Do You Know Where to Look?

When I was a kid I loved Highlights magazine. Sitting in the doctor's office pouring over the Hidden Pictures pages. There, in the midst of the forest was a baseball bat, an ice cream cone, a pipe, and a rocket ship. As I've gotten older, I've noticed the drawing has gotten much less professional or I've simply gotten more adept at finding the comb in blades of grass. Go, me! It's easy to find the stuff when you know where to look. But what happens when things aren't where they're supposed to be?

You see, I've been divorced --twice. Had cancer and regularly battle autoimmune junk. I've had my share of severed relationships, even with my own children. I've been so broke that dinner was a piece of bread with a couple spoonfuls of pickle relish. I've had to give up money, property, and my rights to being right just to keep my sanity. I've been physically and sexually abused. I've lost people that were so near and dear to me I believed that loss would be my breaking point. I don't even own a vehicle. I care for my mother who-- THANK GOD!-- can still walk and feed herself; everything else is on me. I've wanted to be "a famous author" since I was twelve --I write but I'm certainly not famous, and I've not made enough for a month's rent at the Dew Drop Inn, much less the thirty-acre cabin in the woods of which I dreamed. My one shot at an overseas vacation was derailed by COVID. 

However... There's been God. Always. 

Based on what I've just described, it might be easier to find the hat in a tree stump than find God in my life. And there were a lot of years He wasn't invited. But even when I pretended He wasn't there, even when I clearly didn't want Him there, He was waiting to be seen. 

My first divorce taught me I never want to be that terrible to any living soul ever again. The second taught me I should have listened to God --the real God-- instead of inventing my own. Sickness is part of being alive in this post-Eden world. My relationships are still a work in progress (aren't they all?) but now God holds my hand as we walk through them together. Broke is broke: being without money is like being without a lawnmower -- it's just a tool. Same thing with giving up stuff -- sanity is the endgame; besides, none of it belongs to me. The abuse is part of my story --always will be, but God says it's not the final chapter. Loss has not been a breaking point, but a turning point: I'm not the first one to grieve, but experiencing it equips me to pray for others who experience it, too. I've lost twenty-five pounds and gotten into killer shape just by walking more! Caring for Mom has been a summons to draw closer to Jesus, to seek Him all day throughout the day, and to watch Him reveal His plan in all of this. My dream hasn't died until I have. My overseas vacation was exchanged for the "nightmare on ice" which I haven't been able to explain --yet. (But I've got a pretty great story to tell!) 

In all these things, God has been with me, working, turning them around for my good. To have a front row seat to what He is doing is a privilege. He has been there in the quiet that follows the word "cancer", in the fear of starting over --alone, in the empty cupboard and in the courtroom and along the white hot sidewalk on the way to the deli. He is still there, weeping in the room where evil is done and childhoods are ended. He is in the hard days and the whys?. He is there, right where He is supposed to be.