I am sitting in a hotel room in a college town, USA.  My son, the boy-man child of my youth, is sleeping on the sofa bed.  I am wildly aware of the race of time as we look at colleges for 18 months from now.  Rocking this baby seems just days ago and yet many years.  I know this is a common mother experience.  For that I am grateful.  Many of my experiences have not been common so the ones that are invite a mixed response.

My Bible reader, the fancy electronic kind, won’t connect to the internet this morning … “weak connection” means no Bible reading so I pulled up the internet on my computer, longing for a good word today. The verse of the day is from Ephesians 1 and I decide to read the chapter.

Wow.  What a chapter, filled with rich doctrine – the heady stuff I could spend hours pondering.  But more. This morning, this Mom needs a verse for my HEART – not heady stuff.  My Mom heart needs to hear from God’s heart this morning.

And I read this from verses 3-9: ³ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, ⁴ just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love ⁵ He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, ⁶ to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. ⁷ In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace ⁸ which He lavished on us.  In all wisdom and insight ⁹ He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him….”

I am captivated by the heart words this morning.  Do you see them?  “In love…”, “…according to the kind intention of His will…”, “…which He lavished on us…”, “…according to His kind intention….”

I am strangely comforted by this.  It is, after all, the passion week.  I am reminded daily this week of the overwhelming sacrifice God made in Christ because of His love for us – for me, for my son.

I can trust “the kind intention of His will.”  I can trust the grace “which He lavished on us.”

He has a good plan for this boy-man.  It will become clear in time.

~ Shannon