You'd think that I'd learn from previous experience, but apparently I have to go through a trial several times before I learn that... well... it's a trial. Today I had the same meltdown all over again about God's promises and how much I think I DON'T want them. Inside, I know I do. But, as our wise women's pastor told me, as soon as God gives you a promise, you have to immediately give it back to Him and let Him do what He wants.
That's hard. My reasoning is that God gave me the damn thing in the first place, and so I have a right to it! I have a right to clutch it tightly, I have a right to show it off as much as I want, and I have a right to know every single detail of how it will happen. In fact, I have a right to MAKE it happen myself.
Have you noticed that God's reasoning is a lot different than ours?
His plans to make it happen are a lot different than ours as well. Inserting once more the most recent example of the promises God has made about my marriage, I would have never imagined that marriage would be so hard before the marriage even happens. I always thought God just crashes two people together and bam, that's it. Let the problems commence once everything is official. Who knew problems happened before the dang thing??
With all this trouble of determining who's who and handing God back the dream He gave me in the first place, I have to wonder--is this normal? Do all couples go through the same pain of handing their dreams and each other to God? Why must it be that way?
And it makes me wonder about their stories. Not just the story of the marriage, but the story before the wedding too. God has told me that our (meaning my husband and I) story doesn't begin on a date or a proposal or the wedding day. Our story is happening right now at this very moment. He will use those, yes, but He will also use our frustrations and hurt and ranting blog posts that happen before AND after the wedding day. I believe that the Lord wants to use the ugly and beautiful parts of our story to inspire and restore hope, trust, and childlike faith in His promises and faithfulness.
It's just that... well, I'm in just as much need of all that stuff as the people who will hear our story one day. And it's frustrating not knowing what else the Lord has in mind. I feel I have a good enough testimony--just tell the man my ring size already, Lord.
Apparently, God wants to keep adding more and more stuff, with no end in sight right now. Great.
In Living Waters, there is a certain time where we bunch up into assigned small groups and just talk and pray together. During my time to share, I talked about Hannah's conversation with God and how angry it made me. One of the small group leaders mentioned that she once had a similar meltdown to mine. She didn't understand it until she realized it was because she was afraid to trust God. She was afraid of having her hopes be so high, because it puts so much of you at stake and you could truly, painfully, mercilessly, fall.
And that's exactly it. I'm excited for what God has for me, but the very specific promises I refuse to believe. That, or I twist my fingers in my ears, wondering if I heard right or wrong. I'm so afraid of hearing God wrong, because I don't want to get my hopes high all over again. I don't want to crash and burn once more. I don't want my heart to be at risk. I've asked God for confirmation over and over, and I don't receive it because I've gotten so much confirmation yet I ask for more. Because I'm so afraid it's not God and that a lie has slipped in.
Not only that, but I'm afraid of losing my childlike faith all over again. It's a hard thing to attain, yet so easy to lose hold of. I used to be so good at it. I used to be great at having the innocent trust of, "Okay, God's got this, He'll protect me, He won't let anything hurt me, I completely surrender."
I miss having that mindset. I want it back. And yet it's so immensely difficult, because I realize now that God is more interested in our holiness than our current happiness. He wants us to be happy, but it's not something He just gives out all the time.
And so now an explanation of the title. I've mentioned Explosions in the Sky before, one of my favorite bands. There is a certain song called... you guessed it... Postcard from 1952. And I immediately loved it from the start. I had a hard time relating to it at first, but it eventually became incredibly meaningful.
See, the 50's were the years before the sexual revolution. A simpler and less complicated time before everything started getting so screwed up. And I miss the time in my life when things were easier and not hurtful, before the sexual revolution, before everything got messy and before I started questioning God's goodness.
Postcard from 1952 is what that childlike faith sounds like to me.
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