"Here I Am" Part 6

Wonderful things took place during the next couple of weeks while I was waiting for my name to move up the waiting list and onto the coveted Pilgrim list!

I have mentioned my anxiety issues once or twice and this is generally where my mind starts to go into overdrive with all the possible things that could go wrong and all the "good solid reasons" as to why I shouldn’t go.

Once again. Complete peace. No anxiety. No rationalizing this experience away. No turning back. The fact that I am not anxious is a tremendous gift from God and I recognize it as exactly that. God answers prayer, people! I continued to pray for him to prepare my heart for what He had in store for me.

I really wish I would have written all this down just for the time accuracy of events, but basically it went something like this. After what seemed almost an eternity and an onslaught of prayer requests banging on the gates of heaven, my name began to climb up the waiting list. And not an ounce of anxiety. But my excitement was certainly growing.

I kept watch on that list as long as my eyes were open! At work and at home I would leave the browser up on the website and refresh it ever so often. O.k. Probably 100 times a day. Then about a week before it was time to go, I had made the pilgrim list! I was #36 on a list of 36 pilgrims. Oh that looked so good I had to hit refresh again! And just because God could, he moved me to # 35 for good measure!

I ran through a quick inventory of what God had already accomplished in me and for me. A person with such anxiety as I have, and I was feeling none. Blessing. Such a doubting Thomas at times and yet, I knew I was going despite the already filled up pilgrim list. Blessing. I could feel the Lord working on my heart; preparing me for what lie ahead. Blessing. The amount of prayer time I was able to devote to just this one event in my life was already bringing me closer to the one I so desperately wanted to be near. Huge blessing.

A good and wise friend of mine (Kim Hawkins), when asked to pray for me to get on this walk said something I will never forget. She simply said, “Do not rely or wait on a process to get closer to God.”  What a statement. How many times do we think…”If I can just do that, I would be closer to the Lord.” Or,” I need this and this and this before I can start getting closer to the Lord.”

No you don’t. You just need now. Start where you are. Right now. Don’t put conditions on a relationship with God that God himself does not put there. Don’t waste valuable time. Just start now. Now is all we are promised. Now is all you need.

Thank you, Kim. That statement made me realize I could have been too focused on the “if I can just do this event” mentality that I very well could have given the event more importance than the actual goal. Honestly, it makes me wonder how many time I have actually done this. Shudder. 

The short term goal of course was to attend the walk. But the purpose and overall goal was to draw nearer to our Lord. Wow. I could have missed it. I could have missed out on receiving those blessings. Blessings that would see me through that 4 day weekend called A Walk to Emmaus.