The Promised Land

I took a survey recently that asked, "If time and money wasn't an issue, what would you like to be doing in five years." Immediately, "Midwife" popped into my head, which sort of surprised me. Not entirely the midwifing thing. I've studied it before; basically done all I feel I can towards that without a teacher/mentor. But my youngest isn't reading quite well enough yet for me to feel comfortable leaving him for long stretches (just prenatal appointments would take one day a week, plus however long the births themselves would take), and anyway, the only midwives in the area are an hour from my home, meaning they do births up to two hours away from me. I have trouble wanting to spend that much time on the road.

No, it was that that came so quickly to my mind, above everything else.

It wasn't the only thing, though.

• I would like to see my older kids settled on their own in that time.
• I would like to see our church grow.
• Hubby retiring would be nice.
• My own business making something of a profit would be good.
• My art skills will be better (cooking, drawing, music for sure)

But it was the midwifing that came first. Hmmmm. 

Truely, my dream has always been to mentor women in every area of life. Makes it a bit frustrating to be in such a small church with so few outside contacts due to being home all the time. 

But of late, God has been reminding me of some things.

• Decades ago I felt frustrated that I wasn't doing anything for HIm (this was before I had children) and I didn't even know what He wanted me to do. He clearly brought to my mind, "What is in your hand?" (Exodus 4:2) "My mouth" was my answer, and I began then to learn to teach others. 
• It occured to me once (on God's prompting) that my Hubby was Joshua to my Dad's Moses. This has given me some interesting insights; Joshua is nowhere nearly as known as Moses, yet accomplished as much or more. Moses laid the foundation, but Joshua led them to ultimate victory. I wonder how often Joshua was frustrated with Moses' decisions, but went on supporting him anyway?
• If we carry this analogy along life (which I is my own idea, not prompting from God, I think) our life in California was our time in slavery (and that is how much I hate So CA). But that makes the 18 years here a time of wondering in the wilderness. And that is exactly how productive and frustrating I feel our time here has been. 

The church numbers have fallen again, not that they were ever very high. Our ministry (maybe I should say, "my parent's ministry"?) has always been one of one-on-one caring for those that need more help than a bigger church can provide. Numbers aren't really important. It's that we are in God's will that matters. But goodness how discouraging! Our founding members have all died or moved away except my dad, Hubby and I, and my older kids. Half of those who were not founding members, but joined us shortly thereafter have left the state. We do have a newish family, but still.....

God has greatly increased our numbers, though, speaking of my own family. We had 4 small children when we moved here, and now have 4 adult children, 3 teens, and 2 youngers (so strange to have no babies or toddlers :-P) 

I see often things that, if this church is ever destined to grow any larger, must change or be done away with. I also see that it isn't quite time for those changes. So we still "wander." 

So what is next? Don't know. If the analogy carries on, it's about time to enter Canaan's land isn't it? But The Promised Land didn't mean "quiet and peace" for Israel. That's when the REAL work began!