Just Beyond the Veil of My Vision

“How are you guys doing?”

Nearly everyone who asks that question is well-intentioned. They know about what our family has gone through for the past five months. They genuinely want to know that James has found a job, that we’re out of this dreadful holding pattern, that things have worked out for good.

I can’t help but dread answering them. We have no answers. Everything – literally everything – has fallen through for James. We don’t have a next step. I wonder every day how long we can keep on keeping on. I certainly didn’t think we’d make it this far. I didn’t want to have to make it this far.

But we are still here. “Because of the Lord’s great love, we are not consumed.” God hasn’t shown up the way I hoped. I can’t say we’ve seen any crazy miracles. The whispers I’ve heard from God have been just that: whispers. So whispery, in fact, that it’s hard to be certain I’ve heard anything at all.

Professionally, I feel inadequate in every way. I’m not feeling much better about homeschooling. Or running. Or general fitness. Or housecleaning. When James’ job went away, it took more than our income with it.

God has been here. He has sustained us. But it still sucks.

That should be a verse in the Bible, I think.

We are in a stage with Violet where she questions everything.

EVERYTHING.

She wants to be touching me at all times. She’s bothered by things that shouldn’t bother anyone. She definitely doesn’t trust me to act in her interests. The other day, she mistakenly thought Caleb had taken all the chicken nuggets, and she threw herself across the table and tried to grab them, screaming like a hyena the whole time. I had her full plate in my hand, just on the other side of the bar, but she couldn’t see them and didn’t want to. And when we went to walk at the park on a breezy Sunday afternoon, she cried for half an hour. The wind, she was certain, was going to “bwow her away.” I shushed her. I reminded her that I would never keep her in a situation where she was in danger of being blown away. I pointed out that other kids her age were playing happily and not blowing away. I asked her if she trusted me, and she shook her head “no”.

She has no reason not to trust me, but maybe she’s learned from her mama. She likes calm air, and I like a stable income and medical benefits. I get where she’s coming from, but as her mama, I’m sad that she wasted sunshine and warm air sobbing because of a little breeze. What a wasted hour!

I’m trying not to waste this hour by staring at the bank account balance and trying to figure out in my head how it will all work out. There’s literally no human possibility of redemption in this circumstance, so it will have to come from God. Today I soaked up the sunshine and prayed that God has a plate for me just on the other side of the bar, whatever that might be.

"Fankful"

Tonight at dinner, tensions were running high. The boys weren’t eating particularly well. Hurtful comments had been made, followed by an accusation, and then insistence that it was true. The made-up accusation, followed by the allegation that I’m relying on revisionist history, is especially popular in this household, and it destroys my spirit every time. There are plenty of truthful things I could be accused of. Why bother making something up? I'm told it's a trademark of narcissim, and I don't expect change any time soon. Or ever.

And then Violet pivoted in her seat, craned her face up toward me, and said, “Mommy, I’m fankful for you.” She still talks like a muppet, and the “th” and “sp” sounds are especially troublesome. It’s so cute that I’m ill-inclined to correct it. And in that moment, her unexpected gratitude softened the anger that was welling up inside me. It ended the previous conversation, and slipped hope into the well of hurt in my heart.

A few minutes later, I was loading the dishwasher when she scraped the last morsels on her plate into the trash and slid the plate into its spot on the dish rack. “Fank you for dinner,” she whispered. “And fank you for my my milk.”

Is there anything better than genuine gratitude from our kids? No matter how agitated, or worried, or frustrated I am, a thank you from one of my kids immediately softens my heart toward that child. If I am plotting punishment, the severity diminishes. If I’m feeling generous, the scope increases. I want my children to see what I do for them and appreciate it. Can God be any different?

The Bible tells us over and over again to give thanks. Often, I’m so caught up in avoiding the big, wrong things that I am not supposed to do, and I forget to be obedient in the seemingly little things: things like giving thanks, refusing to worry, and adoring God. Maybe those little things are the keys to God’s heart. If my human heart can reorient itself in the face of adoration, gratitude, and trust from my children, surely His heart can be glad when I do the same.

