Premeditated Purpose

Premeditated: “Characterized by fully conscious, willful intent and a measure of forethought and planning” [Merriam Webster dictionary); “Planned in advance; having a purpose behind it,” (vocabulary.com); “No specific length of time is needed for premeditation.” (thefreedictionary.com); deliberate, intentional, calculated. We often think of the word “premeditated” in the negative, legal sense, as in someone committing a crime with much forethought and planning. But it is a very rich word when we consider not only God’s will but, in connection with that, our purpose in this life.

Gail MacDonald, the wife of an author that greatly inspired both Bruce and me in our Christian walk–Gordon MacDonald–wrote a book called, “Step Farther and Higher.” (Apparently, you can’t underline in WordPress, but I could be wrong; still learning.) She realized one day that companies, the military, schools, and churches each have corporate purposes, statements of objectives, mission statements, and the like. She was challenged to formulate a formal statement of purpose for her life, to keep her on track. She wrote, “The older one becomes, or the greater one’s adversity in life, the more important purpose becomes.”

Gail says the answers to our action questions–“What will I do today,” “Where will I go?”, “with whom?”–as well as the answers to our priority questions–“What’s the most important?”, “What should I be doing?”, “What should I stop doing?”, etc., need to be backed by our purpose here on earth, which requires much self-reflection on our gifts, our skills, our God-given personalities, our strengths, our weaknesses and even our experiences–bad and good–from our past. Gail continues, “If I do not have answers to these questions so that I can measure each day by them, my life will likely soon slip out of my control and into the hands of people and circumstances around me.”

I have never formally thought about my specific life purposes, but I realized, upon reflection, that God has always given me a strong, inherent sense of what I am to do and who I am to be. My starting point is the Westminster Shorter Catechism Question # 1 (I know, I often quote it, but no apologies here!): “What is the chief end of man?” And the answer: “Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.” Any purpose of my life must spring from that foundation. In looking back over my life, there were two desires/goals/purposes stirring deep within me from a young age regarding what I wanted to do in life: 1) I wanted to have children–and not just have them, but bear them, and, 2) I wanted to be a nurse. The 3 words that have defined my life purpose and experiences are “create,” “nurture,” and “serve.”

I never used to think of myself as a creative person, according to my definition, which was someone who could pull things seemingly out of the air, effortlessly, to make something beautiful–a painting, a song, a poem or story. For many years, I had to use recipes to make food and patterns to make clothes. My definition of creativity has broadened considerably through the years. God is the ultimate Creator, and He made us in His image. I believe, as such, He weaved creativity in each one of us.

My greatest blessing in life was being the creation-bearer of my four children. I am one of “those” women who loved being pregnant, in spite of being nauseous for the first 4 months of each pregnancy. There are very few miracles greater than feeling new life inside you. I am forever grateful to God for His gift of creation in me, since I dealt with infertility and wasn’t always sure I would be able to bear children. God satisfied my desire to nurture and serve these 4 longed-for lives for over 30 years as a stay-at-home mother.

Years ago, I had a beautiful garden full of a variety of flowers. I remember lugging twenty 40-pound bags of dirt home in the back of my mini-van multiple times to create this garden from the ground up. As my children were growing older, and needed me less, it fulfilled such a deep need within me to create and nurture, until my beloved grandchildren came along!

I enjoyed sewing when I was growing up. I didn’t learn it from my mother, since she sewed without patterns; but, I learned how in Home Economics class in middle school. And then, roughly 50 years later, God provided me with a job at an online quilting company as a customer service representative when we moved to Austin 5 1/2 years ago. I didn’t know how to quilt at the time, but I learned quickly, and fell in love with quilting; it became my new creative passion. I have enough fabric and quilting supplies to last me for the rest of my life. Seriously. My quilting has been patiently waiting for me to get my house in order so I can engage again!

Regarding my nursing career, it changed into Medical Technology (laboratory medicine) midway through college (long story). But the knowledge I learned through my medical technology training has been invaluable throughout my life for me as well as for my family, and especially for Bruce in this past year. I have been able to serve and nurture in a similar way as I might have had I become a nurse.

No words can express how thankful I am to God for simplifying my life on June 1 so dramatically and with such clarity. The only question in my mind during those first few days was would I become a widow sooner or later. By God’s grace, it was later. God gave me such a focused purpose in those early days–to nurture and to serve not only Bruce but the entire medical community who was serving him. The beauty of those 5 1/2 months is that, unlike any other time in my life, I had the luxury of not being distracted by other things vying for my attention. I could totally focus on Bruce and enjoy him in a way we hadn’t had the time to enjoy one another for a while.

And then, on November 11 the season of nurturing and serving Bruce came to an abrupt end, and a new season of simplifying my life and serving others began. What I pursue each day is measured against those two goals. I look forward to eventually having more time to nurture my grandchildren and to create, once again, in my sewing studio. I marvel at how the sense of purpose God continues to give me keeps me focused and hopeful and expectant and joyful for whatever lies ahead.

“Lord, make me to know my end
And what is the extent of my days;
Let me know how transient I am.”

“And now, Lord, for what do I wait?
My hope is in You.”

Psalm 39:4, 7