the sweet spot

(no, this is not what I am writing about today, however, this does seem like a pretty sweet set up!)

I've written a lot here about money, our financial struggles, and the seemingly endless transition we seem to have been in over the last few years. You've heard me belly ache about having to walk away from carts full of groceries when the food stamp money didn't come in when I thought it would, almost losing our house to foreclosure, moving, and just about every financially-induced stress I felt inclined to write about. Maybe I've done a lot of complaining. But the truth is, I am seriously looking for God in this situation... this "situation" that has turned into the day to day life... it has become our new normal, dragging on now for so long. Furthermore, there is no proverbial light at the end of this tunnel... We are as stretched thin on time and resources now as we ever have been. But, there is a sort of settling into this place that has occurred. Not because we are content with our circumstances, but because in the striving to GET OUT of this personal economic crisis, my Abba has shown up, and he has been speaking, and showing up, and purging, and keeping us vulnerable in a way that at this moment, as I write, I think I am okay with. And I think I am okay with it ending on his timing... like, if it never ends... I am starting to be okay with it...

Since I last poured out my heart about the uncertainty of this season, I have been trying to find the sweet spot of contentment... My old and dear friend Karen said something to me back in May after hearing me express my frustration with the start/stop, back and forth cash flow into our household. She said that she only found peace and joy in her circumstances when she finally embraced where she was at - that things may never change, and coming to peace with that. She was able to come to that place because Jesus was enough ... enough to meet all of her needs, enough to FULFILL and even EXCEED her needs, even to bless her to overflowing. Since that moment, her words have resonated throughout my mind and spirit... it revealed a great deficit in me of trust in God, a great restlessness that was the result of too much trust in cash flow, job stability, Jason's efforts, and my fear of judgment. It revealed SO MUCH that I have been chewing on that one thing almost exclusively for two months. I have really had to face the fact that I don't want to be happy here. I don't want to be okay with this - I am NOT okay with this, I am NOT okay with NOT eventually having the things that I want in life; having my dreams fulfilled. I mean, after all, I am not asking to be rich. I just want a backyard for my kids to play in, big enough for a garden and some chickens and to be able to go to the beach once a year. I am not asking for much, God! I mean, I believe you want to bless me. Don't you want to bless me? Isn't that your WILL? 

I've spent a lot of time thinking about the "what - ifs"... what if this is all there is for us - what if things never change... there is no golden ticket, no way out, no fulfillment of dreams, no 2 acres, nothing else... what if? Could I accept this and be content? It has challenged me as I analyze the things I'm banking on, and how tied to those things materializing are joy and peace and happiness. The truth is, we have it better than almost anyone in our situation. The truth is, this is not that bad. The truth is, "things never changing" is not bad... We don't have it "that bad", is what I tell myself. Working four or five nights a week and being away from my kids and missing them? There are single moms who work TWO jobs and never see their children. Wanting a better life for my kids and my family and a place to roam free? Yep. There are lots of people that want that that could or would never have the opportunity for that dream to become a reality. It's not that bad, I tell myself. In fact, I've wrestled with the reality that Jesus never promised us a nice, cushy life. In fact in reflecting on the life of Jesus, we're likely to find a wanderer, homeless, rejected, scorned, poor... you get the picture. He was "a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief"...

He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. (Isaiah 53:3)

...so for me to think that it is my RIGHT to have all of these things I desire... who am I kidding? 

Yet deep in my spirit, there is this heart that wants the resources to be able to radically change someone's circumstances... radically bless them and rescue them...take away the sting of financial struggle for people in a profound way... give them the leg up in society that only a radical heart giving radically because it is compelled by the love of Christ could do... He knows that heart is in this chest... 

So, in this process of becoming okay with life as we know it... our new normal... me working nights and Jason working days split between two jobs - one that pays hourly and one that pays on commission, missing my children, missing my husband, being stretched thin and still struggling to pay our bills, with no real consistency financially, no real idea of when this is going to end... being eight and a half months into our move thinking and hoping that we would "be somewhere" by now... all of these struggles are dredging up a lot of deeper things that I believe Abba has been trying to get at. And somehow with him getting to the root of it all - which for us has been simple: Do you believe I am who I say that I am? Do you believe that I will do what I say I will do? Do you believe that I LOVE YOU? Will you cling to me for dear life... let me hold you when you cry... will you let me be your source of joy and happiness? Will you trust me for the process, even if there is no prize at the end? Am I enough? 

Is Jesus ENOUGH? 

Then comes this devotional from Jason's mentor and dear friend, Gary, last week, on a particularly hard day for us both... 

For me, I think that somehow if I can find out and do exactly what God wants, then I will be in the "sweet spot" of His will, completely blessed in unimaginable ways. Of course I have in my mind and my imagination exactly what those blessings would look like. What if God's intended blessing isn't the same blessing I would like of a happy marriage, a big house, healthy intelligent kids, nice cars, a successful business, freedom from debt, money in the bank, family vacations, and the respect of my peers. What if instead God has a completely different blessing in mind for me? ....we are usually less interested in God's will than we are in His blessing -- it is a subtle but critical distinction. Will is something we have to continue to do; blessing is the goal, the reward, and the end point. We humans and especially men are less process oriented and more focused on the end result -- in this case -- the blessing rather than the road being as much a part of the goal as the goal itself.

Cha-ching. Okay... I get it, I'm getting it... I am not sure I like it yet... but I love being vulnerable in God's hands, and watching him doing all that he's doing in us... I wouldn't change that for a thing. I wouldn't take the five figure commission check in exchange for what he is doing in us... and when I could say that to myself honestly the other day -- I thought maybe I had hit the sweet spot. The money doesn't excite me anymore. In fact, I might have more stress from trying to figure out what to do with a fat commission check than dealing with the process that we're in now, and all the things that I am seeing happen in Jason and the things I believe God is doing in me. 

And then, today, almost as if God was answering the deepest cries of my heart today, our pastor was talking about taking his oldest child to college this past weekend and how undone he was on the drive home. He realized that the culmination of all of his efforts to raise her right and make her complete and ready for the world had just taken place... she had just been released out of his care unto the mercies of adulthood, and as he shared I just became a puddle right there in the sanctuary. As he described how Father God was revealing that just as Tommy's heart was for his daughter to be complete, his heart as Father God is for us to be complete... And BAM... he reaches to the deepest places of my heart and says to me "I'm not finished yet"... meeting my deepest need, in the quietest place of my heart, a place I am ready to surrender to Him, and give back to Him, being okay with whether or not He does anything with it... and somehow he says, "you can have it back, I am not finished with it yet"... 

I feel like I am reaching the sweet spot of this place of learning to be content and okay ... It is only the love of Jesus that brings me hope, peace and comfort. He is enough, and all I need. I'm so in love with what he is is doing with my husband. I am so in love with what he is doing in our children. I am so in love with what he is doing in me, and watching him move is more exciting than anything I could ever be a part of. 

And I am so in love with HIM.