I’ve been struggling lately with deep feelings of self-pity, anger, and hurt. They are justified. I don’t want to deny them because I’ve always been put off a Pollyanna-ish faith. Every time I see Michelle Duggars pasted-on smile, I cringe. We are fools to pretend our emotions don’t exist. Yet maybe this is the crux of obeying God: to acknowledge my feelings but still give thanks. To adore God when the adoration doesn’t seem to be true. To behave in a way that demonstrates faith, even when my heart can’t feel that faith.

In the past few days, I’ve tried to yield my prayers to God’s will. I’ve been actively trying to pray for the things He puts on my heart. I’ve been trying (hard) not to be a backseat driver.

I want God to feel about me the way I feel about Violet. I want to make his heart glad. I want to trust Him like she trusts me. I want to be the beloved daughter I’ve never felt like I could be. Maybe that starts with giving thanks?

A Summary of Despair

Today I told my mom we’d likely be moving in with her in a few months.

I read all the promises in the Bible. That verse in Isaiah that keeps popping out at me. The promises to prosper and not to harm. At one point today, as I pondered what on earth I am supposed to do in this time of waiting, a voice popped in my head and said, “Model faith for your children.” Or something like that. Basically, do the opposite of the daily breakdown thing I’ve been doing.

I just don’t know how to do it. At every turn, a door slams in our faces. Thanks to a plumbing bill and HOA fees and a ripped set of sheets and LIFE, our savings are going faster than ever. James wanted to have a huge heart to heart about the fact that he probably isn’t going to find a job in his injury. I was pissed because I asked him to find a recruiter to help him transition…in JANUARY. And scared, because how to you transition without starting over with a tiny salary? And discouraged, because this has basically undone decades of hard work. We weren’t living extravagantly, but for the first time in our lives, we had a fund to absorb emergencies. Gosh, that was fun. Past tense, of course.

I just can’t see any option or any hope. Today’s verse told me to cry out to God in desperation, and He’ll answer me. I did. Nothing budged. James did, however, suggest buying land and building one of those metal barns to live in. I am not even worthy of a house.

James tried to re-enlist in the Air Force, but he’s been out too long. It really feels like I have an unemployable husband. My flesh screams to flee back to Ohio, find a job that pays 20 grand less than the one I left, and at least we won’t be bankrupt.

I really wanted to lean into hope. To risk-taking. To going after what I thought God wanted me to do…until our universe imploded. Today I just couldn’t do it. Today I was angry, scared, hurt, confused, discouraged. On this gorgeous day with its promise of spring, I alternated between vicious rage and tears. I’m sleep-deprived and I feel completely and utterly alone.

Out of options.

Desperate.

That’s when God shows up, right?

Unless he doesn’t.

I know this isn’t how a person with faith talks, but it’s hard to hope for good things when you can’t help but remember those other times you stepped out in faith and it was a disaster. This might be my worst disaster yet.

Waiting

There’s definitely a reason God calls us children.

I see it every day in my own kids. It doesn’t matter how good I am to them, they doubt me the very next minute.

Take Violet, for example. Never, EVER, have I left her behind…anywhere. And yet, let me get two steps ahead of her on my way down the steps, and she is blubbering and crying real tears and begging me, “Don’t WEAVE me, mommy!” I mean, what part of that looked like leaving? It’s called putting a little space between us so I don’t trip over you and crack my head open. 

And the other day, I told the kids they had to wait until I had all the groceries put away before they could play outside. There was weeping all around. “You NEVER let us play outside, Mommy. We’re NEVER going to get to go outside.”

I’m sorry…are we both speaking English? Because, frankly, I take them outside all the freaking time. And I actually just promised to take them out when I finished with the groceries. I just said, “Wait a minute, OK?”

Based on their reactions, you would have no idea we spent the summer at a pool, lazy Fridays at the museum, and vacations at the beach. You certainly wouldn’t know that I’m in someone’s bed at some point almost every night…because when you need mom, you just need mom. You would think that at some point they’ve been abandoned somewhere, that they’ve gone without meals, that I never, ever hit the drive-thru at Krispy Kreme.

