighten me out Lord” he prayed fervently now.)

The expression “Under the circumstances” basically means: an event or situation  you cannot control. Grandmother Wilson would call situations beyond her control…our “lot in life to bear.”

Like Father Timothy I realize we do need to turn over situations to God that we feel are out of our control….but we aren’t suppose to give up on the situation never improving…to just be a “lot to bear.” God surely didn’t intend for us to “barely” get through life with no joys or happiness. He couldn’t have created a world as astoundingly beautiful and abundant for us to “bear the cross” with no hopes of changing the circumstances surrounding our existence.

I realize now when I have a temporary set-back or set-backs…it is only temporary…if we ask God to provide us with the solution. I have seen it happen again and again in my life ….yet I still seek reassurance from God for my faltering faith when the next crisis appears on the horizon.

Poor God…if He could endow each of His children with just one teeny tiny sliver of faith and endurance that would continue our whole life time…it would sure save Him having to re-teach us that “circumstances” lesson again and again…because circumstances are  just that…circumstances. They come and they go like life’s up’s and down’s.

So until tomorrow…God is the one constant in our lives…so the next time someone asks me how things are going I think I will give the same response I heard our beloved Poppy say over and over (no matter the circumstance)…“I never had it so good!” 

“Today is my favorite day” Winnie the Pooh

*Sis Kinney took her grandson to the Avery County Library to pick out a book. While there she looked up at the book case…it was “Ruthie” from Gloria Houston’s Christmas children’s story: “The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree.” (In the story…Ruthie and her mother cut down the tree from off Grandfather’s Mountain which is in Avery County. Sis…you came full circle! And thank you for taking time to share this wonderful God Wink with us!)