The Messenger

Something amazing happened to me today. Last night, I was reading some of my old blogs, as I often do, and I became majorly glum over something that probably doesn't bother a lot of you. I went back to read some of my blogs from this time last year and I found that not a whole lot had changed at all. In them, I was waiting to find out if Peter was going to get into the military, and I was waiting to find out if we would have this house the following month. In fact, nearly everything about "this time last year" resembled the present... and it really freaked me out.
At the same time, I had to face the fact that I'm not actually GOING in circles, even if it sometimes seems that way, but rather that I've got a pattern going on, and that I'm moving outwards (or maybe inwards?) in concentric circles, like the earth around the sun. Each time I revisit a place or a thing, it's becoming clearer and clearer to me, and I'm growing more. Not only are these things becoming more familiar, but they are becoming more understandable. And what's more, I'm really starting to see a change in ME, if not in my circumstances.

Meanwhile, something happened today that really threw me for a loop. During the incident, two things stood out. The first was that every time I start to see a glimmer of hope in this life, that somehow, some way, God is going to pull us out of poverty and into a place where we just might be able to have a decent life, the rug comes out from under me. The second was that one of the hardest things about being a spouse is that you have to put up with the lessons your spouse has to learn, even if you already know them. Likewise, he has to put up with yours. And what's crazier, God can use THEIR lessons to teach YOU something. Yeah.

So, I pretty much blew up over this incident, which is a bit too complex to delve into on here, but which really freaked me out and took away any sense of security that I had developped over the last few months. I began to throw myself a pity party. After all, we are in a complete holding pattern at this moment and have had to relinquish complete control of pretty much anything in our lives. Because of that, our sense of "security" and "safety" is virtually vanished. And yet we know that God is God. Meanwhile, I called a couple of my trustee "lean on me" friends, and neither of them where able to offer me much in the way of ministering to my anxieties, not because they couldn't, but mostly because, in the end, they weren't supposed to. God had something else in mind.

My father in law showed up at my door when I was at my worst--- having just burst into huge tears and basically fallen apart, he was greeted by a raccoon faced daughter in law who was totally beside herself. I explained the situation to him, and his first reaction was to really stick it to me-- he hammered me with twenty reasons why I was being selfish, which were all true.
Then, he sat down and began telling his "no shit there I was" stories. The guy is a retired Army First Sgt, and very often moves into these old war stories from vietnam and the gulf war that really throw you for a loop.

Somewhere, in the midst of his stories, my heart started to break. God was talking to me. Directly. Through them, he reminded me that God is God, and has that right. He reminded me that what is painful for him wont be painful for me, but that it's only IN the painful that we do our best growing. He reminded me that when these things happen, God allows them, and we have no idea what he is going to do. He reminded me that sometimes, what seems like a stroke of bad luck is actually the hand of our Lord reaching down to save us, and he reminded me, above all, that as a daughter of God, it was my job to rise up and run to Him in times of trouble-- that I had no business whatsoever fleeing from him and shaking my fist calling out "woe is me." TELL HIM you're angry, he told me.
He quoted philippians 4 at me: Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Later on, when I had come to terms with the fact that God had sent me a messenger, he called once more just to let me know that FAITH is being built in me as I undergo this and every trial, and that the visible character of Christ will be mine once I learn to see, feel, experience the trial but to lose the need to be reminded of all that I needed to be reminded of today.

Lord, I have so far to go. But OH, how sweet is his personal love for us all!