If I can get them to stop and pull their heads out of their rear ends for a few minutes, usually I get some kind of acknowledgement that they’ve overreacting just a bit. But what is it that’s hardwired in us to not trust?

Is it because I don’t always do what they want right away? Maybe. Waiting sucks. I’ll absolutely attest to that. Is it because they forget so quickly? Possibly. I do that, too. Is it because they can’t see signs that I’m working to meet their needs, possibly because they have no idea what that looks like? Yeah, maybe.

The fact is that I’m responding to God in just the same way right now. I can’t stop fixating on the time I took a leave from my job to be with the kids, and we literally drained our whole savings account by the time I skulked back to work with my tail between my legs. That leaves me legitimately panicked because I don’t have that job to skulk back to anymore. I mainly remember long periods of worrying about money and feeling deprivation, which feels extra hard to me because everything we do to save money is, of course, more work for me.

I look at the opportunities that have already fizzled. I look at the damage done by James’ former employer. I look at statistics, logic, and experience, and nothing looks good. At best, maybe he’ll get a new job with a twenty-thousand dollar pay cut. Maybe we can get by, but it’s doubtful. At worst, he won’t find anything at all, and we’ll drag ourselves back to Cincinnati, to live with family while I go back to the classroom. My own understanding looks pretty awful, and I’m angry and scared. I’m buckled in the backseat with huge tears running down my face. This sucks. 

None of this fits the promises in the Bible, as I see them. But it’s hard knowing God seemingly led us down here, knowing how it would turn out. That He let me be pressured into resigning that job I didn’t want anymore anyway, knowing I would need it in nine months. That He let us like it here. That He let us have a taste of financial freedom, only to rip it away.

I know God wants me to trust him, to relax and wait for him. It’s hard when you’re the one who checks the bank account balance, just saying. I can doing everything possible mentally, but faith and peace are wearing thin. I can’t be too hard on my kids when I’m not faring much better in this journey to trust. I want to…I just don’t know how.

Waiting

Part of my strategy to cope with a life that increasingly seems too hard involves making the kids take a little more responsibility. Previous attempts to turn the boys loose on the bathrooms have been disastrous, so I’ve turned my attention to another hated chore: putting away the laundry.

I’ve labeled the drawers in their room. I’ve shown them what to put where. I bring the filled-to-overflowing upstairs and set it right outside their room. They know they have to sort the clothes. Violet’s clothes go in a separate pile for me to put away. The rest need to be in drawers, and the drawers need to close when they are finished.

Most recently, this chore took approximately one hour and forty minutes.

You read that right.

There were screams. Children fell prostrate onto the ground, weeping. There were promises that they could not go on and accusations of terrible unfairness. Caleb quit fifty-two times before the job was declared finished. Also, almost none of the drawers closed on account of clothing that was bunched up and hanging out. I found Violet’s shirts in the boys’ pj drawers. I found underwear with Caleb’s shirts. At least four items of clothing were declared to have no home at all and left strewn on the carpet.

This is why I don’t make my kids do more chores. Once the clothing is put away, I spend the next week proving to Caleb that he does, in fact, have clean long-sleeve shirts. He just needs to look in the sock drawer where he put them.

Then, of course, I have to factor in Violet. For every bit of weeping and gnashing of teeth that her brothers manufacture, Violet possesses an equal desire to “help”. What I can’t get her to understand is that not all “helping” is created equal.

She swoops in on the dreaded chore and starts grabbing articles of clothing. She’s pretty good about taking her clothes to her room and leaving them on the floor. But when she pulls out one of her brothers’ shirts? She likes to toss it across the room for someone else to find. Or she tries to force it in a drawer while Eli and Caleb scream that it isn’t the right spot. (How do they even know? They aren’t doing so great themselves.) Sometimes she hides things under the bed.

The fact is that Violet’s well-intentioned actions turn a chaotic and frustrating experience into a big old mess. The most helpful thing she could do would be to wait – like I told her – until the clothes are sorted into her room. THEN she can help me divvy things up into the right bins and everyone can be happy.

