It's been one year today. One year since I drove across town
to pick up by broken husband. One year since circumstances and situations
overwhelmed him to the point of no longer wanting to deal with them. Wanting to
be done. For good. I'm so grateful he called me. Grateful for a doctor that
understood. Grateful for friends and family that surrounded us that day, prayed
for us, and held us together when we were falling apart.
It's been one year. And today is the first time he enters
a school again as a teacher, a substitute teacher, but none the less, a teacher.
The intentional design of it is not lost on me. Oh, how His ways are above my own.
It's hard not to feel extra raw today. So much more easily
brought to tears, but as I sit at our kitchen table, letting myself leak tears,
I begin praying and thinking back over this last year, where we were last year
and where we are now.
So I started a list. I believe putting it down in black and
white is exceptionally powerful. It allows me to see things more clearly than
in my muddled mind. Here's my list:
God's Restoration
·
from
almost losing a life to anticipating a new life
I truly wondered about God's timing when He
laid it on our hearts to have another baby. From a worldly perspective, we're
crazy if not irresponsible and in no position to have another baby. Our
finances are rocky at best, and as my husband is self-employed, we are without
insurance. But God has provided a way, and we are so very excited to meet our
little boy, Grant. Maybe it's my love of words, but the meaning of a name has
always been very important to me. Elizabeth means My God is a vow, He is our
promise. Elizabeth has not only been a fulfillment of God's promise to us, but
she has gone through a time with us in which we can testify to God's
faithfulness in keeping His promises.
I look at the name Grant from two different
ways. First of all there is the actual word, grant, meaning " to allow the
fulfillment of", "to permit as a right, privilege or favor".
There is no doubt in my mind that this little boy is a fulfillment of God's
favor. He is a gift so beyond what we could have asked for. Also, the name Grant means great. A word so
often used, but with depth. To be great is to be "remarkable in magnitude,
degree, or effectiveness", " full of emotion", "markedly
superior in character or quality". Again, I chuckle at how fitting his
name is for the time in which he is born. Grant is our gift or remarkable
magnitude, a gift far superior than anything we could have crafted on our own.
·
from fear
to faith
Last year and for most of my life, I have
lived in fear, always trying to push it aside. What God has taught me in this
year is that it's not about pushing the fear aside, but focusing the eyes of my
heart and mind on God, letting Him push the fear aside and fill it's place with
faith. When I do that, there is no room for fear to exist.
There was a point in this last year when I
was becoming increasingly fearful about our finances, job situations, and the
future. It was then I made another list.
A post-it note list. I began writing down all of the ways in which God
has been faithful in the past to remind me that He will be faithful in the
future. If you come to my house, you will see these stuck to walls in rooms,
the refrigerator, pantry and my bathroom mirror. Some are even held up with
extra tape because the sticky has worn off. These notes are my own stones
stacked to remind me of what God has done and will do. I certainly still have
times in which I forget these notes, take my eyes off the faithfulness of God
and look to fear again, but I come back faster now to faith because no matter
how hard faith is, fear is absolutely paralyzing.
·
from
security in what will fail us to security in the One who never will
This has been an on-going process. For so
long, I found security in stable circumstances. A good job with a regular
paycheck. A budget. A schedule. Anything to decrease the "unknown" of
tomorrow. But one year ago, I found myself in the middle of "unknown"
with all security stripped away. All but God. It was certainly not because of
my great faith or spirituality that I began to find security in God alone, but
simply because there was no other option. In this last year, with no other
option but to find my everything in God, I've become comfortable there. I was
ok not knowing how the next bill was going to get paid. God had provided
miraculously before; He would certainly do it again.
Our latest experience with this was in just
the last couple of weeks. We had a house payment due on Dec. 1, and we could
not see a way that it would get paid without having to ask for help. We're not
huge fans of asking for financial help. We'd much prefer to earn it, but we
have learned the humility of need and it's a valuable lesson that I would not exchange.
So there we were. We had a tenth of our house payment as of November 5. So in
working to put my eyes back on God's faithfulness and not the impossibility of
the situation, I began an envelope. I put what we had inside, believing against
all rational thinking that God would fill the rest. That night, we were blessed
beyond words as we received a check from a source I never would have expected.
And it was enough. Reminding me again that God is all I need.
