In recent weeks several people whom I’m very close to and whom I love deeply have been going through very real struggles of faith. They have very legitimate and rather hard-to-answer questions about God. And I feel like I’ve often failed as I’ve attempted to help them work through what they’re thinking and feeling. And as I struggled yet again today, it occurred to me that most of us probably don’t completely trust anyone in one mere instant. Real trust takes real time; and over the course of real time we are able to observe real patterns of behavior. And it is then that we are able to determine if the person, the object of our trust, is indeed worthy of it.
This thought has prompted a flashback to more than two decades ago when I started dating my husband. We lived in different towns at the time, had no real history together, and were only able to see each other on the weekends. As one of my work colleagues saw our relationship moving along very quickly, she advised me to actually move closer to him. She told me that I really needed to know what he was like the other five days of the week. She was a wise woman. I did move, giving up a really great job/work environment–probably the overall best one I ever had as an educator. Sometimes finding out what we most need to know does require some level of real sacrifice, some level of what we call risk.
People do indeed prove themselves over time–and I believe God does as well. As I say this I’m going over several things in my head that have happened this fall, things that simply make no sense at all apart from the existence of a divine orchestrator. My new friend from my last post is one of those things. I wasn’t even supposed to be at Target the second time I saw Sarah. But, it turns out that my daughter had had a life-threatening reaction to a food she ate and I had made a special trip to the store to return it. My daughter’s on the list with Sarah–the list of things that do not compute apart from God’s hand.
Just days before I bumped into Sarah, my little girl had reacted to a food she was cleared to eat and things went to a really bad place. Her pediatrician, in fact, eventually had to call an ambulance to take her to the local children’s hospital. We have an epipen because of her peanut allergy but I had chosen not to use it on her; something in my gut had just told me not to do it. And, just as I was wrestling with unspeakable guilt for not using it, her doctor told me that not doing so was a great thing because her heart rate was way too high; it was so high by the time we arrived the doctor had actually assumed that I did use it. A week after my daughter’s trip to the hospital, I would get a call from our pharmacy and they would tell me that there was a recall on my daughter’s epipen and that I needed to get rid of it. The thought of things simply being random and “unscripted” just doesn’t work well for me anymore.
There’s yet another instance from an event I spoke at in Virginia the very same week, the weekend before my daughter’s reaction, the weekend before I saw Sarah again. A book table had been set up at the event and during breaks I hovered around the table. My teacher aunt had come with me and was actually helping anyone who wanted to buy a book, as I hate to deal with all things monetary. I couldn’t help but notice that every time I went to the lobby to check on my aunt the same young woman seemed to be there. She appeared interested in the book, and even said she wanted one, but things never went further than that. I really wanted to give her a book but then I, of course, could only imagine how giving her a book might appear to all of the people who had actually paid for one. So, I tried to forget about it.
I delivered the message I was there to share and, just as things were about to wrap up, I knew I had to do one last thing. This little nagging voice in my head had been telling me to offer up a book as a door prize. The door prizes were done, however, by the time I really paid attention to that voice. But, I just couldn’t let it go. I slipped up to the MC and told her I felt compelled to offer her a book to give away, if it wasn’t too late to do so. She happily agreed to this since the group still had one of their tickets left. I couldn’t see who won the book but I did pray that the “right” person did. Well, the very woman to whom I had desperately wanted to give a book came up to me at the end of the event and asked me to sign the copy that she and her mother had just won. There were lots of other people at that event; in fact, the community center where it was held looked full to me. It was all so perfect–it was all so God.
I am beginning to see through instances like these, and others too numerous to share now, that God truly does what we cannot. And yes, there is still so much I cannot find a way to understand or a way to explain to others to help them along. But, all I know is that I’ve experienced years of being with him now–years of observing the patterns of his behavior, of his creativity, of his care, of his Love. And all that I’ve seen that’s undeniably good helps me continue to live with all the other “stuff” that I cannot yet explain away. All throughout this messed-up life down here there are hints of real perfection from elsewhere, hints of the world the way it was meant to be, hints of the world the way it will be one day.
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