Thanks so much to everyone who texted, emailed and called about my last post. It was by and large my most humbling public admission, but the responses have been so wonderful and have reassured my heart that yes, I am in fact to write out this life as it happens, not as I feel it should be. Though, if I’m being really honest, I think this place we’re at is exactly where everyone in life should find themselves at one point or another. If not armed with a problem or a need so great our minds cannot solve or even capacitate, how else will we discover our ultimate need for Him?
It’s an unreal place to live, trusting God for our every single thing. But now that I’m here there’s no place I would rather be.
Waiting on Him to move.
But then, waiting has never been my specialty.
I think it has something to do with being a four year old kindergartener (which made me the youngest by far in every grade after that!), but my habit all my life has been to hurry, hurry – rush to the end – and be the first to do everything. This worked out pretty well for me when I was 16 years old and wanted to start college – enter PSEO! – or when at 17 I got my first tattoo, a sacred heart on my right shoulder, which my mother signed for. But it also established a restlessness deep within me, one that drives me to be the first, faster than anyone else in getting there, and to have the race all mapped out (and finished) before the rest of my opponents reach the starting line. It’s not even about being the best, I’m okay with just being the first, and I love knowing how things will end. I just want to get it over with!
So naturally that’s my instinct when we’re in the middle of all this muck and mire – is it over yet? – and my heart won’t be satisfied until I know exactly how long it will take for this to be over, for us to be okay. It’s agonizing, and it can feel like a punishment to wait. In my own abilities I want to fix our finances, and even though I have no idea where to begin I want to jump to the ending, to figure it all out and then work putting the puzzle together to see that perfect picture again.
Waiting isn’t easy, and sometimes I’m quick to call it – game over. I grow tired and weary of wanting and waiting, & I seek to speed the process along; usually this happens when the need feels so great I’m sideways thinking of how to solve it on my own, but wait.
Not so fast! He tells me this is exactly where you need to be. In the waiting there is so much beauty, promise, and truth being revealed to my heart. It’s in the waiting I’ve been reintroduced to who I really am – strong, resourceful, inventive – and it’s ignited a whole new affair with my first true love. I found Him there in the waiting for what we know He’s promised us, what He knows we need before we even ask. We plant the seeds, and we wait. It’s not even tangible fruit of our hard work or efforts I’m looking for; we’re in a place of waiting for the first blossoms to bud on the trees we’re clinging to, full of hope. We just want to see a blooming bud.
It’s at these exact intersections of my incompleteness and His vast togetherness that faith in the unseen breaks through into the natural world, grabs me by the shirt and pulls me back to Him. I find him in the moments of brokenness, the wholeness of Him fills in where no part in me is complete. In His promises I find trust I never knew I could have in anyone or anything. He knows we want it all figured out, but instead of revealing his big picture plan, he graciously places His hand on our our shoulders and whispers Not so fast! Trust me, I got this; you’re going to be okay.
So like a crazy trust exercise I just jump, knowing he’s behind me all the way.
And when we lean hard on that trust, something major happens, something changes, every time. Whether it’s the words of encouragement texted by a friend who has no idea what we’re going through, or the kind of gesture that flatlines me like a family member buying our groceries and paying our rent (really, that happened!), when my belief shifts from trusting myself to fully relying on Him, He moves. Every time. And I’m stupefied thinking of how He gives us more than we could ask or even think to ask in every single circumstance.
So we’re still in the mess but our hands are held high, outstretched to Him. We’re happy and we’re singing, hallelujah.
I couldn’t imagine any better place to be.