So my friend, Hannah, absolutely turned my world upside-down a couple of weeks ago.
Okay, maybe she shouldn't get all the credit. God used her to absolutely turn my world upside-down a couple of weeks ago. How did this come about, you ask? (Or maybe you didn't--in any case, I'm going to answer.)
Hannah texted me, asking "Have you ever had one of those moments where you're doing your own thing, minding your own business and then God pops in and is all like 'Heeeyy, let me tell you something deep and profound,' and you're all 'Oh, coo--wait, what?'"
Yep. I told her so, and asked what had happened.
It went along the lines of this...
Hannah: Lalala, doodidoodidoo
God: Hey, 'sup.
Hannah: Oh, hey God! What're you doing here?
God: I just came to tell you that every word out of my mouth is a promise.
Hannah: Oh. Wait, what?
God: Yup. So everything I have ever told you, even when you were itty bitty baby? Totally fulfilling that.
Hannah: But. Wait. What about--
God: Yes.
Hannah: And--
God: Yep.
Hannah: How about--
God: Everything.
Hannah *being bratty*: What if I don't know it's you?
God: Am I degrading?
Hannah: No.
God: Do I go against anything I have previously said?
Hannah: No.
God: Am I cruel or mean?
Hannah: No. (God was wise to have Hannah relate this to me instead of asking me Himself, because it would've been too tempting to say something... unfavorable.)
God: If someone or something tells you some word claiming to be me, and they are even just slightly one of those things, it's not me.
Hannah: Oh.
God: I'm going to go and let you process that for awhile.
Hannah: .........Well, shoot.
So she tells me all this over text. I received it during a break at work. And at first I thought it was a funny conversation. I was on the verge of lightly teasing her about it. But after rereading it several times and processing it for a while, I started to get angry. Really angry. Furious, actually. And it was so strange because I couldn't figure out why I was stomping around the workplace in a blind rage, slamming things around and fighting with God under my breath. It even got to the point where, in a moment when I was alone, I said out loud, "Lord, you don't know what I want! You don't know me!" I literally said this to my Maker! How retarded is that?
Once I become angry, it's always tempting to hold on to that anger and let it consume me. Fortunately, I've realized that probably isn't the best thing to do and physically stopped everything I was doing, just to ask the Lord what the heck was going on. Boy, He sure was happy I asked.
I know God has promised me things. He's promised me much, but three certain things have been really laid on my heart lately, and they immediately came into mind: the promise I would be a trailblazer, that I would be a wife, and that I would be a mother.
I've mentioned the trailblazer thing before, and so far have no complaints. I LOVE the fact that God has called that to be one of many facets of my identity in Him.
Being a mother is the most recent thing He's called me to be (this happened maybe a couple of weeks ago, I believe). This is huge and vastly uncomfortable, being someone who only likes kids until they start making loud noises. Babies scare me when they are fresh into the world and have no control over their bodies and can't communicate in ways besides crying. I am an awkwardly maternal woman--I'll have to work at it. Luckily, that's something I don't have to worry about for a while. With great relief, I am granted permission to cross that bridge later.
After all this musing and blogging over the past year about marriage, I think you know that being a wife is the calling I am most concerned with at the moment. There are times when I can't wait, and there are times when I wish I could rip this calling from inside of me and fling it off a cliff. I hate that God gave me that calling so early, because it makes me paranoid. It makes me wonder, "Is this the guy? What about this other guy? Or him? Does what he just said mean anything? This person just did something nice, does that mean something? Am I focusing on the wrong person?" I would not have wished that on myself, or really, anyone. It's exhausting. It's awful. It's terrifying.
And it makes me have to lean on God all the more.
Here's the thing. I have talked with God countless times about my marriage and prayed over it and my husband like you wouldn't believe. And I feel He has specifically told me certain things about my marriage and my husband. I feel He has given me promises and that He wants to fulfill them.
He told me a good portion of these promises last year. I wrote them down. I reread them. I got excited. I tried to help out.
And I crashed and burned. This calling on my life, this promise that stirred my heart, ended up tearing my heart instead. And I was devastated. I questioned God's goodness, and I wondered if I'd heard Him wrong, and if I had heard Him at all. And that was the biggest loss, the loss of childlike faith. The trust. I definitely trusted God--I just didn't trust myself to hear Him right. Honestly, I still don't sometimes. I know I can hear Him well because I hear things for other people often. But when it comes to hearing Him for myself, I get suspicious and doubtful and cynical. Especially if God's promise sounds way too good to be true. Especially if it's the same promise I'd heard before. And ESPECIALLY if it's the same promise I've heard before that sounds way too good to be true.
"Sometimes your calling can interfere with your relationship with the one who called you," one of my Facebook friends observed at the beginning of this year. And it's really true. In the Message version of Galatians 3, it says:
"Only crazy people would think they could complete by their own efforts what was begun by God. If you weren't smart enough or strong enough to begin it, how do you suppose you can perfect it? Did you go through this whole painful learning process for nothing?
...Does the God who lavishly provides you with his own presence, his Holy Spirit, working things in your lives you could never do for yourselves, does he do these things because of your strenuous moral striving or because you trust him to do them in you?"
Ouch.
I will be the first to say that I am SO guilty of trying to perfect what God has for me. Like I said, I just wish He wouldn't tell me so soon... but then, I guess I wouldn't learn to trust and sit tight.
Anyways, God showed me why I was angry, so I got what I asked for. I was still mad for the rest of the day, though.
I think a lot of that had to do with slight disappointment and sheer frustration. There's a nice young man who I'm friends with, one of the few nice guys I know outside of church. Really, he's super nice. He frequently asks how I'm doing, and we've talked a bit about similar interests and our churches and God. And I admit it's been tempting to like him. It's really tempting to get my heart involved. You wouldn't believe how much my interest peaked after he told me he's twenty--less than a year older than me.
This didn't faze me even with Living Waters; we aren't allowed to begin a dating relationship while in it, but I'm not much of a dater anyways so that's not a huge deal.
It's that darn God of mine that's getting in the way. I'll never forget that conversation the Lord and I had about this young man.
"Hey, God... so, that calling about having a husband... what about him?"
"Who, him? Oh, I know him well. Nice young man. Yeah, no."
"Seriously? Come on, man. He's twenty, he's cute, he's nice, he knows you, my parents know him, he has a good job... and he's twenty."
"Duly noted."
"Good. It would make a lot of sense if we got married."
"You're right. It WOULD make sense."
"Alright, thanks God!"
"...which is why he's not the guy for you."
I was not pleased. That conversation happened not too long before Hannah's conversation about promises, so that was kind of like poking a fresh bruise.
Okay, this is getting pretty long and I'm kind of exhausted. So I'll finish up tomorrow.
To be continued...
No comments:
Post a Comment