Buried Alive

I apologize for the serious tone to my recent posts. I do not intend to be a Debbie Downer, but lately I have been weighed down by worry. It feels like being buried alive - the feeling that everything is on top of you, you are gasping for breath, and the more that you try to claw and climb your way out the more dirt falls on your face and the farther down you slide. How do you get out of this cycle? How do you finally get your head above ground? This has been a struggle for probably the last year, but especially the last 4 months. Health stuff, family stuff, financial issues, personal and spiritual problems have all come to a head at once, and seem only to get worse with each passing day. It feels like there is no relief. We feel out of control, totally helpless in all of it. And I think that is precisely where God wants us. He wants us to realize that EVERYTHING comes from Him, and that we are capable of nothing apart from Him. We can work our fingers to the bone, but we cannot make the paycheck come. We can do our best to be healthy and proactive, but we cannot sustain life. We can give but we cannot determine the return. I think He wanted us to realize how incredibly powerless we are, and how much we have relied on ourselves, our talents, money and people when He is the only true source. I think He has been trying to strip us bare of all of our stuff - including our security, priorities and plans - to reveal to us our basic need of Him and Him alone. Just this past week I realized that I had been holding onto our home - feeling like there was no way God would ask us to give this to Him, or not have a home. Then, I remembered when Patrick and I bought this home. We were so excited. We felt so blessed and we dedicated our home to the Lord. We believed that He had given us this home and wanted to use it as a ministry to others in hospitality. We told God to do whatever He wanted in our home. Now, a few years later, I was telling God that He could not have the home I had already given Him. Wow! Talk about conviction! Suddenly I saw my home differently - not as my entitlement, or a requirement for my family to survive and thrive, but as a blessing that God had given us at His discretion. As my loving Father, He has the right to take it away at anytime if He feels so inclined. And while this may sound scary - God possibly taking away your home at anytime - it is actually true freedom. Letting go of that pressure and grabbing onto the promise that God has me in His hand is real freedom. Now I am not owned by my home, or the mortgage, or debt, or anything else that tries to grab at me. He has me and He will provide. This does not mean that I do not have a role to play - no! Just the opposite. I have a huge role to play - obedience and submission. I have to do what He has called me to do, go where He has called me to go, and give the outcome to Him. I have to trust that He is good, that He loves me and that He is in control. This is no easy feat. It requires faith, which requires hoping in things you cannot see and often lots and lots of waiting. We feel like we have been waiting far too long for an answer, but the truth is that God is never late. He knows exactly what He is doing. So, as we feel paralyzed by our circumstances and at a loss for what to do next, we wait on the Lord and trust that His ways are higher than our ways, that He is invading every aspect of our lives with His love, and that He will bring the relief at just the right time. We are now seeing that we are being buried in His grace and mercy, and that relief comes in the surrender.

When the World Caves in

Do you ever fee like the world is caving in on you? Do you ever feel like you are completely undone? That your insides have been ripped out and you are agonizingly floundering on the floor? I have come to know that feeling pretty well. I sit here, completely undone before the Lord. I feel like Job, sitting on my heap of ashes, dressed in sackcloth, scraping my boils with broken pottery as people tell me to just curse God and die. That's really tempting. I mean, how can a loving and just God sit around and do nothing as I sit and suffer? How can He sit back on His big comfortable throne and watch as people who love and follow Him are in agony? He must be pretty despicable to be able to do that, especially to people He supposedly loves. But, much like Job, I cannot and will not curse God and die. I can only say that I know that my Redeemer lives. Can I expect only blessings from God and not curses? Even if He were that awful tyrant, He would still deserve my praise. If He made everything and was all powerful and did not love me at all, He would deserve praise because of Who He is. Yet, that is not true. He is all powerful, and all knowing; the beginning and the end; the author and finisher of my faith; the very definition and origin of love; the only One who knows the entire story. He has me in His hand, even if all of the circumstance have stopped from seeing that that is exactly where I am. He is not far, but inside, outside, above, below, encircling every part. I just see the temporal, while He sees the finite and infinite. He wrote the story, and I am only playing a part. When He answers Job, He does so with a series of questions - where were you when I put the stars in their place? Told the oceans to come only so far? Hung the heavens, and created the earth? Where were you? How did I do it? You think the One who causes seasons and has a purpose for every plant, leaf, insect and animal is unaware of what's going on with His own children? Of course I am paraphrasing, but if you have never read that interaction - you should. We forget when we are battling the big scary monsters of this big scary world how very small all of it is in comparison to Him. We forget about His glory when we're met with struggles and confusion. We forget about His love, faithfulness and goodness when we're staring death and mourning in the face. But they are still there. Our circumstances don't change Him. Let me say that again (because I need to hear it) - our circumstances don't change Him. He is not scared by the threat of war. He is not worried over unemployment, the crashing dollar or the impending financial collapse. He is not intimidated by dictators or tyrants. He does not flinch at death. Nothing is a surprise to Him, and nothing is beyond His power or control. Why does He allow this suffering? - Because He is good. That doesn't make sense! How can suffering come from good? Because He sees what we don't. He knows what we could never fathom. I have often said that God sees everything at once from every perspective, while we can only see from our 2 small eyes and biased perception. He has a plan, and we are part of it. I am grasping for the Lord right now as my family faces yet another gut wrenching, horribly painful, and seemingly unfair trial. We are faced once again, in less than a year, with death and pain and heartbreak. We pray and believe for miracles, yet God seems to be silent. This is not true. God is not silent. He is lovingly rocking us in His arms as He strokes our hair and asks us to trust Him yet again. It's a struggle to trust Him, even when we know all of this about Him. It's a struggle to see through the pain and tears to His love and goodness. But that is faith, right? - Being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see (Heb. 11:1). So, I am sure that God is there, and certain that He is loving us and caring for us. I am hoping for a miracle and clinging to His truth. No matter the outcome of this trial - life or death, rejoicing or mourning - I will praise Him, because He is worthy of my praise. I will trust Him, because He is the only One I can run to. I will follow Him, because He is the only truth.

