Things that keep me awake at night...

And I don't mean my husband or my kids....

Have you ever lain awake at night with your mind whirling processing stuff? Then tried to remember what it was in the morning, because it was really good stuff? That's where I am.

There was something about Paul...

Philippians 4:11 I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. 12 I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. 13 I can do everything through him who gives me strength.

I wondered, being the language freak that I am, whether that word "of" might also be translated as "is". As in: the secret is being content. Have we spent so much time wondering what the secret is to being content that we forget that we can just choose to be content? On the other hand, as I read this morning, perhaps the secret is in verse 13. Being content comes from knowing that the one who gives me strength is bigger than the circumstances. Hmmm....


I think I was also running around the whole idea of suffering again...

When we're young(er) we tend to find ourselves in an idealistic mindset. Not a bad thing. But we come to God with full commitment of our hearts/selves. We wholeheartedly tell God that we want to be like Him (in character), with perhaps a few ideas of how that might happen, but not usually a firm grasp on what the process looks like. I think it looks like suffering. I think it doesn't look like the plans we make - even if they look like good ones.

Here's what it's looked like for me...

• I met a guy and fell in love just before shipping off for a year to spend on missions. (hard)
• I didn't go to the country I thought I was called to originally, but came back to work in the Canadian office and did work that was not what I was led to believe I'd be doing. (disappointing)
• I had the roommate from Hell, and was basically told by my leaders to just take it. (disillusioning, and really hard)
• My dad died before I got married. (hard) But he got saved a few months before that .(amazing!)
• My mom didn't know to follow us to the wedding pictures and blamed me. (stress)
• We've dealt with infertility for nearly 15 years now. (devastating)
• We miscarried 4 1/2 years into the process. (rip out heart, stomp on it, question everything)
• We adopted (YAY!!!) and discovered the unique(?) challenges of raising a special needs kid.(streeeeeeeeetchinnnnnggggg)
• We added another one. (exponential stress)
• We had an adoption fall through because the woman wasn't even pregnant. (questions....)
• We've had housing changes and job moves, and all the insecurity that comes with them. (stress)

So... is God good? There was a time in there that I was actually arguing out of scripture that He wasn't. (Don't ask me what I was using.... I cannot possibly remember now). Now.... well,.... I'm fully convinced that all this was/is meant to serve a purpose in my life. It's one thing to say "Though you slay me, I will trust you Lord...", but another thing when the rubber actually meets the road. And something else completely when the road has gone on for so many years and He is still silent... I'm probably only just beginning to learn what it means to be slain - to die to all I thought I was/was going to be, to release expectations for my life, not to mention expectations of how He works.

I know that my roots go deeper now because my faith has been tested (that is - put to use, as opposed to seeing if it's there) and tried by fire. I have questioned - and am still questioning - and I know that He is not only big enough to take it, but welcomes the fight to make this faith my own. There have been times when I've had to step back from worship team because my wrestle didn't allow me to sing songs of his goodness with integrity. And I think He's honoured that.

He cares more about my character than about my comfort. And that's why I can look at the hard times and say that God is still good. Still? He is so good that He lays out my life with blessing and struggle. He makes me weak and strong at the same time. He is not so simple as to make things easy for us who believe and hard for those who don't. And does not only use tough times as a consequence of poor choices. Sometimes it's hard just because He loves us. He wants more for us than we can see. He calls us to maturity, and then lays the path for us to achieve it almost in spite of ourselves.

You can call me crazy if you want. You won't be the first. But I know of a young couple who recently had a serious change of plans. They were headed for something good because they want more of God. Now they are unable to follow that plan, and instead have something that looks like a bad thing, a struggle, to deal with. And while we do pray for release from this thing that looks bad (and it may be), I have a sneaking suspicion that what God has for them is really exactly what they were after. Just a different path. God is taking them deeper in ways they probably couldn't have gone by following the original plan.

Isn't He good?....