So now as we've reached a year of living in
the unknown, and I've learned dependence on God, I wondered if I would be able
to have that same dependence on Him when circumstances are good. When jobs are
good. When paychecks are regular. When an emergency fund is full. Will I still
find my security in God? So that has been my new quest: When there is an option
of placing my security in something else, to always place it in God. It
requires intention, but I'm determined to not let go of what I have been given.
·
from
brokenness to being rebuilt in God's design
Over the last year, I've experienced a
breaking, breaking of my will, breaking of my pride, breaking of my self-reliance.
There's nothing easy about being broken. It hurts. It really hurts. But I now
have the benefit of hindsight and can see how I had been trying to control my
own life, designing myself, instead of allowing God to be THE God of my life. I
had become my own god, looking to myself for strength, answers and ability. God
broke my self idolatry and with much mercy and grace, allowed me to bring the
pieces of myself to Him so He could begin His grand design in my life.
·
from
hopelessness and despair to hoping in God and the journey He walks with us
One year ago, my husband was hopeless and
after making sure he was "out of the woods", I fell into despair.
Really, I fell apart. After holding our family together and getting us through
major obstacles, me and my self-reliance crumbled to the most basic form of
functioning. Survival. It was here that I learned how to live one day at a
time, to know that enough really is all we need, and that God is good...always.
I had learned how to live in faith and dependence on God. How to love His
presence and delight in Him. What I still kept at arms length was hope. The
loss of hope had been crushing, and I was uncertain that I could let myself
feel hope again without the fear of hopelessness.
So for a time, I denied hope. I had learned
contentment; I did not need to hope for anymore than I had because what I had
was enough. But God had a season of change coming, and I would need to learn
how to hope again without the fear of a crushing hopelessness.
It was one morning while my husband and I were discussing his job as an independent financial agent, where his next
presentation will be. He was having trouble getting one set up and there is no
opportunity for income without a presentation. It's then that he tells me he
has been feeling for a couple of weeks a desire to be a school counselor. I was
stunned. He had his certification, but after his experiences before, we had
decided he would never work in a school system again. He was currently working
to become a licensed practicing counselor where he could work in counseling
outside of a school. This news that he was feeling a desire to be back in a
school as a counselor astounded me. I gave him my support, and he began filling
out application, making calls with and putting himself out there. It was then
he decided he could substitute teach to help provide for his family. I found
myself afraid to hope. Afraid to hope that God would give my husband a counseling
job or something better. A salaried job with benefits seemed too good to be for
me. I struggled with the emotions for a while until I shared them with my hubby. I
was afraid to hope because there is always a chance that God has something else
for me, and I don't want to hope for something that God doesn't want for me.
I'd done that, and it was crushing. I knew I did not want to go through that
again. My sweet husband, suggested that I hope in God instead of an outcome. So
that was it. The lesson I needed to learn so that God could restore hope in my
life. Hope in Him and in the truth that He will walk with me, carry me, and
hold my hand through every step of our journey. It is ok to feel disappointment
in outcomes and circumstances; that's only human, but it no longer has to crush
me because my hope is in God. There it is. Wholeness. Living in faith, contentment
and hope through God.
So here I am. One year
later. And as I think of this last year, I cannot help but believe that it has
been a year of the Lord's favor in my life (Isaiah 61). I kept thinking that
passage was for this upcoming year, but I actually believe this last year was
"The Year of the Lord's Favor Part I", and now I'm claiming this next
year will be "The Year of the Lord's Favor Part II" because it is not
our circumstances or the outcome of our circumstances that determine the Lord's
favor. For me, it is about living in His presence, depending on His faithfulness
and goodness and learning truth in a world of lies and half-truths. If you look
at the structure of the well-known verses in Isaiah 61 ( verse 3) "and
provide for those who grieve in Zion-- to bestow on them a crown of beauty
instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of
praise instead of a spirit of despair." (verse 7) "Instead of their
shame my people will receive a double portion, and instead of disgrace they
will rejoice in their inheritance; and so they will inherit a double portion in
their land, and everlasting joy will be theirs."
There are two parts to these scriptures, and I
know I've gone through one of them, but I believe that even the ashes, the
mourning, the despair, the shame and disgrace can be a part of God's favor
because He is still with me when my life is in ashes, when I mourn loss and
when I despair at the future, but He doesn't leave me there. He gives me beauty
in my daily life, gladness in His perfect and timely provision and praise for His
faithfulness, security, contentment and hope.
He restores me.
One year later, he has
restored me.
He will continue to
restore me.
And for that, I am
deeply thankful.
