I have moments when I think I might hyperventilate.  I breathe deeply, trying to get a grip, and I exhale out the prayer – God, help.  Over and over since Tuesday, when Tim was told he would be out of work come January 1st, those two words have been all I can think to say.

I tell myself I’m overreacting, but then I think of these six little ones whose lives very literally depend on provision that is not there yet, and I panic a little.  I don’t understand this.  At all.  I know there are worse situations we could be in, but this seems pretty bad. 

No job.  And in a place where Tim’s otherwise quite marketable skills and experience just seem to not be needed.  And in a house that isn’t really in saleable condition, even if we wanted to leave.  And with little money in the bank. If you’re seeking to increase your funds, exploring the realm of investing can be a viable strategy to potentially grow your wealth.  And, honestly – selfishly – facing what in any scenario promises to be a huge disruption to life as usual around here.

One thing I have long known about myself is my innate need to be able to have expectations, and for those expectations to be met.  It’s why I set such low expectations for myself and others in many circumstances, because not knowing what to expect drives me crazy, and disappointed expectations devastate me.  Here, now, I feel like I am being crushed by the weight of both having been hugely let down and not having any clue what life will look like in a month, or three, or six.

It is making me even more aware of how little faith I have for provision, which I think is possibly at its lowest point ever.  The only hope I find for the future is not in a God who I confidently trust to meet our every need, but in whatever tangible options seem available.  Really, sadly, there is barely a flicker of faith in any of my considerations about what life will hold.

I worry that this means God won’t work in our situation, because to say I am doubting as I ask for His help is an understatement, to say the least.  I am double-minded at best, and I honestly don’t know that I will readily attribute to Him any provision that does come.

But maybe – maybe – He will recognize the deep desire I have to trust Him.  Maybe He will see that I know how desperately we need Him, even as I search frantically for some kind of just-in-case safety net.  Maybe He will have mercy on me as I acknowledge that my faith is pitifully small and weak, but throw myself at His feet anyway.  This is the extent of my hope right now.  God help, please.

Monday mornings are notoriously bad for me.  The thoughts of what needs to be accomplished in any given week tend to overwhelm me before I even get started.  This week is Thanksgiving.  This Monday greeted me with all of the usual stresses, plus a few more.  I could delineate them.  I could explain precisely why I was overwhelmed this morning.  They all ran through my head countless times before I really even got my day going.  I was afraid of what this day, this week, would look like.  I noted to myself, rather cynically, how it would be this week of Thanksgiving that I find especially undoing to any sense of thankfulness that I might otherwise feel.

But I prayed.  Really, desperately, prayed for a different perspective.  Being grateful is a struggle for me on my best days, and I know that it wears on my soul – having only problems constantly filling my vision – and it robs me, and those around me, of peace and joy and hope.  I know it does.

And today, I didn’t want to be okay with it.  I wanted to find some way…or, rather, I needed God to help me see some way…to change my outlook.  At first, there was a gentle admonishment to see my problems in light of the struggles many other people face.  Um, yeah, petty might begin to describe my issues.  Then, there were reminders of provision – recent, tangible ways that God has brought peace and hope in the midst of what I felt were hopeless circumstances.  And there was Psalm 91 – my random opening-my-Bible-and-hoping-God-will-show-me-something act of desperation this morning – where I was reminded that God’s provision, protection and deliverance often come in the midst of difficulty and distress.

I want to be a thankful person.  Not in the sense of trying to wring some kind of good out of something obviously bad, but in the sense of knowing that I have a God who can get me through the bad, who can bring victory in spite of circumstances, who can save me from the snares that life may put in my path.  I want to be a hopeful person, to be able to recognize, confidently, that there is an all-powerful God who is going to take the worst pieces of these days and work them together for my good.

I’m sure it’s a process.  But today, He helped me see past myself, past circumstances, past fears, to glimpse His face, to adjust my perspective, to have hope, to realize how much in Him I have to be thankful for.

It’s been six months since our happy, smiley Isabelle was born.  Realizing it’s been six months doesn’t phase me much, but then when I think that it’s been half a year, I’m taken aback.  Maybe because life has been only, well, life.  No holidays or special occasions.  No finished school years or new endeavors.  Just the everyday that somehow slips by in a blur of normalcy.

