The Master Builder

Many years ago I was alone in the car driving a few hours to spend the weekend with my college sorority sisters. My husband was home with our three children, and I was free as a bird. I should of been singing as loudly as I could with the radio imagining the laughter of the weekend to come. Instead I was having one of those terrified-mother day dreams where I died in a car accident, and my children had to go on without me scarred for life.

(Please tell my I'm not the only self-centered psycho mom out there. You know you've imagined it and worse.)

In my self-induced, starring me, horror film, day dream I cried out to the Lord to protect me and my children. Surely the Lord wouldn't wish my children to be motherless. In that moment of heartfelt prayer I had one of the bigger "Aha" moments of my life.

If I were to die while my children were young, the Lord of Heaven and Earth has a much better plan for their lives than me.

(Uhhh...I think perhaps the Lord knocked a little sense into me and the drama out of me.)

In a moment, I went from a self-centered control freak Mom to realizing that God is completely in control of all aspects of my and my family's lives. If the absolutely worst thing I could imagine came true, God was still in control. Well, how about that?

As I pondered Psalm 127 this morning I remembered the large step of faith I took that day. I still remember that day as the day I gave my children back over to God and in the process began to seek and love the Lord with a more opened and greatly softened heart. I confess that my children had actually come before God in my life up to that point. That day I realized they were gifts from God, and what I had to do with them did not matter nearly as much as God's work with them. Psalm 127 says:

Unless the Lord builds the house,

its builders labor in vain.

Unless the Lord watches over the city,

the watchmen stand guard in vain.

The Lord has built my marriage and family. He is at the center of our lives. He has the blueprint and instruction manual. Once I gave up control and realized His love is the love that binds us together, our lives have been much more peaceful. There is no need to be fearful and to wait in terror for the shoe to drop. When troubles come, God is still in control. He's the master builder, and we're privileged to be a room in His mansion.

His walls are safe. His love is strong. I feel peace with God in control, and I can now sing loudly with the radio.