the past decade and the goodness and fidelity of God in the midst of it all

So a few weeks ago someone mentioned that not only was the end of the year rapidly approaching, but also the end of a decade...I hadn't realized, nor had I taken the time to really contemplate this before they mentioned it.

So, of course, I began to think about the past decade...

February 2009 I awoke to one of my daughters (then aged five) convulsing.  I had NO idea how drastically our lives were about to change.  Literally overnight our lives went from being just like any other couple in their early thirties raising three small kids (aged seven, five, and three) to days consumed with medicine, tests, meltdowns, doctor offices, specialists, hospitalizations, wheelchairs, diagnoses...

Not too long after this, it became apparent that one or more of my kids was going to struggle with learning disabilities, anxiety/panic/depression/mental health issues, chronic medical issues that would greatly limit daily activities...on and on the list went.  As the realization, grief, and acceptance settled in, I realized that life was everchanging.

As my mind ran through a mental inventory, a scrapbook of sorts, thinking of birthdays, Christmases, anniversaries...I realized that there has been a pattern to our past decade, that every six months or so something else would rock our world, and that even our pets have not been immune to this pattern.

The past decade has not been easy nor was it pretty.

Sometimes though, the bigger things (for me) are easier to trust God with, because apart from Him there is literally nothing.  He holds life and death and everything in between in His hands.  My doubt and my temptation to fear and worry and fret and try and fix it/control things lie in the smaller, more insignificant - the silly stuff.  Things that most people just let roll off their backs and keep moving, I get really, really, really upset and angry over those things, questioning God and His trustworthiness.

Well, yesterday one of those insignificant things happened.  And the situation unfolded in an unjust/unfair way.  Out of my hands completely, but drove.me.crazy.  I literally was so upset over this situation that by the time I was getting ready for bed last night, I had a tension headache, my stomach hurt, and I was in tears.  I was so mad.  Mad at the people involved. Mad at my husband,. Mad at my pillow because it wasn't comfortable. Mad that I had already brushed my teeth and so chocolate was not an option.  Deep down though, I was mad at God, because I felt like He just keeps letting these particular people get away with EVERYthing.  It.is.so.unfair.  I was in such a state 😜 .  Ridiculous, I know, because in the grand scheme of life, even in the grand scheme of all that we have dealt with just this past month, this situation was small potatoes.   

Today I decided to clean up my email and came across an email from Desiring God (I think it was from early December) - it was entitled "Masters of Self: Cultivating Gentleness in an Age of Outrage".  It was written by Scott Swain and it was pretty a lengthy article.  As I skimmed through it, this paragraph caught my attention :

Consider Psalm 37’s instruction on gentleness. Psalm 37 not only counsels us against fretful anger (Psalm 37:1, 7–9). It also counsels us to cultivate faith: “Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness” (Psalm 37:3). Anger arises when injustice threatens to deprive us or others of genuine goods. Trust in the Lord enables us to continue on the path of doing what is good, even in the face of injustice, because we are confident that, whatever goods we may lose through the injustice of others, we cannot lose the good God and, more importantly, he cannot lose us (John 10:28–29; 1 Peter 4:19).

Psalm 37, moreover, counsels us to cultivate hope: “Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday. Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him” (Psalm 37:5–7). Hope in the Lord enables us to maintain a gentle posture in the face of injustice because we know that, whatever injustice now prevails, the Lord’s justice will finally prevail: “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord’” (Romans 12:19).

This was a direct answer to a prayer I prayed last night.  Even in the small potatoes of life that threaten to derail us, God is at work.  He is faithful and good and we can jump fully into who He is, because His goodness, His faithfulness, His holiness will capture every single bit of us and hold us close as He works ALL for our good. He is the One who holds life, death, and all the in-between together.  So no matter what this past decade brought to you, or what you face in the decade to come, God is already there working it out, stay on the straight and narrow path He has laid out.  His ways can be trusted.

PS Have a wonderful and Happy New Year!!  Oh, and guess what?  My husband asked me to be his wife 21 years ago tonight (New Year's Eve)!!!

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year

Merry Christmas and Happiest of New Years.  Happy Hannukah.  I hope this holiday season is amazing and beautiful and that as the days draw to a close, your mind and your heart are captivated anew with the birth of a tiny baby boy over 2000 years ago that came for you and for me.

He came, He lived, He died.  And Praise God He rose again.

Jesus bore our sins and infirmities so that in the midst of great darkness we bear a bright light.  So that when you draw your last breath here, you will stand face to face before Him and have hope.  His righteousness for your failures.  When the darkness of this world pushes in from every side, cling to His presence, He is like a candle that cannot be extinguished.  He is the light of the world.

Because of this, I don't have to end this year in discouragement.  And believe me, I am so tempted to despair and draw discouragement around my shoulders like a thick fleece blanket.

Our 2019 has been a less than stellar year.

I was asked recently to come up with one word or phrase to describe this year, this is what immediately popped into my mind.

Chaotic.

A flop.

Messy.

Useless.

Ugh.  Not the kind of words you want, right?

I have just spent several days examining 2019 - what worked, what didn't - what do we need to do differently etc;  As I spent time going through the exercises (Grace Goals by Arabah Joy) I found myself becoming more and more and more discouraged because I couldn't point to one single solitary thing that was completed well, one single attribute or characteristic of mine that I made forward progress in, one single goal I set out to accomplish as 2019 dawned fresh and new - that I actually accomplished, or one single besetting sin that I was finally able to find freedom from.

Not a single thing. 

Instead, it feels like there was always something going wrong:  a broken toe, a broken washing machine, plumbing disasters (yes plural), long, hard days with meltdowns, chronic medical conditions - both of which I realize in greater depths every single day how helpless I truly am to "fix" either of these for my kids, doctor appointments, unexpected bills, pet medical drama...on and on and on it goes.  And those are things that were beyond my control.  I didn't even mention the times I slept in, instead of exercising, the buckets of chocolate I consumed versus the very small amounts of living food I consumed, the times I chose to eat out instead of actually making something at home, even if it inconvenienced me or wasn't my first choice (chicken...again!) the times I reached for the remote instead of my Bible...on and on it goes.

When my husband came home the other night, I was in tears.  I told him if I had one thing, one single solitary thing that I could point to as forward progress (beyond a (very small) stack of completed read alouds), then I would feel better.  I would feel like I am not just treading water, or sliding backward down a hill I just worked hard to climb.   I would feel like I didn't just waste the past year.  I mean I was given 365 days, 52 weeks, 8,760 hours, and 525,600 minutes.  What do I have to show for it?  How did I invest them, in light of the Word of God?

The reality is that this past year was a flop.  I failed.  At every.single.goal. I set.  Not a single one was accomplished nor did I make significant forward progress on anything.  Nada.  We simply survived.  That's it.

If Jesus called me home tonight and looked at just this past year, I would be ashamed beyond anything words can describe.  But instead of despairing, you know what?  The reality of my failures and shortcomings really, really, really drive home the grace of the Gospel.  They really make what Jesus did and continues to do my anchor, my saving hope, my rock that I can cling to.  Praise God it isn't dependent on me.  Praise God I don't have to save myself.  I can't even manage a year, let alone save my life.  Thank You Jesus.  Thank You that You gave Your life for mine.  I am more in awe of that and more appreciative of that now than ever before.