My Own Personal Leap Year

Oh, Abba… I couldn’t help but reflect today on the fact that some pretty significant things happen in four-year cycles.

National elections, for one.  After a long season during which candidates espouse the “rightness” of their positions on Issues A to Z, we vote to select those we believe can best lead us into Tomorrow.  Leaders tackling future challenges.

Leap Year, for another.  The addition of an extra day to our calendar every four years, to keep us synchronized with the astronomical calendar.  Guess that’s another way of saying we need to adjust ourselves — even the way we measure time — to stay in sync with the Greater Reality of the Universe.

I pondered another four-year cycle today.  Although it was far more significant to me personally, it was not totally unrelated to the other two.

Today, I was pronounced four years cancer free!  

The surgery to remove the cancer happened four years ago, on the fourth day of April (the fourth month).  Time certainly does FLY!  (Funny how that is true when we’re having fun… and even when we are not!)  🙂

You are the Greater Reality, Lord.  And You are the One who is keeping me in sync... with You and the plans You have for me.

“For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you; plans to give you hope and a future.”  (Jeremiah 29:11)

By a Grand Design I will only understand later, when I am finally with You face-to-face, You have kept me here this side of Heaven.  An “alien” still here in this place that is not my Home… prepared, by Your Spirit, to tackle whatever future challenges You have already determined will enable me to give You glory.

“But our citizenship is in heaven.  And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who by the power that enables Him to bring everything under His control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like His glorious body.”  (Philippians 3:20-21)

And as for staying “in sync” with the rhythms of the Universe?  You continue to graciously and patiently take me into Your arms as You teach me to dance… in patterns of intrinsic beauty that are often (too often?) hidden beneath extrinsic circumstances that are anything but beautiful.

“Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”  (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18)

The Valley of the Shadow is an amazing “school” of Higher Learning, Lord.  But then, almost all of us have earned “advanced degrees” of some kind in our own personal School of Hard Knocks.  Although I would not wish this “course of study” on anyone else, I would not trade it for any worldly treasure!

So… Let the next four-years of “study” begin!  As I LEAP into The Future… where You already await!

“I love You, Lord, my Strength.  The Lord is my Rock, my Fortress and my Deliverer; my God is my Rock, in Whom I take Refuge, my Shield and the Horn of my Salvation, my Stronghold.”  (Psalm 18:1-2)

Gratefully,

Abba’s Girl