Truth for the Journey

It's 2 AM, I should be at work. Instead my driveway is blocked by heavy equipment searching for a gas leak. I'm all dressed up with no place to go, as they say. The rest of the house is accustomed to being asleep at this hour -- despite the noise -- so, I find myself in the rare condition of being (dramatic pause) aloooone. No one staring at me, watching for clues as to what she should be doing. No one asking me to reach the crayons, kept at extreme altitudes so her brother doesn't get them. No one racing around in the most adorable, slightly too large, footie pajamas, pinching lint and microscopic specs from the floor, laying his prey on my lap. No one barking to go out, or come in, or go out, or come in. It's quiet, oh so quiet, and I can never be too sure how long it will last.

Scott and I have been called to this, a ministry that doesn't quit. It's 24/7. It's loud. It's invasive. It's emotionally draining. It's physical. Most of it I can't even write about -- and for someone who finds healing through blogging, it's like doing it all without breathing. There are days I slither out of bed, tiptoe through the darkness, creep down the stairs avoiding every crackle in sixty-year old wood, grab my cold coffee from the fridge, let out a little sigh -- and hear those tiny busy feet hit the floor. Or, afternoons when I get the littles hunkered down into their rooms for an hour of "quiet time," I sit down, fire up the old laptop, only to remember I have half a dozen loads of laundry that need attention, and just as many phone calls to make.

But I've been faking it. When this adventure began, I thought, "I can't do this! I'm almost fifty-three years old. I have health problems. I work. God is going to have to do this, because I can not." And He did. Blessing upon blessing poured out. Healing in my body that cannot be explained. Joy and peace in the midst of chaos. But somewhere along the line, I got this crazy idea it was me. Maybe it was the energy I seemed to pull out of thin air. Maybe it was the great ideas I came up with, or the money I was able to save. All those wonderful things I was doing only served to convince me I can do more! My attention was drawn away from this ministry of serving others, away from the grace God was pouring out on us, and toward what "needed" to get done. I plastered on a fake smile. "Oh, this is such a blessing. Oh, this is such a great opportunity." But night after night, as I stood in the shower crying, I whined, "Why isn't anything going right? Why aren't I seeing any results?" Where I had been intentional at the beginning of this pursuit, I now no longer looked for the ways God was intervening in our lives. Where I had originally given every bit of everything to God in the knowledge that I am completely unable, I now put my head down and pushed through the pain or frustration. Where I had viewed this entire journey as God's, I now put my name all over it. And I was faking it.

Last week I came clean. I poured out my heart to God first, then my husband, then my friends in our Bible study. I said, "This is hard." I said, "I don't always want to be in this place." I said, "I have made this all about me." Suddenly, my life was flooded with truth. God said, "It's meant to be hard for you, but I've got this." My husband said, "This isn't what I had planned either, but we're in it together." My friends said, "We know what you mean; we've been there before." Truth. And blessing, and healing, and joy and peace.

Everything this journey was about from the beginning.