My reputation as the family “Jack Russell” personality is temporarily on hold.  High energy, bouncing off wall behaviors were wiped out by chemo and surgery.

I’ve had to rest and nap.  My front porch has been used for what it was designed for: sitting.   Never one for hot baths, I’ve now chosen long soaks in Epsom salts.  I’ve sat, just sat, beside my husband and held his hand, knowing there was no energy for anything else. Because the girls and I have done fewer things, we’ve talked more and been on the go a little less.

My footsteps are fewer and easier to count.  Busyness has lessened.  The corners of my dining room hold clusters of ladybugs (how do they get in??) that need to be cleaned away.  The mums that graced the front walkway are brown, and the pots ache to spill over with the smiling faces of pansies.   Many other tasks have gone undone.  We’ve tried to keep up with school co-ops and the girls’ favorite activities, but some things have had to go on “pause.”

There have been times when my footsteps faltered to the point where lying down was the only option, and my mind could muster nothing but a prayer for endurance.  But, there have been other times, such as this week, on the upswing of surgery, where my mind, instead of my footsteps, wanders into unknown territory.

For example, I’ve contemplated how moving air is able to compose music in the chimes hanging from the corner of my roof.  Surely the wind is trained by the breath of God, swirling through the trees and setting the metal of the chimes to ring in harmony with the leaves.

With the stillness of my feet, sentences from God’s Word that might have gone unnoticed before whisper music into my ears:

Job 31:4  NIV

“Does He not see my ways and count my every step?”

How DOES He do this? Not just for me, but for every one of His children? Are there celestial trail cams set up around us, monitored in a heavenly command module, where God sits in a plush office chair, zooming in on lives that need extra attention?

The Word teaches that the truth is so much more than anything we can imagine or truly understand.

Galatians 4:6 NIV  (Italics, mine)

“Because you are His sons (or daughters), God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out “Abba, Father (Daddy).”

God counts our steps not from a remote distance, but from inside us!  At the moment of belief, when we become a child of God, Jesus comes to live in our hearts, as the Holy Spirit, walking with us on our life path, no matter where it goes, not as an impersonal trail guide, but as our loving, personal DADDY.

He knows the number and cadence of our steps.  He knows if they falter or waiver. Not because He is watching from afar, but because He is inside us, taking the steps WITH us.  He can count every one, because He takes every one.  He is part of us and we are part of Him.  (Read John Chapter 17 for more on that…)

Rest your feet in a favorite spot sometime today and ponder that thought.  Every step you take is one He takes WITH you.  If you truly hold on to that truth, what will  change…the direction of your steps, the scope of your worry, your fear of the unknown?

He who is Creator, Healer, Savior, Master, steps WITH you.  Allow that truth to generate change in you.

Header and story photo credit: M. D.