On a more serious note

God spoke to me twice last night in a way that was so clear, so moving, so precious, that I had to share with whoever will listen. I had to boast on His goodness and faithfulness to my hurting heart.
Some of you know that the past two years have been very difficult for us financially, mainly because we lost my income when I stopped teaching after Jack was born. That’s another story in itself, but we know without any doubt that God spoke to us at that point in our lives and that He meant for me to quit and stay home. So we have never questioned that decision as we’ve looked over our current financial position.
It’s a very long story, one that perhaps I’ll share in bits and pieces from time to time, but the general storyline has revolved around Eric searching for a career, for a job, for a passion, which as many people can relate to has been a long journey. We’ve had deep disappointments with jobs falling through that we thought God was leading us to, but we’ve also had numerous experiences of miraculous provision that have assured us that God is able to care for our needs, that He is faithful to provide our daily bread, and that we are not alone.
Recently, though, when another “perfect” job scenario fell through just days before Samantha’s birth, one that we thought would finally be our step out of financial woe (and by that I don’t mean a huge increase in salary, but rather just barely enough money to pay all of our monthly expenses without me having to work outside of my unpaid job as a mother, something we were so grateful for), I began to struggle again in my faith and falter in my trust and belief in God’s care over us.
I am embarrassed to admit that, because my head (and occasionally my heart) knows how often He has come through in times when I thought things were hopeless, times when money showed up out of nowhere, times when the numbers never added up on paper but somehow we made it through. So how could I ever go back to doubting Him?
I’ve realized that two of the major lies and doubts I have allowed to penetrate my heart and faith are these:
That God must not know our situation or how dire it is, and
That we must be insignificant to Him.
These lies also stem from watching other friends, some of them very dear to us, enjoy job promotion after promotion, other friends finding new jobs and “moving up,” other friends buying new homes, other friends buying their second homes, and so on. And I can honestly say that I generally battle the duel feelings of true rejoicing with those who rejoice as well as jealousy and self-pity that none of these things has come our way.
I struggle with these thoughts because I honestly do not desire great wealth; I have seen too often what great wealth can do to families and individuals and I would be vary of wishing that upon myself and our family. I just desire to be able to pay the bills each month without worrying and to buy groceries without having to spend so much mental effort debating what we can and can’t afford and worrying about our health as we buy “cheaper” food. I wish we could pay off our debts and live in a new way, practicing the new things we’ve learned about financial stewardship and about dependence on God for every penny that comes our way.
So sometimes I am tempted to wonder, “Does God not see my heart? Does He not see the numbers, and does He not know just how badly we need more income? Why would it not be His will for us (which I believe always has our best interest in mind whether physical or internal) to get a new job when the result of the situation is a financial sink hole? That’s not good stewardship, doesn’t He see?
Well, you know how you can think something and not realize the ridiculousness of that thought until you hash through it and sometimes, as I did last night, write it out?
Last night on my way home from Bible Study I was mulling over some of the things we discussed about God, and about our doubts, and about His promises to us. I lingered on this thought I’ve had about God not knowing, or not understanding, our situation, wondering if He knows the clock is ticking and we will have no savings left and no new income in a week or two, and the feeling of abandonment I’ve been fighting.
All of a sudden, I felt a very palpable awareness that He was talking to me as I was hit with this thought in my heart: Do I really, honestly believe, in my heart of hearts, that God does not know our situation? If I believe all the things about Him that I profess to believe, even the very basic things like His creation of the earth and humanity and His power to command the wind and the snow and the movement of the planets…if I believe what I learned when I was very young, that God sees everything and knows everything…then how on earth could I even begin to doubt whether He sees me? Of course He does.