I’m not unlike Violet. Right now, everything in me screams that I need to “do” something. Something more that the editing work I’m doing. It screams that I need to move back to Ohio and look for teaching jobs, because at least I’ll know my babies will have food on the table and medical benefits. It screams that I should definitely hold onto my tutoring gig in our co-op, even though I feel a definite nudging in my spirit to give it up. It screams that I should spend my hours scouring job boards – looking for both myself and my husband – instead of reading God’s word, praying, and fulfilling the already massive pile of responsibilities I face.

Just like Violet, I’m trying to be helpful. Heck, I’m trying to prevent disaster. But none of my efforts will help anything if I haven’t listened to what God wants me to do. Right now, all I know is that I’m supposed to keep writing these thoughts and feelings rolling around in my head. Writing them down helps me process and remember what He’s doing in my heart. I also feel called to continue teaching my kids, to the best of my ability. To being present for them in the best part of their days.

I know I’m supposed to be poring over God’s word, treasuring these words of promise and hope. Other than that, the only directive seems to be “WAIT”. I’m not sure if it’s actually a directive, or if it’s the absence of any other directive…but waiting is all I can do.

Can I tell you how hard it is to wait when your husband hasn’t handled the things you asked him to handle three weeks ago? When you haven’t had any income in two months. When you’re acutely aware that the savings will go fast. When the husband throws a fit every time you spend a penny, and then throws around hairbrained ideas like selling the house and living off the land. When he’s sleeping in, taking naps, watching TV, and going on long runs? I do not want to sit and wait – especially not on him. I’ve spend more than a decade waiting on him to step up and take responsibility. Things do not look any better this time around.

But I watched Violet swoop into the laundry like a tornado and make a huge mess when she could have waited just a few minutes and been very helpful. I don’t want to do the same thing to God. I want to wait until he says, “Now. This is what you can do.”

So I’m waiting. Because waiting on God is better than all the action in the world.

Hide It In Your Heart

When I was little, I spent my Wednesday nights at a church program called Awana. I eagerly memorized Bible verse after Bible verse in exchange for patches and jewels that I attached to my grey and red uniform. I’ll fully confess to being motivated by all the wrong things: I loved the awards on my uniform, the ribbons and plaques, and the recognition for flying through my yearly memory work. I went so fast that I ran out of official club materials and started memorizing verses my mom wrote on index cards. I knew the Bible said I was supposed to memorize God’s word, but I wasn’t exactly motivated by Jesus.

My mom used to talk about Christians in countries where the Bible was illegal, and how they HAD to memorize God’s word if they were going to know what He said. Even during the Cold War, that scenario seemed pretty far removed from my life in Ohio. And as technology has advanced, memorization has fallen out of favor across the board. After all, who needs to spend all that time memorizing scripture when you have the Bible app on your phone or smart watch. As long as you have technology, you have God, right? Google is the new sword of the spirit, seemingly. If you need to know what God says about anxiety, just ask Alexa.

The thing is, the Devil doesn’t seem to attack when my Bible – or my Bible app - is open. No, he weasels his way in during the dead of night, when the lights are off and I’m trying to sleep. He sneaks up when I’m driving, when I’m running, when I’m trying to work on schoolwork with my kids. In this horrible season our family is in, he’s shown up at all the times I’m most vulnerable. He plants a thought, and my mind seizes and runs with it.

What I’m learning as that this is when it’s imperative to have scripture committed to memory. Those verses that I memorized as a ten-year-old are still stored in the recesses of the brain. And over and over again, the Holy Spirit has pulled those words to the forefront of my mind at just the right time. The Spirit speaks scripture to me, but it doesn’t come entirely out of the blue. It’s always scripture that I’ve memorized at some point in my life, whether because I’ve read the passage over and over, perhaps taped it on my bathroom mirror or closet wall – or even because I memorized it at Awana club when I was ten. Often, I had no idea how significant it would be when I was repeating it over and over, carving it into the fibers of my mind.

