Mr FullCup’s office held a banquet a few weeks ago and one young man confessed he didn’t know who BJ. Thomas was. I was shocked. I was crestfallen. I thought everyone knew him.

It shouldn’t have surprised me as much as it did, I realize that now. I should have gotten a clue when I’m hearing 80s pop on oldies radio stations, or in restaurants. I will never forget being in the grocery store a few years ago, I heard a song I knew and walked around the store longer than needed just so I could hear the whole song. I commented to the girl at the check stand and she said, “Yes, I love the oldies they play in here.”  I think she was 12.

I picked the above song for a reason and it wasn’t so I could tell the story of the young man not knowing Bj Thomas. Not at all.

Have you ever noticed how God seems to put things in your path that honestly you’d really rather He not? Ever get rained on when you’re studying storms? I am going though a book by Kay Arthur, As Silver Refined. It is a Bible study (and thank heavens for my Bible study babes, because I would have quit a long time ago) on how we deal with trials in our life. How we deal with the times we aren’t sure God knows what He is doing to us. When we think God is intent on one thing….our demise.

Even when we know He isn’t. It feels like He is.

Can I be honest? When I signed up for this study, my life was going along pretty good. I had no major complaints. No real “big” problems. If I remember right, my biggest problem was my ability to either remember to brush my teeth in the morning or put on deodorant but not both.

But since starting this study, I’ve had my share of rainy days. I have been inundated with situations that have caused me to question my God. Not in a bad way. But I’ve had my share of crying out to Him, my times of searching desperately for His hand, of longing to feel His hand, His presence and finding instead mostly darkness.  It isn’t that He has left me, or I’ve left Him, it just feels like He’s in heaven celebrating with someone else while my world seems to get harder and harder.

Please don’t think I’m having a pity party and you weren’t invited. I’m not having a PMM (Poor Me Moment). I have had times of sweetest fellowship with Him, times when He was closer than my own skin. Times I know I’m safely tucked in His everlasting hands.

We have embarked on a mission field in our own home and we have invited the world in. Maybe we shouldn’t be surprised, and maybe we really aren’t all that surprised when the world acts like the world. But even knowing it doesn’t make the pain of it any less.

We have had to deal with things lately that really we’d rather not have to deal with right now. We’ve had to make rules we haven’t liked. We’ve had to enforce them. We’ve had to agree to protect our own children and their innocence at what one might say was to the detriment of another.

We’ve had sin brought into our homes. We’ve had to make some hard fast rules on what is allowed in and what is not allowed in.

For some, even for some believers, it might not be a big deal. It might be thought that we’re too strict. That it isn’t real anyway so what’s the problem?

The problem is “to him who knows to do right and doesn’t do it, to him it is sin.” To allow something in our home that is wrong, even if we are the only ones who think they’re wrong, is sin.

Anyone else have raindrops?