This simple truth uplifted my heart and left me with much peace and encouragement as I continued on home. But later, as the night wore on, I still wrestled with my feelings of insignificance to Him, with feeling like the left out child who somehow was missing out, or had been looked over. As I laid in bed, unable to sleep, I found myself crying out to Him, admitting these selfish, self-pitying feelings. I poured out my heart to Him, told Him how distant and alone I felt in this situation, told Him my fears and my frustrations, my disappointments, and reminded Him of our needs, recognizing that He already knew them inside and out.
Then I asked Him something that I have asked for repeatedly in the past few years, which I felt a bit foolish for having to ask of Him yet again, but a question that He has never failed to answer me tenderly: I asked Him to give me some tangible, real understanding and confidence that He has not abandoned us, that He is with us, and that He is walking through this scary time with us.
Almost immediately after praying this, Samantha began to stir and I was distracted from my prayer as I turned my attention to her awful coughing and choking sounds. The poor thing has her first cold and has been having a horrible time with it, refusing to eat and struggling to breathe through her nose. She sucks her thumb while she sleeps so when she has trouble breathing through her nose, she can’t suck her thumb as she has to breathe through her mouth, and this disrupts her sleep in a major way.
All of the kids are sick actually, with bad colds. We are a bundle of germs and snot these days. Both Jack and Ellie fussed periodically last night as well, calling out for us, and crying about ouchies; I don’t worry about them in quite the same way I worry about Samantha, because I know they are able to turn over if they can’t breathe, or to call us if they needs us. But laying there listening to her cough and have such difficulty breathing I began to worry about her welfare, and fear that I might fall into too deep a sleep to hear her if she needed me, that she might choke and not be able to breathe. My mother heart cried out for her, in her tiny, dependent state, and I jumped from my bed, scooped her up out of the crib, and determined that I would sleep the whole night on the couch with her on my chest if it meant she would be close to me, that she would be near enough to me that my very body would breathe in rhythm with hers, making sure she didn’t falter, knowing that I was right there if she needed me.
As I was walking down the dark hallway, I suddenly stopped, and if you could have seen my face I’m sure it would have displayed a look of surprise and revelation; I stood there rooted and just began to cry. Still just moments after crying out to God for a sampling of His nearness to me, I was struck, or perhaps gifted, with a beautiful picture of His care. He spoke to me that rather than the “left-out” child, the one who was forgotten or left behind, as my selfish heart had feared, we were instead much like this sweet infant; we are in a precarious situation, one that is risky and scary and that requires us to be dependent on God for every morsel and penny of our survival. He allowed me to see that these precious friends of ours have not just been lucky, or that He has decided to bless them instead of us, but that they are our sisters and brothers and that perhaps they are like Jack and Ellie, also hurting and sick in many ways from the winds of this sinful, earthly life, but that they perhaps were not in a position of such utter dependence, that He had allowed them to grow a bit so that they could stand strong their own two feet with the resources He had provided and the spiritual lessons He had ministered to and taught them.
Then tenderly He spoke to me that we were not far from Him or forgotten as I had feared, but rather, that He was clinging us to His chest much as I stood there clinging my baby daughter to my heart, that He was breathing with us each breath we struggled for, that in our needy infant-like state He knows we need Him so near and available that He is on hand and on the look-out for dangers and ready to protect and fight for our well-being, and that in His nearness He is able to assess and address our needs swiftly, and finally, that He will never fall asleep on us, that He will not rest or close an eye or fail us by somehow missing our choking cries for help. As much as I was determined to stay near to Samantha even if it meant sacrificing much-needed sleep for myself, out of my love for her and concern for her well-being, how much more deeply was He determined to stay near to us, to scoop us up and hold us close to Him out of His vast love for us?
What salve for my aching heart. What peace for my fearing soul. What a tender answer to such a pitiful plea. What a wonderful God He is.
“Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you!”
Isaiah 49:14-16
(This next scripture came from my daily prayer group; thank you, Julie, for this as it just served to confirm what the Lord spoke to me last night!)
“Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from him. He alone is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will not be shaken. My salvation and my honor depend on God; he is my mighty rock, my refuge. Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge.” Psalm 62:5-8