And we end up here – with memories and moments and changes that all tell me that the newborn days really are over, but a heart that feels like this sweet girl in my arms should still be content to just sleep long hours, with head close to my heartbeat.  Instead, she wants to go.  Nevermind that she can’t take herself anywhere yet.  But she can (and does) grab at anything within leaning and reaching distance.    Her legs and arms move non-stop, as if the motion alone might be enough to will her to that amazing spot across the room she can’t stop staring at.

She talks in her own adorable but completely incoherent baby babble whether there’s anyone around to listen, or not.  She puts most things in her mouth, but by far her favorite are her ring and middle fingers, stuck in at once with her index finger and pinky splayed out beside her mouth…a pose which is kind of quirky but incredibly cute all the same.

She certainly isn’t an always-content baby, but she does love to smile at people, and she loves to have people smile at her.  She is very particular about having completely undivided attention.  Try reading a sibling a book while holding her and she’ll be sure to express her disapproval.  It still surprises me how quickly these little ones gain understanding and try to impose their will on a situation.

Nonetheless, I am aware of how fast these days are going, and I desperately want to communicate to her that in this house of loud and demanding others, that she is valuable and precious and so, so loved…and that it’s okay for her requests of undivided attention – that merely require me looking at her and nobody else for a few minutes – to be heeded with the same seriousness as if they were requests for more tangible needs.

So we sit, and we smile, and we dance, and I let her wipe her spit covered hands on my face and get my hair tangled up in her fingers, and I remind myself of how quickly these days are going and how much I will miss them when they’re gone.

It’s funny, sometimes, the places that pride shows up.  Unexpected.  Maybe carrying even more sting than usual because some of those places are areas where we think we’ve really got God’s Word in our hearts, areas we’ve considered secure, solid, able to stand against whatever attacks might come.

In this case, this time, it’s in the area of provision.  Worry about provision isn’t recent, for me, but I am recognizing more and more that pride is the source of that worry.  Because for a long time, I thought God and I had an understanding – we would be faithful in giving, we would (ostensibly, anyway) hold loosely to our material possessions, we would prioritize God’s working in our lives and the lives of our children over monetary gain, and God would always make sure we had enough money in the bank to never fear for provision or want for more.  I thought it was a fair deal.  I became comfortable with it.  I began to think I had this whole faith-for-provision thing nailed.down.

I would have espoused my philosophy as biblical truth, and while it may be in some contexts, it wasn’t really in mine.  Because my faith ends at the point our bank account drops below a certain figure.  My faith turns to fear whenever our income doesn’t quite meet our projected outflow.  And when that still, small voice asks the question but do you have enough right now?, I don’t want to answer yes.  When our bills are all paid, but there isn’t extra, I feel like God’s not keeping His end of the bargain.

Because didn’t we put Him first?  All the times that Tim turned down jobs paying more because they promised a 60 hour work week, or days and weeks away from home, we were choosing to reject material wealth so that we could honor God in our family.  We thought (or maybe just I thought) that meant God wouldn’t let things get hard.  I thought we would never be in the position of looking at the future and just having to trust that God would make a way where we weren’t seeing one.

You know, like having faith. 

Believing when we can’t see.

It seems like the refrain of my life these days.  I don’t like it, honestly.  I want a break.   I want to breathe a sigh of relief at seeing something work out right.  But God doesn’t seem too interested in what I want.  He’s not content to let me continue on with misplaced faith and a prideful heart.  I’m sure I’ll be thankful someday.  But right now I just want to kick and scream about how unfair life is.  Obviously, God’s work in this area is far from done.

I sit here with a squirmy four month old.  My kids are [mostly] folding laundry.  And this is how most of my days have been going lately.  Me, holding my girl who does not like to be put down – or really even let me do anything else while holding her, my kids doing the lion’s share of the household chores.  I get to the end of my days and feel guilty.  Shouldn’t I be able to accomplish something other than just keeping a baby content throughout the day?  I mean, yes, she naps and I get some basics done, but not much.  She is not a fan of the Ergo, and there are limited things I can do one-armed…especially given her growing propensity to throw her weight around.  So, this is where I end up – feeling like I need to make excuses, wondering if my kids have too much responsibility, failing to get some things done that really should get done.  I sometimes wish I cared enough to put pictures on this blog.  I think I would like to show all of the imperfection.  But, really?  I’m embarrassed by it.  The messy table, the potato peels on the kitchen floor, shoes everywhere, toilets that were supposedly cleaned, but actually weren’t.  They all scream at me that I’m making the wrong choice, to sit here with my baby.  And it’s ludicrous.  As horrible as I am at maintaining order and cleanliness, I have somehow bought the lie that the work necessary to accomplish those things is a more noble, more godly effort than the, perhaps less taxing, effort of just being there for this little one snuggled in my arms.

