The year 2015 has been good so far. I set goals, business was well, I had energy. And then I hit a wall, and I’m still trying to recuperate from that one.
I’m not really one for getting stressed out or letting it get to me. It takes a lot of chaos and uncertainty to silence my confidence, but today I’m feeling quiet. A little less confident. In need of sleep. But I’m trying still to soften the grips I have and opening my palms to an all-knowing God. There is confidence there with him, rest, a constant woo of “You are able because I am able.” So I hit the metaphorical wall, and getting back up takes a lot more effort these days.
It started with the furnace. We’re living on space heaters right now, which has proven good enough for our smaller home, and I have breathed comfortably knowing this problem isn’t much of a problem anymore. But it hardened my heart drastically to the works of Christ in our life. I was so angry with God for bringing us to our knees again. Can’t we just have a season of life where we thrive? Can’t you cut us a break? And my most irrational: Could you do even more for us so I don’t have to feel any fear anywhere? So many crazy questions swirled in my mind over this furnace, this moment in time where we weren’t sure how God would provide, but yet again, we were at His mercy. I didn’t want faith to be the thing I stood on. I had developed serious fear & doubt, enough that I was standing on the constant feed of lies streaming right before my eyes, convinced that God was being unjust. Me, believing my gracious God is unjust.
I had calloused eyes. My heart was not open to truth. I heard it over & over and chose to believe it: I am justified in hating this. But whoa. I was not. I am not. I was knocked over by fear, doubt, life, circumstances, certain that the same God who parted a sea, raised dead to life, and fed 5,000 people with only a few fish and some bread wasn’t looking out for me. Hating this will not make it better. Hating our circumstances shuts me down, shuts out my ability to work in faith, and destroys the joy that this life actually does hold for us. In our small home filled with space heaters, in our small business, in the conversations and discipline with my boys, in my pregnancy, in the what ifs, if onlys, & how comes; I will lose my faith if my certainty is rooted in the circumstances God graciously placed us in.
My midwife told me this week to “lay off the sweets” so I don’t gain too much weight during pregnancy, and I wanted to curl up in a ball and say, “But YOU aren’t pregnant! You don’t know what my life looks like right now!” Until I remembered that I actually can’t curl up in a ball because I’m pregnant, and that she isn’t telling me I’m fat, she just wants me to be healthy. I’ll be looking forward to the minute our taxes are done, but then I realize that I’m actually looking forward to a moment when we’re making a lot of money, and finishing our taxes somehow ties in with that in my mind. I am anxious for the new furnace to be installed because then I won’t worry about it, but I know I’ll still be worrying about the resale value of our home or if everyone will think our repairs & upgrades are just completely irrational and stupid.
I am stressed out about circumstances in our life that I can’t control. Opinions people have of us, mostly, and my eyes are filled with these massive callouses that are so debilitating! But it doesn’t have to be this way! I don’t have to live this way. It took a silly furnace to make me see that I put far more weight on the things of this world and not enough on the eternal value of my actions, words, thoughts, and concerns. There is nothing to hate about the circumstances of life. They are not always comfortable. Most times, no one is here to coddle me through the things that scare my socks off. But there is Jesus. There is redemption still in our hard times, great times, mediocre times. Jesus wants to slap some mud on my face and cleanse my calloused eyes so that I may see, truly, the glory that is waiting for us and the glory that is here & now. I can’t hate this, not when the eternity is so good.
JANELLE DELAGRANGE 