The Adventures of the Johnson Clan: Dominos of Life

The game of dominos if fun; not exciting, but rewarding. After the effort you put into it you're equally rewarded with a pay off. Setting up just a few dominos for a couple of minutes won't result in much of an end result. Those set-ups that have taken days of intricately setting up line upon line, loop after loop, and are spread throughout each floor in our homes... those are the pay-offs that bring much excitement! It's truly a rewarding moment to watch each individual domino, that on its own is nothing but ordinary, but when placed amongst hundreds of other seemingly ordinary dominos becomes a key moment, a pivotal piece The a Master's work.

We are those dominos; seemingly ordinary on our own, but when put together we carry out the Lord's Masterpiece in this life. And each of us is integral in carrying out the Lord's work as he's planned it.

I've seen this so much in my life lately that it brings me to tears of humble gratitude to see and gain even a sliver of the clarity that the Lord has over the plan for my life.

We are blessed and I try to be grateful for all my many blessings, but sometimes when life throws something unexpected at me my natural tendency is to overreact, panic, stress, and doubt how the situation could possibly resolve positively. Doom and Gloom, that's me. I tell myself I'm just a realist; however, if that were the case I'd recognize the the Lord's hand in my life and how he ALWAYS resolves our trials in a positive way. Faith. That's the reality.

For awhile now we've talked about the possibility of staying here and accepting a job until our student loans are paid off in the future. This has brought up endless scenarios for our future, both near and far: should we buy this house? Should we buy a different house? Should we rent? Should we move back to Utah after? Colorado? Hawaii? You name it, we've debated it! When we prayed about it, it felt right, and things began progressing forward. Then they stopped. The natural man in me said, "okay maybe this isn't the right choice." The voice of reason chimed, "Have patience." And then my Landlord called to say they're listing our house for sale, so decisions need to be made.

To our credit we've gone from saying prayers of "please Lord, make this happen" to "thy will be done." So much so that we followed his will across the seas to Europe, to live in Poland. We lived apart for the majority of two years to get by. We unwillingly moved to New York and then Unwillingly left it to come to Iowa as a last minute change from the plan of Arizona or Penn State.

"Thy Will be done."

We've become really comfortable in these prayers, almost in an indigent manner, unsure of making our own decisions because the Lord seems to have a concrete plan for us. We've turned ourselves over to the Lord for years and for the first time in a long time, I feel like he's handed us the torch and expects us find our own way now. So we've been praying.

Through wisdom from family and council in church lessons our prayers have switched from

"thy will be done" to "Lord, this is decision we're making; if you're okay with this then we'll move forward... and as always, Thy will be done."

A parent of a young child often takes their hand and leads them closely. As we age and reach new points in our lives, and understand a bit more we're given more freedom. I can't explain it adequately, but since we changed our prayer to appropriately match the circumstances we're now in things seem to be falling into place, just as they did 5 years ago when learned to change the way we prayed back then. That's not to say things are magically working out, or it's all easy again, but we've gained another sliver of clarity: That which ever direction these next decisions take us, we first have to make the decisions for ourselves; the Lord won't tell us what to do all the time. But since we've decided on some of the unknowns the Lord has unfailingly awarded some much desired clarity. So we're at peace.

Remember to pray. Remember the pray correctly for the specific spot in life you're at.

The Lord listens. He hears us. Always. And sometimes even a simple routine life can begin to lack the essential building blocks of faith that we need, simply because we're not using the blocks that fall out of our daily habits. Stretch your faith. Test it.

Fall to your knees in a quiet place and dare to ask, "What would you have me do?" Dare to pray for patience *that one scares me the most!

Dare to ask for something you've made a decision on and trust that he'll give you an answer.

This doesn't sound nearly as profound as this past two weeks has felt to me, nor does it explain the exact dominos that i've been watching line up in my life, but I know none the less that I want to remember this feeling (as best I can). I'm not yet sure what the end result will look like when the last domino is set into place...

... but I know it will be GRAND.