(from 10/2/2014)

A year and a half ago, or so, God told me you’ll have to go back to [church in] Madrid.  I said I didn’t want to.  He said I needed to trust Him.  I asked why.  He gave me an answer.  I said I was going to wait until Tim brought it up.  He said fine.  Even though it wasn’t technically leaving the church in Potsdam, it sort of was.  It had been a hard decision to begin with, whether to stay in Madrid, or to attend the new location in Potsdam.  There wasn’t clarity one way or the other.  But, in the end, it seemed our hearts were more drawn to Potsdam, so that’s where we went.  As much as we knew how, we served.  We prayed.  We showed up, which may not mean much to some people, but the point is – church was a priority, over sickness, over schedules, over everything else in life.  It was far from ideal, though I think idealism carries with it a lot of unwarranted expectations, anyhow.  We never really fit.  Which, I guess, isn’t so much of a criticism as it is just a statement of reality.  I mean, we wanted to fit.  So much so.  But since my desire to belong has never quite been able to overcome my desperate wish that I could just be invisible in groups of people, going out of my way to converse rarely happened and was easily discouraged, and, after a while, seemed kind of pointless.  Nonetheless, I became fairly certain that there was a reason to be there, and not somewhere else.  For praying, mostly…which, for me, is pretty much the only thing I’ve ever felt certain God has called me to do.  So, when God said we would have to leave, and go to a church that, while not bad in any regard, I had otherwise sensed no leading to be at, I hoped I’d heard wrong.

But over the course of the next year, there were circumstances that made Tim think that maybe we should switch to Madrid.  I never mentioned what God had said to me until Tim brought up the possibility.  Even then, I was careful to say that I might have heard wrong, and I don’t know that what I had heard influenced Tim much in his decision, other than to make me willing to support him in whatever decision he made.  That decision, eventually, was that we should go to Madrid.  It wasn’t a forever decision, but a for now decision.  In all honesty, neither of us saw it as a good fit – we both held out hope for God to move in such a way that we would be able to revisit our reasons at some point and possibly see that they had become moot points.  But at that moment, Madrid was the choice.  Whether it’s coincidence or causal that my relationship with God seemed to take a nosedive over the next few months, I’m not entirely certain…maybe a bit of each.  But I found myself  overcome by apathy.  I attended Sunday morning services, but I couldn’t sing or pray, not anything more than what little I could muster to try to hide the ache in my heart.  I just couldn’t find God.  I was vacillating between searching with all my heart, and running away as fast as I could from a God I, occasionally, felt certain had abandoned me.  I think the worst of it is over now.  I think I’m pretty firmly standing on the searching with all my heart ground right now.  And I think I’ve learned something (maybe more than one something) valuable over the past several months, and that is this:  the only thing that really matters is God.  I have spent a good portion of my adult life praying for God to help me form strong, godly friendships.  I don’t think that’s a bad thing.  I’m certain it is something that is often declared to be a necessity of a growing walk with Christ.  Having never had anything of the sort, save for my relationship with my husband, I would get incredibly discouraged at feeling left out, overlooked, neglected and forgotten all.the.time.  Until we started attending Madrid.  People are friendlier – actually talking to me, and even occasionally offering to hold my baby (seems silly, right?  but as much as everybody always seems to want to hold everyone else’s babes, nobody has ever offered to hold mine).  I haven’t felt totally isolated.  But the truth is that none of it matters to me.  I’m not trying to sound callous or heartless or ungrateful, but I would give up every conversation in a millisecond to feel the nearness of God.  I would gladly spend this lifetime feeling invisible if I at least had the knowledge that God sees, and loves, and uses me.  Don’t get me wrong – it would be great to have it all.  But if it’s one or the other?  There’s only one option.  I’ll take Jesus every time.

(from 9/22/2014)