Redeem the time!

My prayer over the next 6 weeks (not including the week after Christmas since we'll be in CA) is that God will redeem the time that was stolen from us last year. 

You may remember the series of events that occurred for our family last year starting with the break-in and robbery of over $3000 worth of stuff from our home the Sunday after Thanksgiving and continuing through 4 car break-ins into the middle of January.  At this time last year, we were scrambling to hurriedly put our belongings in boxes to quickly move into a new home God had so readily provided for us. (For more info: http://vossvignettes.blogspot.com/2010/12/who-moves-in-december.html).  It was the second to last day of the semester for both Rob and I as we scrambled to finish our teaching well while protecting our family. 

The plan had been for Rob to finish up and then take the next 4 weeks before his next teaching assignment and write his dissertation.  He had prepped for it mentally and physically.  Now we were without his laptop again and moving and dealing with insurance and change of address for everyone and deciding on what school the boys were going to and dealing with the police and dealing with the library (some books got packed away and returned very late - one DVD was in the player that was taken and we had to pay for it).  All these little details that simply exhausted us emotionally and physically.  Rob's writing did not get started up again until February - he was teaching and so was I and still trying to find time to write.

So, here it is, a year later.  Most of the stuff has been replaced (not that it's important) and we are back to "normal" life.  But time was stolen from us.  Who knows if Rob could have finished in that intensified 4 weeks, but even if he had just gotten further, he might have had the motivation to finish before the summer graduation deadlines.  I hate to do the what-if game, but it's hard not to think that perhaps a fulltime job would have presented itself had he been done.  I know God has a plan and a purpose.  So we press on.  Rob writes every Saturday and any other spare moments he can, but this process requires a lot of focused attention, something that is hard to come by in our life right now.

Once again we are facing the end of one semester and a full 6 weeks before Rob has to teach again. I am asking you, as my friend and fellow prayer warrior, please beg the Father on our behalf to redeem the time that was stolen from us.  Pray for Rob to have supernatural focus and clarity of thought.  Most of all, pray that God would be glorified through his writing.  Please be on your knees to the Father for us.  Please.