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Good Story: The Melded Desire Plan
By Karen D’Amore
“Delight yourself in
the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.”
Psalm 37:4
I LOVE a good story! As I celebrate my
second anniversary at Craig Berns Salon this month, I recall a story I’ve
shared repeatedly these past two years. It’s a story with a beginning…a
middle…but no end. No end? Yes, because I am still living the story!
I had been managing a salon for four years;
a job in which I had become comfortable and confident. When the door finally
opened for me to enroll in manicurist school, God called me to leave that
salon. My comfort zone and logic would
have had me remain there or return to that same salon after graduation and work
as a manicurist. Hindsight would reveal, however, that God’s plan would defy my
comfort zone and my logic. I was in a new season…a season with a clear
“God-inspired” theme. Moving me to emulate todays key Scripture, God would
impress upon me to abandon any pre-conceived plans or desires for the future. Beyond
school, I didn’t know what the future held…nor was God revealing it to me. He
had me on the “no plan” plan! As a well-organized, planner extraordinaire…this
concept was unnerving.
Throughout my three month term in school, I
meditated on Psalm 37:4 daily. And each day, I poured out my heart to
God…praying that He’d purge and empty my heart of “me”…filling it with Himself.
HE became my delight…an expression advocating dependence and reliance, as well
as, union and communion. My heart echoed
the words of Charles Spurgeon, “Delighting in God is not only sweet in and of
itself, but it sweetens the entire soul, until the longings of the heart become
such that the Lord can safely promise to fulfill them. Is not that a grand
delight which molds our desires until they are like the desires of God?”(1)
Encarta Dictionary defines “melded” as:
causing things to combine or blend and become one thing. As I “delighted in the
Lord,” the desires of my surrendered heart were melded with His. As a puzzle is
assembled one piece at a time, God systematically revealed the pieces of His
plan, in His time. And as His plan unfolded piece by piece, He spurred me to
compile a list of those melded desires.
When midway through school the previous
salon I’d worked for closed, God poignantly revealed that His plan truly defied
logic! Steadfastly “delighting in
Him,” I found that the lines between His desires versus my desires… His plan
versus my plan became muddled, and then transformed into the…Melded Desire
Plan!
To be
continued…
GOING DEEPER:
1. Who/what are you delighting in?
FURTHER READING:
Married
to Dan, Karen, a retired police officer, currently works as a Manicurist at
Craig Berns Salon. She’s a leader for
Oakwood’s Tuesday a.m. Bible Study and a volunteer at the Wildlife In Need
Center.
(1) Quote from Charles Spurgeon Faith’s Checkbook
