I want to believe that circumstances can work for our good.  I want to be able to look past frustrations and recognize that there’s a lesson or a refining or something that makes them worth enduring.  I want to be able to love people who are unlovable and forgive offenses time after time after time.  I want to be able to endure hardship, trusting that it’s because the Lord loves me that any difficulties come my way.  I want to be able to see the eternal reward as being of far greater value than the temporal cost.  I want for the incomparably good, unchanging, life-giving truth of the gospel – the truth that I was dead in my trespasses and sins, but that He has raised me up to new life – to be so magnified in my sight that it will, at all times, evoke from me its rightful response of praise.  I want to be able to lay my anger and hurt and fear at the cross and somehow find that peace that passes understanding and that unspeakable joy that can keep me from being fettered to my angst.

I talk to God about all of this, I promise I do.  I see the ugliness in how much I cringe at the thought of extending grace.  I see my selfishness and my short-sightedness and my faithlessness.  But I’m afraid of letting go.  I’m afraid of trusting.  I worry that counting everything else as loss – particularly those things that are most valuable to me – will result in me actually losing them, at least in part.  I don’t want my treasures to end up on the altar, only to find that there’s no ram caught in the bushes.

I don’t know how to honestly give my whole heart to Him, unless it is just to keep coming before Him with the utter mess that it is and laying it down.  Maybe it won’t ever be full of only unconditional love and great grace and unshakeable faith.  But perhaps the lesson is to pour out to Him all of my heart’s imperfections and weakness and bitterness and hurt, and then trust Him simply for the strength to choose right actions in the moment.  Not so much a fake it til you make it idea, but more an acknowledgement that even when His ways are beyond my understanding, they are trustworthy, and even when my emotions and momentary weight seem irreproachable, they are fallible.  I wish I could hope for more.  But maybe this can be enough for now.

I wrote a post about my current perspective on the past few months, but my wireless stopped working and I lost it.  That’s probably just as well.  It was long-winded, full of explanations, but over-analysis, too.  While I am not fully settled on what we were meant to learn from the job loss and waiting and eventual provision, and while I struggle to comprehend the possibility that the new job, which was about as close to a perfect answer as we could have hoped for, could mean that we really and truly do matter to God, I think those are not what I need to be focusing on at the moment.

In spite of however else I might try to explain things, and in spite of whatever else might still need clarification, my response right now needs to be nothing other than the simple acknowledgement that God has proven Himself faithful and good, again.  He answered the cry of my heart – in His own time and in His own way – and I am thankful.

he got the job

thank you, God

Sometimes, I think…

if I can just figure it out

if I could only explain

if they really tried to see

if I got an answer

if the baby would sleep

if I knew the whole truth

if obedience would happen

if I wasn’t afraid

if it didn’t hurt so much

if I was better, or prettier, or calmer, or more organized, or talented, or smart

…if my life wasn’t my life, and this world wasn’t this world, and there was no sin and no consequence and no struggle and no pain…

then I would trust

then I would be thankful

then I would love

then I would be content

then I would be lovable

then I would matter

…then things would stop being hard…

and I wouldn’t have to choose

and I wouldn’t need faith

and I wouldn’t know grace

and I’d never learn compassion

and I’d not see that I’m a sinner

and I wouldn’t recognize true love

…and I might just forget that I need You, every second of my life…

to do all the things for me that I can’t do

to be everything for me that I can’t be

to take all my worthlessness and make me precious

to take all my dirt and make me clean

to take all my failure and make me righteous

to hold me up

to set me free

to make me victorious

…to be my life and breath and reason for being, my Savior, my God.

Tim has a fourth interview with a particular company on Monday afternoon.  This interview was supposed to happen yesterday, but his computer ended up being overloaded by having too much running at once (video chat, plus desktop sharing, plus running code (?)), and since the whole point of this particular interview is for him to show them programs he has written, and then to do some coding for them to see, having a functioning computer was necessary, and the interviewers did not have time to wait for him to resolve the problems.  He has another computer he can use, so the same thing shouldn’t happen on Monday.  But still, it was a bit of a blow that his computer ended up having issues yesterday.  Even though technology malfunctions seem to happen to everyone, during an interview is not when you’d prefer for them to occur.

So, Monday.  We’re hoping and praying that Monday will be an end to the job search.  This position seems like a good fit.  It would pay enough.  It is specifically a telecommuting job.  Tim has a lot of experience in the areas of software development they are looking at.

If this doesn’t work out, I don’t know how I will handle it.  Just the postponing of the interview yesterday seemed like too much to bear.  I honestly feel like there is something pulled tight around my chest all the time.  This stress physically hurts.  It is exhausting, and along with sleep that never amounts to more than 3 hours straight, I feel like my body just can’t hold up to any more.  I think I’m having potassium deficiency issues, which it seems can be triggered by how the body responds to stress…achy, tired, cramping muscles; heart palpitations; dizziness; abdominal cramping and bloating; numbness in extremities…I guess it maybe sounds worse than it is, but it is a frustration nonetheless since I do have what is a normally sufficient amount of potassium in my diet, and increasing that intake enough to relieve symptoms is an annoyance I don’t really want to have to deal with right now.  I get that, somehow, I should be able to just trust God and then the stress and its related problems would be gone, but I don’t know how to just let go.  I hope that isn’t a lesson that needs to be fully learned before this trial is done.

