Trust

My husband keeps reminding me how many days it has been since I have written a blog post, to which I have politely ignored him, not knowing how to explain why I haven't written.  So much has been happening to me in the past week and a half, not so much outward circumstances, though we had my precious son's baptism, family to visit, a holiday to spend, and then just plain old life--but internally, God has been doing something new and different, teaching me old news in new ways, and I feel like I am finally beginning to understand what He has been trying to tell me for years.  I guess you could sum it all up in two words: "Trust Jesus."

The most significant change has been my meditation and obedience, or at least increase in obedience, to Philipians 4:6: "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God."  My last post was about a day in which I basically didn't do this.  I spiraled out of control until I was left angry with God for abandoning me.  The next day was different.  I don't remember why exactly such a change overcame me, besides the Holy Spirit of course, but why I responded to Him differently.  Instead of letting the anxiety of ordinary situations have control over me, I brought each situation to the Lord.  The day did not go better, but I went better through my day.  Since then I have been experiencing so many new graces for surrender.

My life is not full of huge challenges, and my trials are not always obvious to an onlooker, but I believe that that is often why I tend to gloss over so many Bible verses.  Oh of course, bring your petitions to God.  Help us to be safe.  Help us to have enough money.  Help me get through pregnancy and mothering a tiny baby...  All of the big things.  What about the small things that drive me crazy every day?  The questions that I ask myself and do not know how to handle?  I have been irritated countless times with Agnes waking up too early, and I respond so negatively, because I don't know why and I wonder and I am afraid that she will keep doing that.  Bring that to the Lord.  God, give me the grace for less alone time--help me to trust that Agnes will get the sleep that she needs, and I will get the restoration I need that did not happen with that short nap break.  Clayton is helping someone with something again, at a time when our time together has been limited?  Of course I am happy for him to be serving.  God, I trust that You will provide the unity in our relationship that I thought needed to come from that hour.

I am in no way Joyful Jill now where everyone can see that I clearly have given God control in my life and have no more anxieties, but I am in the process of becoming more fully who God intends, everyday offering Him my fears and failures and weaknesses and disappointments.  I feel like I am understanding more fully what it means to be saved by God and to live in His mercy.  I am so far from complete surrender, but how good those moments of trust and surrender have been!

Hanging on

I wanted to write today about how great God is, how wonderful His works, about the thunderstorm I watched outside with my husband last night, about the power of music to lift our hearts to Him, and about the Creator of sunsets, but that is not what is on my heart today.  God is good, but today is one of those days you could call a faith survival day, a day that I can be relieved that I made it through without giving up on God, though I could not hear Him through my two children screaming through a traffic jam and my anxieties drowning out His voice. 

The day has gone terribly wrong, and short of a tragedy, it has been one of the most difficult days, a day that at no moment I felt equipped to handle.  I woke an hour and a half late and finally headed for a previously planned trip to the zoo with friends with no prayer, no exercise, and no breakfast.  I broke an eating out fast as we stopped at Mcdonald's and I gave my daughter a hash brown, a nutritious breakfast of potatoes and oily fats that are probably illegal in most countries.  The way home from the zoo, to put it concisely, was full of kicking, screaming, crying, traffic, and hunger.  When I had finally gotten Edmund fed and Agnes in bed, Edmund began his habit of needing constant attention and the use of at least one of my hands, a habit which I thought he had broken (maybe only when Clayton is home!).

I do not feel so hopeful  (in spite of a wonderful break as Edmund gave a brief cooing and smiling session) but there is so much to be thankful for.  These are the days when faith has meaning, a day like Holy Saturday, when any follower of Christ has to wonder what can God possibly be up to?  It is a day that I don't have to understand why when at my complete whit's end, I sit down to nurse, finally a moment of quiet, and my phone alarm starts going off across the room.  None of these things are a big deal when put in perspective, but putting things in perspective sometimes requires to be outside of the complete immersion in chaos and inconvenience.  When "God provides" seems to mean God provides another situation to provoke me, all I can do is continue to pray and wait it out.  I know God will see me through these small daily difficulties that seem too great for me to handle. 

"A patient man need stand firm but for a time, then contentment comes back to him."  Sirach something