I woke up early this morning. Not regular early, errantly early. 4 a.m. I tried and tried to get back to sleep but at 4:38 I got out of bed and headed for the shower. With Tim still out of town, I would at least be all over the morning. So I showered and in a quiet house, started the business of getting ready for the day. A couple of times I checked in on sleeping girls. There is something so lovely about those hours, and about the quiet and the calm that is over everything. I didn’t miss the impact of that, as I puttered around, for once, ahead of the curve. And then after some quiet time, a couple loads of laundry, a recap of the Australian Open and a shower, I was about to walk in to wake up the girls when I glanced down at my phone. The only new email was an announcement from school: there was a two-hour delay for opening. And all of a sudden what had at first felt like a morning ahead-of-the-curve was now looking more and more like a reckless waste of sleep.

There was something about thinking I was all over the morning that made being up at 4 a.m. special. And then, just as convincingly, something about a two-hour delay that made those same hours look like a poor use of my time. Life feels like that sometimes. I think it’s one thing, but really all along it has been something else. And then I feel somehow duped, cheated. And only in looking back, do I think, I should have known, I should have done things differently, I should have depended upon God, not circumstances, not people. But I didn’t.

God redeems. I think these days that is one of the things I appreciate most about Him. His ability to redeem lost time, lost opportunities, a lost way. Life is an ever changing surprise. There is no figuring it out – – which begs the question, why do I try? What I do know is that some of those big and unexpected turns, perhaps the ones I should have felt coming, can only be navigated with God’s redemptive and supernatural power.

That’s my prayer for today. That truth would follow me wherever I go, so I am never far from God. Sometimes the truth is incredibly painful. But its proximity to God is the one thing that makes it worth seeking and clinging to – – even when it’s not what I want to hear.

I wonder how God will redeem the rest I lost this morning? I wonder how He will redeem the portions of my life that seem beyond repair. I know He can. I just don’t know what it will look like when He’s done, or if it will look anything like I have ever imagined. His ways are not my ways. His thoughts are not my thoughts. So I have to be willing to be surprised. I have to be willing to consider something different than I have ever anticipated, or expected, or perhaps wanted.

God is a Redeemer. A Sustainer. A Provider. He is a Comforter. He is with me, in me, for me. Take heart. This is not all there is.

“I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord, plans to prosper you not to harm you, plans for hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11 I doubt a lot of things. I don’t doubt that God has plans to prosper me, I just don’t know what that is going to look like, and that can be scary.

Blessed are those who believe without seeing. That’s where I am today… somewhere before the dawn… but I know it’s coming.