We left
the girls at Faith Academy after a short visit and returned to Korea where we
began our lives apart once again. We returned to an apartment with puddles on
the floor and water stains on the wall from a huge storm, a notice that money wasn’t
paid by our renters in the states, a lost bag of my favorite jewelry, and a statement
from the school that they’d taken a huge portion out of my paycheck for who
knows what. These situations, along with missing the girls, formed a lethal mix
in my mind.
I began
praying about each problem and asking God to do something, quickly -- to fix it
all so that I could feel better about life. But I woke up the next day and the
next without any signs of resolution. I read in Luke about the blind man shouting
out for healing and Jesus’ instant command that he be made whole, and
I felt somewhat cheated. Why not me, Lord?
Do you
ever feel that way, like life is one big basket of mismatched socks that you
have to figure out what to do with? Problems drop into our laps with little
notice. One second there’s peace; the next chaos. It reminds me of the time
last summer when we went down to the ocean with our younger daughter. As she was
standing upon a huge rock in the water, smiling in the sunshine, an enormous wave
snuck up behind her and literally engulfed her. She was so shocked by the suddenness of it all that, for a few seconds, she stood
there motionless.
God isn’t
surprised by mammoth waves, financial setbacks or anything else. He knows the
beginning from the end and whispers to us in these moments of
frustration, “Be still and know that I am God.” I pictured Jesus walking past me on the road this week with me shouting out, much like the blind man, “Son of God, have mercy
on me.” And I imagined him saying, “My child, relax. I’ve already healed you.
You were once blind, but now you see. You were once in darkness, but now you’re
in the light. I’ve put my Spirit upon you, calling you my own. You're no
longer an orphan but a child of the King.”
His word promises that when the waters come up around me they’ll not overtake me, when
the fire burns in my life I’ll not be consumed by it (Is 43:2). Because I’m
precious and honored in his sight and because he loves me, he promises to take
care of me (Is 43:4).
By
faith I can thank him at this very moment in the midst of unsorted socks and a
myriad of tangled threads that seem impossibly knotted together. I can praise
him for his faithfulness and wisdom in allowing every single one of these
inconveniences to occur. I can relax, put my head on a pillow and with a quiet
sense of confidence rest in his promises to uphold, strengthen, provide for and encourage me. He will fulfill every last one of his promises which
have been sealed by the blood of his own Son. "The one who calls you (and me) is
faithful and he will do it” (1 Thes 5:24).
“He who did not spare his own Son, but
gave him up for us all--how will he not also, along with him, graciously give
us all things?” Rom 8:32
