Quick Before I Get Sidetrack'd

I came across a post on Simple Mom this weekend (via Rocks in My Dryer) entitled “The Great Myth“. It was a great reminder that none of us, no matter how it seems, is able to do it “all”. I was particularly struck by these two quotes:

“Every choice we make in life is both a choice to do something and a choice to not do something.”

“And at the end of the day, we need to trust that God gave us the energy to do those things to which He called us, and no more.”

I hope you’ll read the complete post and find encouragement for those days when you just don’t seem to measure up (at least in your own mind).

About three weeks ago our vacuum (which has served us pretty well during these 8+ years of marriage) died a smoky death as it cleaned out the dryer vent. With a preschooler and a crazy toddler roaming around this place we really can’t do without a vacuum for even a short period of time, so the search began.

Matt did some research, and we did some shopping, and we settled on a small canister vac that would serve our needs. All the while I dreamed and drooled over the Dyson vacuum that I would love to have but just wasn’t in the budget.

Then…a week after we purchased our vacuum I was notified by 5 Minutes for Mom that I was randomly selected as the winner of their Dyson DC25 giveaway. I was so excited! Matt, being the resident skeptic, was, well, a bit skeptical in the “I’ll believe it when I see it” sort of way.

The following Tuesday our new vacuum arrived. We excitedly opened the box expecting to put together the new toy vacuum and try it. We were unpleasantly surprised to find that the box did not contain the vacuum attachments or, more importantly, the front part of the vacuum (you know, the part that touches the floor and picks up the dirt).

On Wednesday morning I set out to find a way to remedy the situation. I e-mailed the prize coordinator at 5M4M and she got in touch with the PR rep for Dyson. I expected to receive an e-mail saying that they would ship me the missing parts and we would live happily with our new, fully assembled vacuum. When the PR rep contacted me, he was extremely apologetic for the problem and offered, not to get me the missing parts, but to upgrade us to a DC28, Dyson’s most powerful vacuum!

Our new vacuum arrived on Tuesday, and Tuesday night we put it together and tried it. From our first run, I think this is a great vacuum!

God is so good! A super-dooper vacuum was not something we had to have, but is definitely something for which we are thankful. God knows all of our wants and needs, the big and the small, and provides for us in ways that we couldn’t even imagine.

It’s Monday morning. I sit in the waiting room of my OB’s office reading Harry Potter (again) and waiting my turn. This should be a quick visit (with “quick” being a relative term when it comes to the OB’s office) – just the usual weight-blood-pressure-how-are-you-feeling-baby’s-heart-rate-is-good kind of visit.

My name is called and I am ushered to an exam room where I wait a bit longer before the doctor arrives to visit with me. “All seems well,” I tell her. “I’m feeling a bit better; although, I do still have a few moments/days where I feel sick,” I tell her.

She pulls out the doppler and sets to work finding the baby’s heartbeat. A few seconds, and nothing. Several more seconds, and nothing. A full minute, still nothing. The silence that strikes fear in the heart of any expectant mother. The doctor tries to reassure me: “It could just be the baby’s position or the position of the uterus,” she says. But we both know there is also the possibility of miscarriage. “Let’s take a look and see what’s going on,” she says.

So off I go to wait again. In a different set of chairs this time. Praying fervently all the while that everything is okay with this tiny one growing within my body. I feel a couple of tiny little movements that are more reassuring than anything anyone could say. Thank you, Jesus.

The ultrasound tech calls my name. I lie down on the table and she places the ultrasound wand on my belly. “This baby’s heart-rate is great,” she says almost immediately. Relief, gratitude, praise flood my being as I see images of this little one who has, in the last four weeks, begun to look more like a baby and less like a peanut.

The next day I drive down the road listening to my two little people giggle together in the back seat. “How Great is My God” plays on the radio, and all I can think is “Amen!”

Part 1
Part 2

The question that remains – where do we go from here?  And to that question I have absolutely no answers.  

I know that we are in a place of submission and awareness.  I also know that we are currently in a season of waiting.

There is talk of missions work.  Matt has long had a heart for the unsaved and, especially, for foreign missions.  This is one place where I’ve been holding out.  It scares me to think of living and raising my children in another culture, but if this is what God has planned for us then I will obediently answer the call.

Beyond that, I really have no clue right now.

I once heard someone say that God only allows us to see a few feet in front of us because if we saw any further down the road we would stop dead in our tracks.  

I don’t know what the future holds, but I know that God holds my future (and that of my family) in his hands.  I don’t know what God’s plans are, but I know that his will always prevails.

And with the promises of scripture tucked in our hearts and our minds Matt and I take this journey one step at a time.

Lord, give me courage to walk this path and faith to be obedient.

Part 1

And now I am studying the Pentateuch again; this time as part of Bible Study Fellowship.  Or rather, I’m studying the life of Moses through the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.  This time, however, I came into the study from a different spiritual perspective, not from a spiritual high of obedience and anticipation but from a place of dryness and stagnation.

One of the things God has really been convicting me of these last few weeks is my lack of perspective on his might.  I’ve fallen into the “little God” trap and lost sight of God’s “bigness” and supremecy.  I’ve been guilty of trying to live this life based on my own power instead of relying on God.  I’ve misplaced my trust in the fact that God ordains all, God controls all, and God knows best of all.  I’ve failed to trust.  I’ve fallen into unbelief that my God can handle everything better than I could even imagine.

As I read through my BSF notes a couple of weeks ago (covering Number 13-14; the 12 spies in Canaan), I was repeatedly convicted of my unbelief.  Caleb and Joshua were firmly convinced of the overwhelming hugeness of God.  It did not matter to them if they were two men going up against all the giants Canaan could throw at them, they had God on their side and their God was immeasurably larger than all of the giants put together.

I want to reclaim my large view of God.  I want to again trust in my God who is immeasurably larger and stronger than all the things of this world.  I want to serve a God who doesn’t need me but chooses to use me.  I want to trust fully, deeply, irreversably.  I long to be lost in God instead of wrapped up in myself.  My eyes have been dimmed by unbelief, but I desire now to see God clearly.

So I am again praying that very scary prayer.  The prayer where I put all I have and all I am back in God’s hands.  “Lord, all I have is yours – my home, my marriage, my children (as difficult as that is to say), my health, my finances, even my very life.  It is yours; do with it as you please.”

This is not an empty prayer.  I say these things fully recognizing that something will soon change.  That something probably will not be the thing I would have chosen and will very likely break me in some way.  But I am confident that my God is the big God of Caleb and Joshua.  The supreme God.  The God who knows the end from the beginning.  And I am confident that my God will carry me through in victory, just as he always has.