Praising Him in the Hallway

When do you struggle most? What circumstances cause you the most stress? When is your faith, be it in God or fellow man, tested the most? Ask five people this question and you are likely to get five very different answers. For some it is during times of illness or loss. For some it is during financial difficulty. For some, oddly enough, it is when life is on a high, when suddenly they feel no need to rely on God or others. For me, it is in the hallway. 

The hallway. One door has closed, another yet to be opened, and so I wait. The hallway has no windows. It is easy to lose ones sense of direction in the hallway. With no sunlight, day and night can seem to blur and become one on the hallway. When the doors remain closed it is easy to imagine the hallway has no end. 

Yet at some point a door will open. I will walk through and be able to look back and see the hallway for what it really was. A passage of the perfect length to lead me to my next destination. Until then...I will praise Him in the Hallway.

In Him ~Marla

In His Time

The house is on the market, and now the waiting begins. I know God is in control of this situation. I know He has the perfect buyer for our home. I know He has the perfect home for us in OKC. I know that His timing is far better than mine. So, my goal is to trust in His wisdom, to rely on His plans. If I do these things I can be content regardless of how long the process takes, or what the monetary outcome is as well. Today I am simply going to share my favorite verses and quotes. Words that help me remember...I am not in control, and I do not want to be! ~Marla

Patience is a Virtue

Do you ever have problems peeling your boiled eggs? My mom always had beautiful boiled eggs. They peeled perfectly, never a blemish. As an adult whenever I boiled eggs for deviled eggs they looked like a rat had eaten part of them! I could never get the peel off without mangling the egg. I tried all kinds of tips to help with this and none seemed to work. Finally I started thinking about what my mom used to do. She sat her eggs out ahead of time for at least an hour. She used the boil then simmer method versus taking them off the heat and covering them after the boil. She chilled them after cooking with cold water and put them in the fridge. She peeled them after they had been in the fridge for awhile. I started using this method...worked like a charm, perfect eggs!


So what is the point here? Simply that being patient can sometimes make a huge difference in the desired outcome. When I made deviled eggs I wanted to achieve the end result as quickly as possible. My mom's way took a great deal more time and patience on my part. How many of us have seen people make one bad decision after another because they don't have the patience needed to wait for right person/job/education. Without foresight,planning and a little patience you end up with a mangled version of what you wanted in the first place. 


We are society of impatience; fast food, instant mashed potatoes, microwave pizza, 24 hour grocery stores, movies on demand, and of course, credit cards and loans. Not that these by themselves are bad, but as adults we practice patience so rarely that our young people have few examples from which to learn it anymore. A wise man once said...

Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish.  ~John Quincy Adams

This is what we need to be teaching our youth. Maybe it is time to take his advice to heart.

~Marla