Who took the cookie from the cookie jar?

Who me?

Yeah you!

Couldn’t be!

Then who?

Did YOU take the cookie from cookie jar?

When I was ten years old I played that game around a camp fire as I sat upon my sun colored “sit upon”. Thirty plus pre-teen girl scouts and I enjoyed keeping our derrieres’ clean while we made merry around the flame.

Funny, I still play the same game despite the fact that I’m older now (*ahem much older). Come to think of it, maybe it’s not so funny.

“Surely you don’t mean me Lord?”

• That’s not my calling.
• I don’t have time.
• She’s so much better at it.

Time is a hard-nosed teacher that initially you’re certain has no heart. Eventually you realize God uses her to employ instruction because He deeply wants the best for you. Oh, how I have learned.

“Sorry No. That’s not my calling Lord.”

Months later I realize He wasn’t asking me to embark on a Lawrence-of-Arabia caliber pilgrimage. Nope. It was me who rationalized His simple request into a calling. All He wanted me to do was contact her. Ask her to church. Introduce her to the friend who would eventually become her life-long mentor.

In the end…I missed out.

“Sorry No. I don’t have time.”

Years later I’m caught in the vortex of an out-of-control, all consuming crisis. I can’t help but wonder if I’d invested a fraction of the time earlier if I’d be in the same seemingly impossible scenario.

In the end…I missed out.

“She’s so much better at it”.

Before I know it a virtual lifetime has passed by and I realize that she may not necessarily be better at it.  What she was——– was willing.

In the end…I missed out.

But there’s good news!

The next time He asks, I can choose to look straight into the eyes of the one who loves me as opposed to looking over my shoulder and wondering if He means someone else.

I can say yes to the dress.

I can trust that He’s big enough to handle whatever the request requires.

I can know to the bone that “yes” to Him is also “yes” to me because He always wants what is best for me.

Friend, if this post causes you to look back and feel pricked with regret please don’t stay there. Be a DoAhead Woman. Look ahead. Look to the future. He’s calling you. Yes you.

And it is glorious.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.” Jeremiah 29:11

“There has never been the slightest doubt in my mind that the God who started this great work in you would keep at it and bring it to a flourishing finish on the very day Christ Jesus appears.” Phillipians 1:6

Grateful to link up with Suzie Eller and the #livefree community today!

Your DoAhead Friend,

Cindy