Make-or-break moments of Faith: When Printers Attack

As I sat down yesterday to study for my upcoming Statistics final, I was confronted with one of my greater nemeses in life: the printer.  Trying to get things to print from my ancient computer is usually a crap-shoot at best.  So, as I tried to print review materials, the first few pages print, and then... nothing.  I don't know where the print jobs went - next door, maybe?  As I tried, with increasing frustration, to figure it out, one thought kept growing in my mind:  God, where are you right now?  Can't you see that I'm trying to study, here?  Don't you care that I'm working my butt off to go to school and make a better life for my family?  If you're not going to give me a new car and a new house and an island in the Pacific and bring back my parents from the grave for Christmas, couldn't you at least just make the stupid printer work?  Can't you see how I feel as though the whole world, electronic equipment included, is conspiring against me?  Don't you care about me at all - not even just this one little bit? 

As my wise husband pointed out, the whole thing wasn't worth making into a big deal.  I could still study without printing anything.  "Just use the computer and look at the stuff on there, instead," he told me. Which seems perfectly reasonable, but in my now completely worked-up state, that sounded like the stupidest idea in the world.  Because it wasn't MY plan.  MY original plan was, is always, in my mind, the best.  The most efficient.  The plans I make for my day, my week, my life, always seem, in my mind, to be the best and most logical and most appropriate way for things to go.  How dare God, or anyone else, interfere with them?  It sounds so warped, so self-centered and arrogant, when I put it down in writing, these thoughts.  And yet, when I am thinking them, don't they just seem like the perfect truth.  In that moment yesterday, there was a whisper coming through my mind that I didn't want to listen to, didn't want to accept.  It said, "Even this tiny little frustration in your day, there is a reason for.  You don't see it now, but soon you will understand."  What?!?  How in the world can God use this moment to teach me something.  And, by the way, I don't want to learn any more of your lessons, because they usually involve some kind of difficulty that I then learn from.  No thanks, I'll just keep throwing my tantrum, because I'm angry things aren't going according to plan.

Of course, God was right, as He always is.  That frustrating half-hour of trying to get the printer to work, failing, and refusing accept anything other than my original plan, was a moment he used to show me just how intent I am on making my plans work, no matter how small or big, and what an obstacle this independence creates in my life.  It bars me from accepting God's perfect plan, and from receiving His perfect peace.  It keeps me locked in a padded room, padded with my expectations for minutes and years and decades.  The walls feel nice and comfortable, soft to the touch, and yet I pound on them, longing to get out.  It's the independence that comes naturally for me, and has been added to by loss.  No thanks, I'm on my own now and I'll figure it out. No thanks, I don't need any help.  No thanks, I can do it better and faster and more accurately myself.  It keeps me from accepting help, friendship, blessings, from friends and from God alike.

All of which would still be eating away at me, if I did not have a God who watches my tantrum, knows my heart that lies underneath it, and speaks into my madness.  Let's face it.  We don't always understand, or like, or want to accept the way God works.  We think our plan is much better, and find it hard not to get frustrated and discouraged when we don't understand what He is doing.  As I go through this Christmas season, it is hard for me to understand the point of all the pain and loss in the world.  Things happen in our lives that seem so wrong.  Marriages end.  Loved ones get sick.  Children die.  And for all of it, for all of the pain of this world, it is very easy to ask the question why.  And where.  Where was God? Why did He withdraw or withhold His safety, His healing touch, His grace?  

Asking these questions, in the dark of night last night, I ended my prayer of frustration with "I don't know what else to say - I don't have anything left to say."  I ended my prayer with a bunch of questions.  Or at least, I thought the prayer was ended.  And then, as I tried to drift off to sleep, something great happened.  The voice of God, continuing our conversation, answering my questions, at least in part, with the only answer He can really give, the only one I would understand.  Into my mind, He spoke these words:  

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.  For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts."  (Isaiah 55:8-9)

Translation for me: "My plans are better than yours.  Chill out and go along with it."

There is that part of me, of all of us, that wants God to just hurry up and reveal the inner workings of His plan, the reasons why, the "big picture".  "If only we could understand, if only we could see the 'why'," we say.  If only we could see the end result, at the end of time, how our suffering will be turned around and included as a part of making all things right.  Then, we think, then we would believe.  Then we would worship.  Then we would be able to have faith.  For this thought, God reminded me this morning of Thomas.  Surely, Thomas thought these same things.  "God, I don't understand.  How could my teacher, my master, my Messiah's horrible death be anything more than a moment of your abandonment.  How could it ever be part of your plan?  If only I could see Him, I would believe that all He told us was true."  And upon seeing our Lord, in the flesh, and touching his wounds, and receiving thereby relief and comfort and the ability again to proclaim 'My Lord and my God', Jesus said to him, "Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed." (John 20:29)

Blessed are they.  Not, "calm are they", or "comforted are they", not "no longer frustrated are they".  Blessed.  That is what I want to be.  I want that blessing.  I want to say, even though I don't see, don't understand, can't figure it out, that I believe. I have faith, without seeing, that God is doing what He said He is going to do, that he is in the process of turning the sin and sorrow of this world into glory and redemption.  And that one day, when I sit at His feet in heaven, He'll show it all to me, how every moment, big and small, that here on earth make us want to sit and weep and scream and pull our hair out, was used by Him,  became a part of the plan.  I believe, on faith, that I'll see, someday, all the loose ends neatly tied, all the shattered pieces put back together, as if they'd never been broken.   Today, with the help of His word, I choose to believe, even though I don't see, that His ways are higher than my ways, and His thoughts than my thoughts.  

