Connecting the dots in the big picture

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 About fifteen years ago I was all alone and on my knees sobbing in a hospital chapel.

I was pregnant - with a child we'd been told had a good chance of some serious problems- and I was in pre-term labor.

I was scared and had no idea of what was going to happen next.
 Isaiah 41: 10 - Calligraphy by Timothy Botts

And what happened next was God, the One who knows the big picture, setting up the dots to be connected.

I looked up and saw this mural on the chapel's back wall and line by line the words of this verse calmed my terror and assured me that, whatever the outcome, I would be upheld by God's victorious right hand. I memorized both the verse and graphic presentation of it that day and held onto it throughout the rest of the pregnancy until I was holding my beautiful baby boy.

Today I sent my son off to his first day of High School -to commute by train to downtown Chicago - and I, with all my anxiety, was not the most anxious of the two of us...

I sent with him this verse, this specific picture of this verse and my story of how God used it when I was so unsure of the future and how that the same God who walked through that valley with me and gave me him was the same God who was going with him today into the halls and classes of a brand new school.

God knew 15 years ago that today this verse would go with my baby boy to high school. God knew that when the Timothy Botts page-a-day calendar was being assembled that this verse would be on September 1st so that I would have it to give to Robbie today.

I've always known that God sees the "big picture" but I'm realizing, yet again, that not only does He see it as the overview but that every detail is clearly in focus to Him. There was a direct line from point A to B with this scripture even though the connecting line was 15 years in length.

It’s a well worn scripture that “God works all things together for our good” (Romans 8:28) but to see it – this “working together” in such small yet significant pieces of my life, gives my heart yet one more evidence that “God will fulfill His purpose for me” (Psalms 57:2) because “God can be trusted to keep His promise” (Hebrews 10:23).

What evidence of the same have you seen in your life? 

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