The trip to Mississippi that Kate and I took a couple of weeks ago was actually unplanned. And while surprises are good and it's always nice to go home and see the family, I can't say I was particularly happy about the reason for our trip. We were going to say goodbye to Ryan, who called a few days before to say that he was leaving for Iraq in less than a month. Technically, he was leaving for California to train for the deployment, which will officially begin in a couple of months, but you get the picture. And it's a familiar one, because we've been here before, and it was hard.

Once we got home from our trip, we rapidly got ready for a visit from Dan's parents, who went home yesterday. Now we're back to our normal routine, and that is good. Except that now I will have time to worry. I can hear my own thoughts more clearly in the lull, and they are fearful. I knew they would be, and it makes me feel tired in advance to think of how hard I will have to grapple in the next few months just to keep the anxiety from running me over. It pretty much owned me last time, I'm not proud to say.

But I came across this quote yesterday in my online wanderings, and it really seemed to have my name on it. Iain Duguid has this to say:

"God has not promised to give us the grace to face all of the desperate situations that we might imagine finding ourselves in. He has promised to sustain us only in the ones that he actually brings us into. He therefore doesn't promise that we will be able to imagine how we could go through the fire for his sake, but he does promise that if he leads us through the fire, he will give us sufficient grace at that time. Like manna, grace is not something that can be stored up for later use. Each day receives its own supply."

I honestly had not thought of that in quite this way before, in spite of all the lilies of the field and the manna and the direct statements like "Do not worry" that speak over and over from the pages of Scripture about how we'll have what we need when we need it. I've been acting like I have to have all the answers in advance, which is ridiculous. I'd love to say that this epiphany will drastically change the way I walk through this situation this time around, will make me do it better, but I can't promise that. Thankfully, grace also means that I don't have to.