I can’t help but wonder where my mind would go in the middle of the night, while I’m pacing a path in the music room rug, if I didn’t have God’s words stored up in my heart. As it is, the Devil whispers, “You are finished,” and God’s word whispers, “I make streams in the desert and rivers in the wastelands.” The devil whispers, “This event has destroyed your life. Remember how this turned out in times past?” And God’s word whispers, “Forget the former things. Do not dwell on the past. Look – I am doing something new!” The devil says, “Throw the kids in school and go handle this yourself. Get a job – or two – flee ‘home’ with your head hung low and eke out a living.” And God’s word whispers, “The Lord Himself will fight for you. You need only stand still.”

Of course, I firmly believe God speaks to me in other ways as well. Just a few weeks ago, a friend shared a dream that made the hair on my arms stand up. In all ways it felt like prophecy, but prophecy has to align with scripture. Again, because so much of God’s word is woven into my heart, I was able to measure that prophecy against scripture and know with confidence that the two are aligned.

My own kids go to Awana now. Cubbies earned Violet’s undying affection the moment the uniform appeared. An hour and a half with snacks and games…and a new outfit???  God bless America, that is right up her alley. And my boys, much like me, are enthusiastically tearing through handbook after handbook, loading their uniforms up with bling. Eli can say all three Sparks handbooks without prompting – three years of verses thoroughly ingrained in his being. Caleb isn’t far behind. But even if memorization was hard for them, I’d still make them do it. We are promised that we’ll face times that are hard, and I want them to have the same foundation I was given all those years ago. I want to make sure the Spirit has the same tools to speak to them, late at night and when they first wake up.

The devil will speak all sorts of lies to us. In the last two months, his primary language has been fear, and those fears look absolutely valid. But God says, “I did not give you a spirit of fear, but of power, of love, and of self-discipline.” That verse has become my sword, a sword I’ve been wielding over and over as fear tempts me to make rash decisions.

We can’t wield the sword of the spirit if we don’t know what it says. Regardless of your age, and whether or not scripture memorization comes with tangible rewards, I’d like to encourage you to commit a verse to memory this week. You never know when you’ll need it.

Prophetic Word

I was reading a blog post about the gift of prophecy the other day. I’m fairly certain that I don’t possess it myself, and I can only think of a few times in my life where someone spoke something (possibly) prophetic over me. As I read this post, all I could think was how I longed to hear a prophetic word: something that would give me hope and direction. It has a half-hearted prayer – the sort that is more of a thought directed at God than a fully-formed, clearly articulated word.

Then I went back to my low, dark place. I’m getting pretty comfortable there.

Yesterday afternoon, a Facebook message popped up on my screen. Sally is a friend from my early days of teaching, and our lives have criss-crossed and bumped against each other many times in subsequent years. The first words I saw were “dream”, “you”, and “job”, and my heart both flipped and sank. I knew it was a God thing immediately. This is God telling me I need to go back to Ohio and get a teaching job.

But no. She told me she’d had a dream that I landed a dream job – and it was so vivid that she woke up and checked Facebook to see if I’d posted anything. “The general message,” she told me, “is that you will be blessed beyond measure in an incredible way. Your faithfulness and courage will be rewarded. Your joy will be restored. Your good works are seen.” Now I can promise you that another English teaching job is not my dream job. Nopity, nope, nope. The only dream job I have is one that allows me to be present with my children most of the time, not away from them. A job that will allow us to travel together, to have adventures. Really, my dream job is working as a writer, although it took me decades to possibly acknowledge that. Everyone wants to be a writer, right?

Just the day before her message, I’d summoned all my courage and sent a query letter to the agent who represents Jen Hatmaker…because if you don’t know where to start, you might as well start with the best, no? It was the only agency I’d found that didn’t blatantly state they weren’t accepting unsolicited manuscripts. I told Sally that, and she was convinced it was no coincidence. “I’m not prophetic. I don’t have dreams,” she told me. “But I’ve been praying for you.”

Not even five minutes later, I got an email from the publisher. Spoiler…this is totally not going where you think it’s going. It was a personal reply, but it let me know that they weren’t accepting unsolicited manuscripts. It did, however, give me some resources to help me get started in publishing.

