God Knows our Days!

 You saw me before I was born and scheduled each day of my life before I began to breathe. Every day was recorded in your book!

Psalm 139:16 TLB

I can't remember when I first felt that God had called me to missions work.  I do know that Mark and I felt that we would probably go to Africa (don't all missionaries go to Africa? LOL!) and that Japan was not on my radar at all, until sometime around 2002- about two years after the Air Force sent us there.  Around that time, Mark and I started to feel that God had brought us to Japan for a much bigger reason than  the Air Force had in mind.

So imagine my surprise when we were living in Japan, the year was around 2004, and I stumbled across this piece of writing that I had written when I was a senior in high school.  This type of writing is called "Stream of Conscious" and the object is to just sit at a keyboard and write whatever comes into your head, without regard to grammar, spelling, punctuation, or sense.  It's a creative exercise.  On this particular day in 1988, I was sitting next to a Japanese exchange student named Yoshi.  (I had completely forgotten that Yoshi even existed, until I found this piece of writing 15 years after I had written it.)

Notice what it says?  "I wonder what country I will be  a missionary for?  Maybe I will meet Yoshi sometime when if I am a missionary in Japan.  Who knows."   (GOD KNEW!)  

Do you see what God did there?  He had me write something that literally just popped into my head.  Something I had never considered before, or in the 15 years since I wrote it.  Then God had me discover it again 15 years later, after He had already spoken to Mark and I about being called to Japan.  It was like confirmation of what God had spoken to us.  I literally had no memory of ever writing those thoughts!  I never thought about Japan again until the Air Force sent us there.  I just love how God leads us and guides us, and how He shows us that He is the one ordering our steps.  That all of our days were written in His book before even one of them came to be!