Friday, January 6, 2012

Seeing the future

You know how at the end of a particularly challenging stage of life you are able to look back and see how it all worked out and how God took care of you?  And you know how you wish you weren't so stressed, full of discontentment and argumentative about the process but instead enjoyed the ride, enjoyed watching God put it all together and bringing you exactly where you needed to be exactly when you needed to get there?

Or is that just me?

So the other day I was feeling stressed, discontent and argumentative about the process we are in.  And I decided I HAD to cut down to 30 hours a week.  But of course when I looked at our budget it seemed more like I needed a second job than less hours.  And that made me feel a little crazy, trapped, frustrated, helpless, hopeless.  And frankly I wanted to figure out how to get out of this crazy path we got ourselves on.  Rewind!  I want to go back to the beginning!

I heard someone say once that if everyone put their problems in a pile and you could choose any problem you wanted out of the pile you would go back and choose your own.  I know my problem, I know how to deal with it.  I know how to be at home and broke, to struggle with self employment, encourage my husband to keep going through a bad economy.  I don't know how to be a working mom, and still be broke, and encourage my husband with his education and work, to help my daughter grow to be a godly woman when I am not there to observe her behavior and redirect.  I feel like I am having to re-define who I am.  I liked who I was before.  Even if it wasn't working for our family anymore.  Do I really have to change?

When I am in the middle of something I don't like I often think about the other side.  When we were waiting to have a second baby I would often imagine announcing I was pregnant or, later, telling people we had been chosen by a birth family.  I would think about holding her in my arms.  It reminded me that I was going somewhere and that this moment is not permanent.

And so it is with this, I often think about the other side.  When I am able to quit my job to run my little online business.  When John is a practicing PA.  When this short but important time in our life is over.  And since I have experience getting through these stages I know that when they are over I will wish I didn't fight it so much.  I will wish I had enjoyed the process more.

Yet as I talked with God I found myself justifying my stress because it caused action and obviously I needed to do something!  And I felt He challenged me to take action without the stress.  To trust Him to lead me to what I needed to do and lead me away from what I did not need to do.  And that sounds a little challenging.

OK as I am writing this I felt called to read my "Jesus Calling" devotion for the day.  Today is about being victorious in Christ.  Here are a couple relevant parts,

"I may infuse within you a dream that seems far beyond your reach.  You know that in yourself you cannot achieve such a goal.  Thus begins your journey of profound reliance on Me.  It is a faithwalk, taken one step at a time, leaning on Me as much as you need.  This is not a path of continual success but of multiple failures.  However, each failure is followed by a growth spurt, nourished by increased reliance on Me."

"It is through problems and failure, weakness and neediness that you learn to rely on Me."


See I told you this book was written just for me!  So I am thinking that instead of allowing my stress to dictate my actions I should allow my reliance on God to dictate my actions. (Act, my word of the year, is part of the word action.  Has anyone else noticed that?)

Today I am going to imagine going through this process relying on God instead of my own strength.

2 Cor 5:7 "We walk by faith, not by sight."

2 comments:

  1. excellent thoughts in this post. i just came across a Corrie Ten Boom quote that is so appropriate to me, and to you here in this stage: When a train goes through a tunnel and it gets dark, you don't throw away the ticket and jump off...you sit still and trust the engineer.

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  2. Every time God brought the Israelites through something amazing he always recounted the entire story for them in order to remind them that he is their faithful God.

    I totally relate. I have such a hard time living in the moment! I'm like the Israelites - I whine and complain about my circumstance & wish I could go back to Egypt. Or fast forward out of my current circumstances.

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