I know. I totally wanted to hear “We love your blog! Let’s talk on the phone! You have a future in this industry.” That would have been too easy and obvious, I suppose. Had I received that email before Sally’s message, I think it would have fully deflated me. Like every other door I’ve tried in the last month and a half, it was locked. But instead, I took it as a stair step. I sent the first email. I swallowed my fear. I stated out loud that I’m going to pursue this thing I am totally unqualified to do. I was oddly encouraged by the rejection.

Then I remembered my half-prayer from a few days before. I prayed for a prophet to give me direction. God sent someone…someone who doesn’t consider herself a prophet, just like I don’t consider myself a real writer.

That’s all I have for you. I don’t really know my next step. I don’t know if I should write more, or do more research into the publishing industry. I don’t know anything. But I’m going to claim that prophecy, for whatever it’s worth. 

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord. “Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you a hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11

What Did We Do Wrong?

Today I saw a Facebook post about giving.

It told the story of someone who gave generously to our church’s building fund, and was rewarded with an unexpected promotion. Before December 15, I would have been excited and encouraged. Today, I was utterly deflated.

We’ve given to the church faithfully for years. We’ve also struggled for years. My husband, in particular, really had a hard time with the idea of giving ten percent, especially when we were making hard choices with the money we had left. I kept hearing stories about people who gave and were miraculously blessed, but it didn’t seem to work that way for us.

When I tried to quit my job the first time to work as an adjunct, which in theory gave me an extra couple of days with my kids, I upped our giving against my husband’s will. Then our childcare situation fell apart and I had to pay someone instead of using family. We got hit with some unexpected bills. When summer session rolled around, I lost one of my scheduled classes because of low enrollment. By the time I started back to full-time teaching in August, we had spent every last dime of the money we’d saved, and we’d overdrawn our bank account. It took months to get back on track.

I was fully ready to join James in the “giving is crap” camp.

Our church at the time was also doing a growth campaign, and suddenly my husband was on board with giving. He’d taken a trip to man camp, where a man prayed over him and very clearly gave him the message that God was saying, “James, you can trust me.” God gave him a very clear number, and when he wrote it on the card, I sighed and figured I was never going to be able to quit my job to stay home with the kids. It more than doubled what we were currently giving. It also brought us up to exactly ten percent.

Yet right after that, I landed a freelance job that payed off my minivan – two years early. Our insurance rates dropped, and our mortgage reset as well. God opened up our budget by exactly the amount we were tithing. It was nothing short of miraculous.

Then the job opened up here, and God continued to bless us. While tithing, we paid cash for James’ car straight out of the lease. We were slated to finish paying off his student loads in February, and we would have been completely debt-free aside from our mortgage. We were already planning to increase our giving for our new church’s building campaign, and we were also going to increase the amount we put in the kids’ college fund. For the first time, we felt hope about our financial future. We'd finally hit our stride, and we were amazed at what we were able to do with what was honestly a pretty low salary.

On December 15, that vanished.

I went ahead and tithed in December. I tithed again this month. But the fact is that James hasn’t gotten a dime of unemployment and can’t even get ahold of anyone to tell him what is wrong with his account. I haven’t heard back from the social worker about whether or not the kids can get Medicaid. This month, I made $800 – pre-tax - from freelancing. I worked a ton in December, so I’ll make more in February…but this month hasn’t been very busy. So March? Not so great. I’m certainly not covering our bills, and I don’t feel like I should – or can – work more. I’m homeschooling the kids, tutoring, writing, and maintaining the house. The one thing I tell myself when I’m awake for hours every night is that I can take the kids back to Ohio, live with my mom, and start over in teaching. It makes me want to throw up. It makes me think I should have just kept the job I had, because at least we had medical insurance and a good school district for our kids. It also makes me feel better, because at least I'll be in control again. Trusting other people is for the birds.

It surely feels like we’re heading to the same place we were just two years ago, with our savings depleted, leaving my babies in the only childcare I can afford so I can go work with someone else’s kids. Only now I’ve given up that tenured job and all the years of seniority I’d earned on my paycheck. Eli asked the other day if we were poor, and it certainly feels like it.

How am I to make sense of this? Of God’s promises to provide? Why does He sometimes pour down abundant blessings, but other times He allows crippling loss and character assassination? Did we misread what He wanted us to do? Do we not qualify for the blessings and provision? What are we doing wrong?

