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.