I am confident that God knows our weaknesses. Psalm 103 says that he is tender and compassionate like a Father is with his children. Verse 14 and following describe us like grass that withers and dies and is blown away by the wind. Out in the desert, that picture is a vivid daily reminder of how fragile we humans are.
My emotions are fragile, raw, edgy. I often don't know what to post because I need to refrain from sharing the rawness of my heart. I want to be real and transparent, to be accountable to those who care for our family and pray for our work. God knows the fragility of my emotions. The Psalm continues that the unfailing love of the Lord remains forever with those who fear him and he extends salvation to me, to my children, when I/we choose him.
God is gracious and compassionate with me. I know he is bringing our family through each of these stages of transition to teach us our need for him and to remind us of how gentle he is when we are fragile and feeling blown away. I need these trials of many kinds to test and prove my faith will endure the fire, prove to me that God will make my faith stronger through each trial no matter how mundane the trial seems. This week the trial is testing my obedience to love sacrificially. I lost sleep every night to comfort my son through the wee hours of the morning. I stayed up making food and doing dishes so I could give the kids time to explore our neighborhood in the mornings. I made breakfast for our family at 6am in the morning and sent David off with fresh coffee. I bathed kids and washed laundry after multiple accidents. I even slept on the floor in our four year old's room last night. I have been screamed at and endured other harsh comments from my child who is learning to live without naps. I have responded like I was the child dropping a nap. Does this sound familiar to you? Does this sound like the way that Jesus loved his disciples and those who nailed him to a cross? Does this sound like the sacrificial love Jesus showed me on that cross?
Through each painful and tear filled day, I keep thinking that what God wants to teach me is so simple and so hard. I cannot make the situation easier. I cannot change the things that I wish were different or go back to life before this move and this career. I cannot make life better by jumping ship and leaving all this difficulty behind. I have a choice to make, a simple but incredibly hard choice. I need to choose joy. I need to choose gratitude. I need to choose to believe I can trust God to be choosing what is best for me and for my family.
I am choosing to love my family through my actions and my tone of voice. I am choosing to be gentle and patient with wildly distraught children. I am choosing to change from quick anger to slow responses. I am choosing to change from bitter resentment to what I can thank God for providing in his incredible goodness. I am choosing to stop throwing temper tantrums when I don't get to choose what my day holds or how my family responds and love them with actions and grace.
God is asking me to choose to control what he has placed within my control : my attitude, my words, my tone of voice. God is asking me to trust him with the rest.
I've heard our daughter express several times this week the sentiments that God is challenging me to reverse in my thinking:
"I wish this were not that way"
"I don't like the things you choose for me! I wish you would let me do what I want to do"
I am learning from my own words as I teach my toddlers to choose joy.
Still, the three of us (really every human) are slow to trust and find change very hard. We are fragile.
God is slow to anger and filled with unfailing love for us.
God is slow to anger and filled with unfailing love for you. Do you trust him?
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