Was something wrong with the tithe I paid during my time off work after Violet? Is that why God didn’t provide? Is God allergic to savings accounts and determined to wipe ours out every chance he gets? Is this just the life I’m consigned to because of the mistakes I made when I was young? All of those things certainly feel true.

I know God’s promises are true whether or not we feel like it, or so I’m told. It would feel nice to feel something other than that tingly, terrified feeling I get when I check the mail and find another bill. Or when I open up the cabinets under the kitchen sink to empty the bowl collecting water from the leak that started just a few weeks ago. Of course that would happen now.

I can tell you that our current living situation has made it clear to me that we could have given more for the past year and a half – and still lived quite well. I was trying to default to my husband, and if God showed up and gave him another number, I surely didn’t hear about it. I can also tell you that if God tells us to give him a certain number, I will be obedient. Because that one time we could see His faithfulness was amazing. I want to be part of helping our community find Jesus. I want to worship Jesus with my best.

I just don’t really have any best right now, and while Isaiah tells me He is doing something new, I have to confess that I cannot see it. I cannot hear God. I cannot feel Him. I can only see dead ends and discouragement and sleepless nights, and I can’t help but wonder what we did wrong.

The Helmet

My father-in-law has been here on and off for the last few days, soaking up the grandkids and generally doing what grandparents do: spoiling.

Violet, in particular, has been eating it up. This is a child who loves to be adored, doted on, and paid attention to. And her G is happy to do all those things.

Our house is especially football crazy right now, and the kids rotate through multiple jerseys every day. The boys have football helmets from last year’s birthdays, but Violet has to beg, borrow, or steal one if she wants to be part of the action. As you can imagine, her brothers aren’t really pleased about loaning theirs out, especially to a little girl who can’t really play the game.

(Of course, they aren’t really playing the game, either. They’re mostly acting out a football game instead of actually playing one, but don’t tell them that.)

So Violet loves the Vikings, for all the important reasons. Actually, for one very important reason: she likes purple. And yesterday, after showers of gifts, she asked her G for a Viking helmet. I hushed her, but she wouldn’t quit. And of course, G promised he’d get her one. Because G can’t say “no” to anything she asks for.

When we said goodbye in the parking lot a Dewey’s, Violet wailed that she didn’t get her Viking helmet. I told her she needed to be patient.

Frankly, I figured it would never materialize, but when G left our house he was headed to stay with a friend in Tennessee. The friend sells awards to the sports industry, and he has quite a collection of NFL memorabilia, including – you guessed it – a Vikings helmet.

That helmet is now in G’s car, ready to be mailed to Violet.

She does have to be patient, because her G had to go get the helmet, but it’s coming to her. She asked for something extravagant, and what she got is even better than she realizes. She wanted a toy, and she got the real deal.

I’ve been struggling in this season to ask for extravagant things. I mean, we are a household without any income. Just a job…a job close to as good as the one that was lost…would do the trick. Asking for big things feels like a set-up for failure. Actually, everything about life feels like a set-up for failure. Today James and I both prayed for something encouraging on the job front, and instead we got what appears to be a very discouraging development.

I mean, why pray?

But when I saw that helmet, I was reminded that our Father in heaven loves us so much more than even G can love his little granddaughter, and it doesn’t matter whether we’re cute or deserving or perfect. I can ask for bold things, and God can provide them. I mean, this past year we’ve wanted for nothing, even though all I asked for was a way for me to be able to stay home and be poor.

I feel like God gave me a glimpse of his heart, of how He feels about me, and of how He intends to care for us. I’m still scared – I mean, I’m up at 1 am typing this because I can’t sleep. But I just have to go back to the image of Violet asking courageously…and the benevolent response of a G her loves her. God has given me these children to teach me how to relate to Him. I think He wants me to be more like Violet.

