Promises (Kept)

In some ways, maybe my heart is better prepared for this crisis than most. I’m used to knowing that the salary could be gone tomorrow. I’m used to watching the person in charge wreak havoc on my life without giving me a voice in the decisions. I’m used to a steady stream of bad news, to living in close proximity with a mercurial person spewing emotions in every direction. I’ve been given years (15, really) to learn how to have hope in God and nothing else.

It’s not that I’m not scared or angry, and I’m definitely mourning the life I had just a week ago. But I also have the perspective that I’ve gained since December 16, 2017: I know that God comes through in remarkable, unexpected ways. I know that He provides our needs, and even some of our wants, faithfully. I know that He is not hemmed in by flawed, or even corrupt, authority figures. I know that He continues to exist in crappy situations, even if He doesn’t remove us from them. I know that His promises can be trusted, and the best thing we can do is turn to Him in every moment of fear, despair, and sadness. This is where he develops our roots so we can stand strong in whatever happens next.

As I have emotionally distanced myself from him, James has lashed out with increasing severity. He knows I’m slipping away, so he leans into his crazy diet and brags about his muscles. Now, he’s watched a booming work industry trickle to very little, and I can tell he’s panicked about losing his job. He can’t do his reserve work because of the travel ban. He is increasingly backed into a corner, and it isn’t pretty. It’s hard to stay calm with his hovering negativity.

But, I’ve had an unemployed husband before. Many times. I know now that God steps in, always. I will no longer pick up his burden of protector and provider. When men bow out, God steps in. I’m trusting now that God is using this to either remove him from our lives or to break him, and either way, I’m trying to hold the trappings of our lives loosely enough that I can watch God work.

I’m also dwelling on several promises I believe I received from God: one, spoken by a friend several years ago, in which God showed her that He saw my hard work, and that He was providing a means for the kids and I to live and love in freedom. She was not privy to the details of my marriage; how could she have known how trapped we are?

The other was a rainbow at the beach on a rainless day. There’s a name for this phenomenon, although I’ve forgotten it now. But it lasted for nearly half an hour, and as I watched it – and thought about God’s promise to Noah that never again would he flood the whole earth – I thought God said that never again will my family have periods without income and unemployment. I’ve faced that particular Goliath from my childhood over and over again in my marriage, and I hope I’ve finally learned not to trust in a job.

I could look at circumstances and despair – and I certainly have. I feel more trapped than ever.

But I also know that God is HERE. This is part of the plan He’s been calling me toward all along. “My beloved spoke and said to me, ‘Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, come with me. See! The winter is past; the rains are over and gone. Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come, the cooing of doves is heard in our land. The fig tree forms its early fruit; the blossoming vines spread their fragrance. Arise, come, my darling; my beautiful one, come with me.”