“But God, that doesn’t feel fair.”
I’ve said a thousand times, even when I’ve known better.
“This is not you, God. This doesn’t align with you. Aren’t your promises bigger than heartbreak? Show me You, Lord.”
And of course He did… but not how I anticipated.
Jesus is justified.
He does not do wrong. He does not know wrong. He does not choose wrong.
He is just. His plan is just. His timing is just.
I think sometimes I get so caught up in life that I forget all of this stuff we do everyday: the cleaning, the running, the endless loads of laundry, the job, the bills- there’s purpose there.
Everyday. There’s purpose.
And I find myself being ungrateful sometimes even more than I say thank you.
This morning I woke up to a little girl hungry for Cheetos at 6AM and instead of being so very grateful that this little body with ten fingers and ten toes full of life stood in front of me healthly, though demanding, I chose to ask God for a better day than yesterday.
“No baby, not chips for breakfast. God please let this day go smoother.” All in the same breath.
She cried. I thought I might too.
I keep finding myself in all of these tears. These almost irrational tears that just well up out of nowhere. You’re tired, you’re stressed, you’re worn down, maybe you’re hungry? Yes, I’ve literally cried for being hungry before- a 100hr work week will wear on you- but I find myself just sitting there in tears crying about this or that saying “this is not fair.”
I’ll allow myself ten minutes and then I piece it back together.
It’s fine. I’m fine.
I have to work. Im mom. Im wife. I don’t have time for this.
But Mama, you have to make time to break. Stopping piecing it together, moving forward in shambles, just making it with wreckage to your next mess and just fall.
“And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a self indulgent mind to do what ought not be done” Romans 1:28
God gave them up means God hands it over.
We ask God for all of these things.
I need this to be easier, God. I need this to feel better, Lord. God, please- I need…
and these feelings of insufficiency, of need, crowd us out. We let our feelings, rather than God’s design and command, be an overriding guide for our behavior. Self-indulgent feelings open a gateway for sin and result is always pain. It’s inevitable suffering and bottomless trauma because we could not wait, our feelings couldn’t be patient, on the things that God had planned.
Instead, WE try and piece ourselves together, WE try to hold things up, WE try to pick our feet up, one in front of the other.
We keep asking and asking and praying and praying lord I want, Lord I need.. and so He hands us over.
The things you want most in this life will smother you if you let them.
Even Jesus had to say God not my will, but yours. God if there could be any other way to save the world, let it be that instead. But there wasn’t. There was no other way. The cross was it. Jesus was it.
Jesus is still it.
Stop trying to make a way. Stop making these plans. Stop bringing prayer before you bring praise.
Anytime we feel like God has set us aside, we have to know that it is most always because some action of our own has asked for us to be sat there- and so He did.
I feel so ashamed sometimes, when I get outside the well kept borders of my faith.
God lets me fall, but God also reaches for me.
“You are called to belong to Jesus” Romans 1:6
That’s it. That’s all you HAVE to be.
Take some of the pressure off yourself, girls. You don’t have to be the perfect wife, the home-room mom, the size 4. Just be His.
See laundry for seven and don’t ask God for a way through it all- thank Him for the laughs those dirty clothes had that day.
See a load of dishes and don’t huff because it doesn’t end- thank God your jobs are enough to feed your family without fail. You’re not hungry.
When your baby girl asks for Cheetos, give in. Let her eat them and watch her face light up and thank God that she is here and alive and well because there was a time that losing her was a scary reality for you.
And when it all gets to be too much, because it will sometimes, don’t you dare pull it together.
Break. Fall.
Let God reach for you. Let him put it back together: the wife, the mom, the full-time job, the home. Not in your own self-indulged way, but His way.
It may not always feel fair, but it will always be right.
“Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end.” Ecclesiastes 3:11
Thank you, God, for my life, for its entirety, all of it- for its purpose. I don’t know what it is, I don’t know where it is going, but I know where it started and that’s enough. You’re enough. I give you everything, all of it, trusting you will make of it, of me, something beautiful. Reign over me Jesus. Take all of me and leave only You. Thank you God for everything, thank you, God, for you.
Amen
Katie