An Update on Trust

The Bible spends a lot of time comparing God to a Father, which I always sort of assumed was for the benefit of children. I mean, obviously a child needs a frame of reference for God, so God says, “Here you go…this is something you’ll understand.” Deep down inside, I kind of wondered what that felt like for kids who didn’t have dads, or kids whose dads were loads of crap. My own dad was pretty spectacular…so spectacular that I was more inclined to trust him to come through for me than I was to lean on God. Dad was always a phone call away.

Then, early on a February morning, in between two rounds of Cincinnati snow storms, a nurse handed me my own little baby boy. And at that moment, my heart for God began to change. See, as children we only understand so much of what our parents do. We hear our parents say that discipline is for our own good, but deep down we suspect it’s punishment. We hear our parents say that they’re planning something good for us, and we expect a letdown. Our parents, even the amazing ones, are only human after all. And our childlike brains can only understand so much.

But as a parent, I suddenly see God in a whole new light. I regularly test my own kids, to see if they have faith in me. I’ll bundle them all into the car and they’ll beg to know where we’re going. And just for fun, I won’t answer them. “Do you trust me?” I like to ask.

Well, no, they don’t trust me. It turns out I drive the car to Hobby Lobby far too often, and Hobby Lobby is the seventh level of Hell. It means following my cart around while I sip on coffee and stare for too long at all the beautiful things. They could care less about beautiful things, unless they are Star Wars scale models. And we don’t look at those.

And so they whine and complain and get all worked up into hysterics while I use my gift card in the Starbucks drive-through, and I get all hot and bothered and mad that my children are so very ungrateful. Then we go to Sci Works. Because Sci-Works is just about the most amazing place in the world, besides the beach. And then I ask them again, “Do you trust me?”

And they kind of hang their heads and look sheepish and mutter, “Yes. Sorry.” As they should.

And God knocks on the corner of my heart and says, “Where do you think they learned this?”

And I hang my head and mutter, “Sorry.”

Because now that I’m a parent, I see myself more clearly.

On the days between December 10 and December 15, while we waiting to see if James would have a job or not…and on the days after December 15, when we knew he did not, I have been no different than my tantrum-throwing children anticipating a trip to Hobby Lobby. Except that I’m not expecting Hobby Lobby because I’d actually be really excited about that. I’ve been envisioning our savings disappearing. I’ve been envisioning months without a job or an income. I’ve been trying to figure out how I can close the gap. I’ve been panicking about doctor’s appointments and dentist appointments scheduled for February because without insurance, they’ll pretty much drain our savings. I’ve been envisioning James sitting at home, not even knowing where to begin. I’ve been envisioning phones that didn’t ring, having to work full-time while homeschooling the kids, losing our house, splitting up, moving with the kids into my mom’s house. My best-case scenario involves a new job that pays a fraction of what he made before and never going to the beach again. My brain has been BUSY. No wonder I’m so tired.

And through about a thousand different Bible verses, God has been saying “trust me”. He has promised that He is starting a new thing, that He will make streams in the desert, that He is able to do immeasurably more than I can ask or think. I didn’t think to ask for a lot. I was afraid to ask for even a little.

And so, while we wait, He’s provided a way for the kids to keep swimming. He’s provided multiple contacts for James. He’s provided friends who check on me every few days. He’s provided reminders of the ways He’s provided in the past. I’m still struggling with the desire to hedge my bets, but it feels like we are heading somewhere good. Somewhere we wouldn’t have thought to venture if things had kept plodding along like they were.

Thank goodness God is a far better parent than me. He has a purpose for this. Just like I want my kids to grow in the way they trust me (because I hope that will eventually translate to trusting God), He knows that this exact thing is what scared me the most. And He is walking me through it. Maybe He’ll help me release that stronghold to Him…because it’s been a stronghold for most of my life. I went so far as to say I’d never be a stay at home mom because I didn’t want to be in precisely this situation.

But I love being a stay-at-home mom.

He knew that, too. And He made it happen in a way I couldn’t even imagine.

When I started this blog, just three years ago, I had pretty much zero trust. It held me back. It stole my joy.

I have a long way to go, but I think the way I relate to God has changed just a little bit. I hope so. Each day that I try to teach my children to trust me, I find it just a little easier to trust the perfect Father. The one who has promised to meet all my needs. Even the needs I don’t know I have.