For God so loved ...

This has not been an easy week. I wrote that Thursday, but the evidence had stacked up Wednesday. 

I entered the week with a goal of working faster and more efficiently. I've held on to my way -- which involves taking extra time,  if needed,  to dot all the i's and cross all the t's, so to speak -- as long as I can. It's past time to join the just-get-it-done crowd. 

My hand was forced by circumstances that have my area's small staff down one person for at least two weeks. Some computer problems have slowed things down even more, making it hard to tell whether I've made any progress toward faster and more efficient. But I think I have. Friday will be the biggest test. So far, breaks for prayer and deep breathing have kept me going. I am grateful. 

The work issues have made it easy to push aside thoughts about the other challenges I knew this week would hold. Sunday is the 20th anniversary of the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City. Reminders are everywhere. After my visit to the Oklahoma City National   Memorial & Museum last week, I had hoped to compose some reflections about what it means to me. Instead, I've concluded that although it was finally time this year for me to go inside the museum with its vivid reminders of that fateful day and its aftermath,  it's still not time for me to write about it. And that's ok. 

The other memory tied to this middle week of April each year is the death at 5 months of my Daddy's only grandson to bear the family surname. In so many ways, Ryan Michael's April 17 death makes the bombing memorial mantra of "never forget" so much more personal.

 What can I do to honor that life and those lives? I feel inadequate. 

And yet, again, the Scripture that came to me today as I was trying to stay thankful to God even amid challenges was this: For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever would believe in Him would not perish but would have eternal life. (John 3:16)

I'm praying to stay grateful and faithful and gracious and focused on God and open to know His will for me.

Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. (Proverbs 3:5-6, KJV)

Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. (1 Thessalonians 5:18)

Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid. The Lord, the Lord, is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation. (Isaiah 12:2)