Now, assuming your printer works better than mine, print off a copy of this, and shove it under my nose the next time I tell you how frustrated I am with things not working out the way I'd planned.

 - Susan

Sports on the Brain

I spent 5 full minutes this morning while getting ready pondering REALLY why the NCAA college football championship couldn't be structured more like the NCAA basketball tournament.  If they can rank teams in the BCS and determine which bowl games they should play in, why can't they rank them, put them in a bracket, and use the bowl games as playoff games? 

Furthermore, the real question is, at what point in my life did I allow these issues to move from the peripheral to the forefront of my thinking? Apparently if you spend enough time listening to ESPN in the background, you just automatically pick up information that you wouldn't actually seek out otherwise.  It's like sports know-how by osmosis.  I've always considered myself a sports fan but I believe it has moved to a whole new level since marrying a sports nut.  I find myself caring about issues and topics in the sports world that I previously did not even know existed.

I guess the thing is, when you care about someone, you care about what they care about.  Someone once speculated that in our lives, we become like the 5 people we spend the most time around.  We pick up mannerisms, sayings, interests, and habits from them.  For me that means I've picked up an understanding of who "Coach K" is, what team and sport he coaches for (Duke Men's basketball), and how to pronounce his curious name Krzyzewski (if you don't know, ask me later I'd be happy to teach you.)

Actually, I think it's great that these things are on my mind - it makes for engaging conversations in our marriage that usually lead on to other topics besides sports.  So I will keep pondering the mysteries of why they can't put the top 32 college football teams into a bracket and play weekly games through December and January to find a REAL winner.  Maybe the BCS just needs a woman in charge...

For A Season

"To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted."  Ecclesiastes 3:1-2


The longer I'm around, the more aware I become that life consists of seasons.  And most of the time, I am un-blissfully unaware of the particular season I am in.  I just go through the motions of whatever my life looks like at the time, not realizing the broader story, the larger context of what is happening, or the boundaries that will eventually mark the end of one season and the beginning of the next.  And usually I just pray for an end to the season I am in, complaining about it's difficulties while ignoring it's blessings. 

When I began working as a nursing assistant this time last year, I knew it was the beginning of a season.  I didn't know how long it would last, or what it would require of me, though.  Those first few months of working night shift were, in and of themselves, a season.  A grueling, caffeine-fueled, stress-riddled,  sleep-deprived season.  By the end of it, I was begging for someone, something, ANYTHING to save me from one more night of work.  When I gave my 2 weeks notice, knowing that physically I couldn't continue working nights anymore, I didn't think I could make it through the full 2 weeks.  It is only by the grace of God that I did. 

As usual, once the season was over, I could reflect with some perspective.  After that last night of work, it felt as though a veil had been lifted from my eyes, and I instantly was able to look back on the past 2 months and see what I had learned, about myself and about the people I was caring for, about people in general and how fragile we are.  I was able to be thankful for a season which required everything of me, demanded that I pour myself out completely - no reserve, no backup tank.  Every morning I left work at 6 AM, completely spent, and every night I HAD to pray for the strength to walk back through those doors, completely unable to do so on my own accord.  If only I could have had those insights in the middle of the thing.  How much better I would have felt, how much more equipped I would have been.  Funny how in the middle of the most difficult experiences of our lives, we often are unable to see how God is carrying us through.

The next seasons of my life began a few months later: working as a nursing assistant while expecting a baby.  Summer was the season of nausea. October and November, for me, was a season of mourning for me following the unexpected death of my dad. December was the season of waiting, waiting, waiting for the daily grind of work to be over.  Finally, now I have had the blessing of having a very distinct change of seasons - maternity leave.  And I am loving this newest season in my life.  I have time to do my dishes.  I have time to go grocery shopping without feeling rushed, and time to rest in preparation for a new life coming into our family. 

I guess the point is, nothing lasts forever.  Although in the middle of a season I often feel as though there is no end in sight, no relief from exhaustion, no rest for the weary, these are all lies that the enemy simply places in our heads to discourage us.  Because no matter how long a season lasts, it is just that - a season.  It has a beginning, a middle, and an end.  Sometimes it gives way to another season that is even more challenging.  Other times, it gives way to a season of restoration.  If only I could be aware of the changing seasons of life, if I could find the lesson in it, if I could allow God to use it to work in me the work that He has planned for me, instead of fighting against it!

My hope and prayer, as this season gives way inevitably to yet another, is that with God's help I will see clearly, and embrace what is being taught to me.  That when the baby is crying at 2 AM, and I am wondering if I will ever sleep soundly again, I will remember not just that there is an end coming someday, but that there are lessons to be learned every minute, lessons of grace and mercy and love that our loving Father prepares for all of us, if only we are willing to submit to His teaching.