disappointments

In my journey through the problem of evil and disappointment that life isn't better than it is, I received this devotion recently and it really blessed me.  I find it often helps me when I learn that someone else understands my pain or my circumstances.  That someone else has gone through these things as well.  I know I am not alone and what's more, I'm even in good company.
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DisappointmentsTGIF Today God Is First Volume 1, by Os Hillman
12-06-2012
Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life. - Proverbs 13:12

Life is filled with disappointments. Many of God's greatest servants experienced deep disappointment in their journeys of faithfulness to God. Joseph, after spending years as a slave and in jail for crimes that he did not commit, revealed deep disappointment when he was forgotten another two years in prison. John the Baptist, when awaiting execution, doubted whether Jesus was, in fact, the Christ because he was sitting there awaiting his death. Elijah, losing all hope and despondent to the point of death, asked God to take his life in the desert; and Peter, who left his fishing business and invested three years of his life only to watch his Savior crucified, wondered whether the purpose of those three years could be justified.

When life doesn't add up, it leaves the heart sick. When we have done all we know to do and the formula has not worked, it leaves us questioning. These are times that try the very souls of men. There is no human sense to be made of it. We are left with a choice: to cling or not to cling. There are times when holding on to our Master's robe is all that we can do. It is all that He wants us to do.

The heights by great men reached and kept

Were not obtained by sudden flight;

But they, while their companions slept,

Were toiling upward in the night.

Standing on what too long we bore,

With shoulders bent and downcast eyes,

We may discern-unseen before-

A path to higher destinies!

~Longfellow

There is only one answer to life's disappointments. Like the psalmist, we must "Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from Him. He alone is my rock and my salvation; He is my fortress, I will not be shaken" (Ps. 62:5-6).

This is one of the few email devotions I read regularly.  Os always has something worth sharing and he blesses me almost daily.
http://www.marketplaceleaders.org/tgif/

what I know today

I know that pride kills my relationship with Christ.  Anytime the “I” or “me” is primary in my thoughts I am probably in the wrong in some manner.  I know that I see things primarily through my own eyes and while I am often certain of my own perspective, the world is complicated and my perspective is not the only one that is valid.

I have struggled greatly over this past year in particular in my relationship with my husband.  I struggle because he does not meet my many of needs.  We are often talking and acting past one another because we do not speak one another’s love language and neither of us try hard enough to bridge that gap.  I believe (rightly or wrongly) that I feel this gap far more than my husband does.  I am deeply convinced that I am "more right” than he is on most of our issues and believe that the things I request from him are so small that it could possibly be cruel as to withhold them from me. 

My woes led me dangerously close to divorce and what stopped me from crossing that line is the belief that I would gain nothing.  I would gain only the 'loss of expectation' that things would get better.  This could also be phrased as the HOPE that things would get better.  I’ve just chosen not to go there.  I’ve sided on my pain and emptiness.

That my marriage has not turned out as I hoped and planned ultimately led me down the path of questioning God.  Not His existence because creation keeps me grounded there, but on who He is.  The personal-ness of the Jesus I always knew.  I’ve been blessed with the gift of faith and of often of optimism and that saw me through much.  The ultimate disappointment I experience in my marriage struck hard and deep and I believe has been used by the enemy to bring my walk with God to a crawl if not a halt.  It was brewing for years but my encounter with evil through the movie "Food, Inc." added incredible fuel to the fire.  The blaze of WHY has burned quite bright this past year.  My encounter with evil so clear and unnerving that I’ve been rendered almost helpless.  The evil is so big and I am just one; how could anything I do make a difference?

This same train of thought has carried me through in many other areas of life.  What is the point of so much suffering?  When I look at my Mom and see that while, yes, she has brought some of life’s ails upon herself, the most offensive of them were without her control.  These events in her life have forever transformed her into a deeply broken person who often despairs of life and struggles to cling to God.  What purpose is there in such suffering?  I always wanted to be like Joseph who, as far as we read, did not ask “why” of God though he was taken from his family, sold into slavery, rose to power, wrongly accused and thrown in jail where he was left to rot, then brought out again to ultimate glory in being present for God’s will.  I love that we don’t read him asking why.  Here I am now, asking Why and I hate it; but I cannot stop.  I must go through this if I ever hope to come out the other side.  There is still a part of me that trusts there is more though the doubt in my mind would seek to smother it.

I’ve tried to step back from the immediacy and emotion of my wants in my marriage and instead look at what I have.  Look at and appreciate the good I have.  Though we are cautioned against comparison, we humans do love to compare ourselves to one another.  When I compare the man Adam is with many other husbands I know of, he does stand tall.  He is a good man, with high moral character.  He works steadily, often at jobs he truly dislikes, and provides financially for our family.  He handles our finances with little complaint, though I do give him cause to complain more often than I should.  He is a good father who cares for his children and does seek to give them a good life.  He spends time with his children and while he does things in a very different way than I do, I appreciate that he is a father, not a mother, and I need to respect our differences.

My husband does most of the cooking and keeps things in our home from falling into complete untidiness, including doing most of the dishes.  He doesn’t ask much of me, doesn’t ask me to do his laundry or clean his bathroom.  He gives me the freedom to serve as often as I want and has allowed me to attend a church I prefer over our old church, though I believe his heart is still back there.

The separateness is not necessarily a rejection of me, though certainly I often feel it as such.  It can also be a coping mechanism for living in a life that is difficult (if only by first world standards).  In a world that seeks to rob us of our faith and beat down our hope, to exhaust us and keep us from shining a light for Christ.

So, today I know that I am not always right.  That there is always another point of view and even if I don’t share it, I do not ultimately decide the validity of the truth…God does. 