Wandering in the Wilderness

I have been living in Texas now for 4 years. 4 years! That is crazy to me. It feels like yesterday that Patrick and I left behind our little Yorba Linda townhouse and trekked through the desert to our new home. Yet, the 4 years here has been so full of stuff that it seems like decades that we have been here. Strange how that happens. Much like my dad's death feels like a hundred years ago, but at the same time it feels like I just spoke to him yesterday. These 4 years in some ways have been excruciatingly long. The number 1 place I have felt the drain of time has been in my walk with Christ. Moving here was definitely something that God had planned for us. Neither Patrick nor I have doubted for 1 second that God called us here. The month before we left Patrick was offered the position he had dreamed about. He was offered to work with and under the man he admired more than any other person in the world, for a place that felt like home, and with people that he considered family. He was offered the position that he had left Colorado in the hopes of one day achieving. At the same time, he was offered a position at a company that had treated him unfairly, with people he did not know, in an area that was one of the worst in the country for his department. We prayed and prayed and prayed some more. But it was clear - we were being called to Texas. We were being called out of and away from the people we loved in California, and the ministry we both felt called to. We were nervous and sad as we left behind our biggest hopes for the future, but so excited to see what God was calling us to in Texas. I mean, we had given up our hearts desire, so God must be replacing that with something completely amazing, right? Well... it didn't appear so. After 4 years in Texas we are still wondering why we are here. After 4 years at the same church, we still don't feel like we belong. After 4 years of putting ourselves out there we have no real friends. I have no one I know in Texas that I have ever called to have a conversation with. No one. Now I don't want to sound ungrateful or not take time to show all the good things that have come here - my entire family now lives here (which is the biggest blessing on earth), we bought a house, had 4 babies (2 here, 1 in heaven, and 1 still cooking), and have met some incredible people that we dearly love and admire. But it still feels in many ways like we're just passing through. Perhaps the absolute worst part of all of it is that in the entire time I have lived here I have felt very distant from God. I have prayed, fasted, read my Bible daily, gone to Bible study - done all of the stuff. Yet He seems silent. I feel like I am the only one talking, and He has grown weary of listening. In my head, I know this is totally untrue. I know that He cares for me, and loves me and listens to me, and is for me not against me. I see the ways He has provided for me, even in miraculous ways. I know all of this... in my head. But my heart, well my heart feels abandoned. My heart feels like God lead me out here and left me to fend for myself. I feel lost. I work everyday to try to do the things I feel He has laid on my heart, but I feel like I hit walls at every turn. I know that we have an enemy and that he is real and working to ruin and thwart every thing God is doing in our lives. I know that the world is not my true home and that things here are going to be bad and unfair at times. I know all of that... in my head. Yet my heart looks at my time here and recalls over 6 months of depression that I endured without a single person noticing I was struggling. My heart recalls losing my dad and watching my mom continue to mourn and struggle. My heart recalls laying on a hospital bed crying uncontrollably after losing my child. My heart recalls praying for Isaac to be born alive and then holding his beautiful lifeless body, and watching my sister have her heart torn out as she grieved her child. My heart recalls Patrick losing the job he had due to people lying and cheating, and causing us financial hardship. My heart sees all of the struggle we have every single day with finances, no matter how much we tithe, how many hours Patrick works, or how much I cut back and take on to save money. My heart sees us striving to be obedient and diligent and grateful, yet still not feeling God anywhere in the room. I know that God is real. I know that God is with me. I have met Him face to face. I have felt His hand on my shoulder as I cried, and I have no doubt that He is sovereign and I will continue to praise Him and follow Him even if I never feel Him again. I have never been angry with Him over losing my dad or Sprout or Isaac. I have trusted Him with all of that, and I know that they are in His hands. I don't want to sound like I'm doubting Him or walking away. That is the farthest thing from what I am doing. I am simply trying to convey with words the way my heart feels. I am trying to press in and grow closer to Him, and feel His presence in the midst of the storm. Yet I feel like a person in a dark room, with my hands stretched out trying to grasp for anything and finding nothing. I know He's there. I can hear Him breathing. But right now, I can't find Him. And I know that He has allowed this for a purpose, a good purpose. I know that He is using this time in my own desert to teach me to be patient, and trust Him, and follow Him unconditionally. I know that... in my head. But my heart yearns to feel my daddy turn and hold me tight and stroke my hair and tell me that He is here to chase away the monsters, and that has it all under control.