I feel like I’m at the end of myself.  This job issue came at a time when I probably would have already said that I had no faith, no hope, no strength to stand.  Now, almost three months later, I’m really just done.  Numb.  I don’t even think that I can offer an assessment of my faith, it’s been worn down to simply falling at His feet, speechless and empty.  There are no more arguments, no more ideas, no more attempts at understanding, no more thoughts of what might convince me that He’s here or that He cares.  I know I can be pretty fickle about all of this.  I wish I wasn’t.  Still, He should be able to meet me where I am, right?  He should be able to take this emptiness, this hopelessness, this lifelessness and help me see Him in it all, right?  Somehow, I just need to see Him.

The thing about choices is that every time you choose one thing, you also reject some other thing, or things.  It can seem easy when the choice is between strawberry shortcake and saltines (obviously, strawberry shortcake would win every time).  It can even seem fairly simple when the choice is between two really amazing desserts…perhaps apple pie, instead of saltines, compared with the shortcake…because even though you have to reject one of them now, you know that sometime down the road, you can choose the apple pie.  It’s not a forever choice.  I think I’ve often gone through life with that mentality.  I can forgo a good thing in the moment if I know that I’m not denouncing it forever.

But the truth of the matter is this: when we choose God, the absolute, unequivocal best, there are seemingly good things that we will at some point have to reject.  Things that maybe, in and of themselves, are not bad or sinful, but in God’s plan are not best for us.  It could be material wealth, social status, friendships, family…heart’s desires that might seem borne out of noble affections but that, somehow, would conflict with the One who has to always be first.  It’s the call to be a living sacrifice for the Lord.  And, honestly?  I just don’t get it, sometimes.

I understand the need to have to put Him first.  It’s the daily walking it out that can be confounding.  Because so much of choosing Him means choosing a truth that – though cemented in the deepest parts of me – is, even so, often intangible – a hope, a believing when I can’t see, a wrestling not against flesh and blood.  And in that choosing, rejecting my heart – emotions that can overwhelm and convince and distort and make themselves seem to proclaim the necessities of life; and rejecting circumstantial reality – concrete, life facts that can seem unchangeable.

In these moments, I find myself wondering why.  Why this heart, made to feel, but which only matters when it agrees with Him anyway?  Why these felt needs, that can really be painful, or difficult, or confusing?  I’m not sure I understand the point of Him making us this way.  It isn’t that I don’t know the answers that are given, they just don’t always make sense to me.  I get tired of laying the same things down over and over again.  My heart feels bruised and weary and weak.  I know I will always choose Him…I’m not trying to find a reason to choose something else…but couldn’t He just make it easier?  Couldn’t there be some limit to the sacrifice?  It’s selfish, I’m sure, but I’d just like a break from the hurting for a while.

Another year has passed, and Caedmon is now eleven.  He’s the oldest and, therefore, the most responsible.  I’ve heard that’s how it’s supposed to be, and in this case, it really is true.  Maybe it’s just the nature of the fact that he’s older, maybe Bethany is as responsible as he was at eight.  I can’t really say for sure.

But, now, he is the one who likes to have his schedule figured out, and then methodically (sometimes hurriedly) goes about checking things off his to-do list (merely a mental list, most days).  He keeps tabs on his siblings…occasionally a bit too closely…and, as much as it affects him, tries to keep them on task.  He likes to know what to expect, excitedly anticipates any out-of-the-ordinary happenings, gets really disappointed when reality doesn’t meet expectations (I can’t imagine where he got that from), and is often planning his own elaborate play-time endeavors or hopeful ideas for family activities.  I rely on him for many things, and I mostly trust him to be conscientious in whatever he’s asked to do.

He loves family.  Our family, extended family, the idea of more siblings, and even his hopes for a large family of his own one day, all hold places of high importance in his heart.  He joyfully and affectionately cares for his youngest two sisters, and often asks when there will be another one.

He’s beginning to think more about the kind of person he should be, and why other people are the way they are, and how he can and should respond when life gets hard.  As often as not, when his weekly turn comes to stay up later for playtime and prayer time with Tim and me, his choice of activity is to simply sit with us and talk.  It’s sometimes serious, sometimes not, and I think there are still times when he keeps some of his deeper feelings to himself…perhaps for lack of understanding more than anything else…but it matters so much to me that he wants to talk and ask questions, and sometimes, just laugh with us.

I can see moments when it’s hard to keep that parent/child line clearly defined, and sometimes wonder where, exactly, it might okay for it to blur a bit.  Obviously, the day will come when our authority in his life will wane to a great degree and our relationship will look very different than it does now.  I imagine there is some process along the way, and we find ourselves slowly starting to figure that out with Caedmon (don’t worry, though, we are acutely aware of just how much these next several years require diligent direction, correction and wisdom).  For now, we are encouraged by his desire for the Lord, his willingness to ask hard questions and his genuine interest in serving the Lord with his life.

He is a blessing, in so many ways, and we take great joy in celebrating him today.