This weekend, I hope to spend some more time contemplating this and seeking reunion with a God I don’t always agree with.  A God I don’t understand.  To rekindle the hope that comes from knowing a God big enough I cannot grasp all of who He is.  To allow the reinstatement of my trust that He knows best.  That evil will not win.

Doubt

So, like all thinking Christians, I have doubt.  I'm sure I also share in guilt and fear when my doubt comes to the surface.  Lately I have been dodging my doubt instead of thinking it through.  I'm not sure why I'm taking this tack, I normally would just deal with it and move on.


At church last night my doubt came back to the surface, but with another thought as to why it may be hanging around.  The message was about what we put our faith in.  Is there an area we need Jesus to shine His light into?  I realized, my marriage is the first thing that comes to mind that needs God's light, His help.  Later they asked what areas of your life has God spoken into.  I wrote the same list as before.

• Marriage
• Serving
• Parenting
• Growing

God has spoken into all these areas of my life and now I see that I have a large need for Him to speak into my life in many areas again.  I know my life is pretty broken right now.  I think my life is more broken than I realized; or perhaps I'm just growing used to the brokenness.  


Brokenness can lead to doubt.  Anything can lead to doubt, but when areas of difficulty pile up in your life, doubt has fertile ground.  My general thought process when doubt comes calling is to remind myself of Job, David and Creation.  Creation is kind of the silver bullet for doubt in my life because there is no chance evolution created such amazingly intricate beings as we are; not to mention the diversity of life on the planet that lives in such symbiotic relationship.  There had to be a watch maker.  


I feel better already.


So to deal with my doubt, I am writing today.  Perhaps this doubt has hung around longer because I've not dealt with it.  Because it's more elusive than it usually is.  I can't pinpoint what this doubt is trying to say.  It's more a feeling of uneasiness about faith without any specific point.  Almost like an anxiety attack, without the attack.  


I do believe that the state of my marriage, my current dissatisfaction with my life, my parenting, my kids, the lack of respect I receive in my home... have all played into doubt.  Add onto that the change in my ministry opportunities at church -- no longer leading a women's bible study as I have done for 7 years, no longer attending a weekly women's bible study as I have done for decades.  I'm feeling lost in this area of my life as well.  It has always been my bible study that grounds me.  Ahhh, now we are getting somewhere.  It truly has always been my bible study that grounds me.  I am without that and have been without it for over a year now.  It does make a huge difference in my life because it's the homework that drives me forward in my faith and understanding of who God is and how He is at work in my life.  Otherwise, I fall prey to life's business and my daily/weekly pursuit of bible study and drawing closer to God falls by the wayside.


With my marriage currently so broken; and so many of the attempts to mend it failing... I have lost a basis of strength. My bible study changing from what has been close to a lifetime of habit, another strength lost.  No wonder I'm feeling doubt.


Thanks for listening!  That helped!

priorities

I often find myself thinking about all the things I wish I could do. 

• I wish I could go back to school and get a degree.
• I wish I could learn to write better.
• I wish I could learn to draw.
• I wish I had more time to spend with my kids, but often the time I spend with my kids is daily life and chores and it's often less than...satisfying.  I wish I had more of the giggling while watching the same scene over and over again on a movie.  More going out to eat or talking about life and faith.  Driving in the car and listening to music loud and dancing in our seats. 
• I wish I had more time to read stuff on the Internet because there is so much to read and learn and I want more of that knowledge inside me.
• I wish I could watch all the movies and TV shows that seem interesting to me when I read about them. 
• I wish I had more time to do all sorts of things.

I fair number of those things have to do with the Internet in some way shape or form.  I've joked for years that Google is my best friend. 


I manage to keep some sanity in these desires by pursing what I can when I can and remembering that when I look back on my life, I don't think I'll be saying to myself that I wish I had more time to spend on Facebook or Google or even email.

Volunteering

I love to volunteer.

I love being a part of things, what is going on, making things happen.
It makes me feel good to see an event go well; to serve others. I think it also makes me feel good about myself.

I have, in the past, had a problem with over-volunteering. To the point where people at my church thought I was on staff because I was working (volunteering at) so many events.

So... this is true about myself, but as Socrates would say, the unexamined life is not worth living... why do I like to volunteer?

The temptation here is to add on all the codependent ideas that made me decide not to be a nurse when I wanted to go to nursing school.  I didn't even need help with that one; I talked myself out of it.  I would have been a great nurse; however, I also might not be married today.  Even doing administrative work there are many nights I work late because I want to be around for my boss when I know they have something going on.  So how codependent would I have been as a nurse with the excuse that it's this person's health and I just can't come home dear, will you take care of the kids like you're a single parent again tonight.  I can so see that I avoided that future and Jesus... I thank you for the insight you gave me in the nursing school administration office when I decided to walk out. 

Yes, I know there is a seed of codependency in my love of volunteering.  There is part of me that wants to be liked and by doing nice things and being dependable I most certainly up the odds. I think about this.  I volunteer for lots of stuff at work too and this behavior can sometimes get me into trouble. 

Gosh... I just deleted a bunch of what I was going to say because it sounded too whiny!  Blech! 

I'm going to go with volunteering makes me think outside of myself.  It helps me with perspective on life and hopefully keeps me from over dramatizing the problems in my own life because there is always somebody who has it worse than I do.  It helps me get away from the problems of my own life and often gives me a wonderful sense of accomplishment when I work on something and it goes well.

I love the idea of giving and not getting paid for it (I can't say I get nothing in return because I do feel good about it.  There is definitely a pay off in some form). 

It keeps me out of trouble and sometimes provides me with an escape.

Yes, I think volunteering is good.




BTW... did I mention bunnies have really sharp teeth?  Yeah... I should have paid attention.  One got out and while chasing him down with carrot lures he bit me.