Church is not a building.
It’s a beautiful body of believers that stand together in circumstances,
both good and bad. It’s a commitment to
loving one another the way Christ loved us.
It’s sacrifice. It’s
compassion. It’s the most amazing and
beautiful thing I’ve ever experienced.
And from the deepest place of my heart, I say a big thank you for all of
you who have reached out to us and showed us what love looks like. Love is practical. Sometimes it’s tangible. And being on the receiving end is
humbling.
As many of you know, we had a major sewage backup last
Friday that filled our entire basement with inches of sewage water. But the storm that we’re in actually started
before then. I’m not exactly sure when
it officially changed from sunny to stormy, but I know it’s been awhile. I’m not exaggerating when I say we have
experienced one immensely stressful situation after another for months. There are a few things that I don’t feel
comfortable sharing publicly. But know
that they have challenged every ounce of what we believe and hope for. And after being challenged over and over and
over in every way I can imagine, I was proud to say that we were walking
through these storms hand in hand, trusting God…that was until last Friday.
I have never really cared about having “stuff.” I think we might be the last people on earth
without smart phones or a tablet of some sort.
We do not have flat screen televisions.
All of our clothes come from resale.
And most of our furniture and things are hand me downs. We rather fill our home with children who
laugh (and cry), grow (and eat), and play (and break things). There are those moments of intense jealousy
when I’m at someone’s house that is beautifully decorated, spacious, and
seemingly perfect. Just keeping it
real. But truly, I am content most of
the time.
That is why last Friday came as a surprise. All of a sudden, losing my children’s
playroom, my home office, my home schooling storage and library, my laundry
room area, and a lot of our things in storage, really shook me. And then I felt so much shame. It’s just stuff, after all. But that wasn’t all. It wasn’t just the stuff. It was the immense amount of work ahead of
us. We already feel like time is
short. We already have 2 major house
projects, one of which is a result of another home fiasco. We had 1200 square feet of living space to
start with in this home, plus that precious basement, and now we’re reduced to
no basement, and one bedroom off limits, plus 4 active kids with one on the way
in 20 weeks. The salvageable items line
our walls in every free space in our home.
Our kids have the living room and a small area in their bedroom to
play. This is what is shaking me. My house is completely a wreck, and it’s
overwhelming.And just when we think we are making progress, there is a
setback.
We’re looking at weeks and weeks of clean up and repair
before we can even start putting our home back together. If this were all we had to deal with right
now, it’d be enough. But it’s not. It’s just the latest. Somehow I think we’ve evolved to deal with
and expect stress. But it’s not easy.
End rant.
Life is hard, but God is good. So cliché, right? I literally chanted that this weekend. But in that chanting, here’s what I
learned. He is good, which means He is
not bad. And if He is not bad, then all
the bad we live through isn’t Him. It’s
not. Let me tell you, from the time I
was a little girl, I’ve lived through a heck of a lot of bad. I’ve never been one to shake my fist at
God. Even in the fall, when we lost our
precious baby #5, I was hurt, upset, angry…but not with God. This was the first time in a long time,
possibly ever, where I literally said out loud “What did I do wrong? Where did we miss you? Why are you not rescuing us?” But He was.
He is. It is true He allows us to
walk through bad things, but He does not cause them. He has no place in them. He only desires our good, not our bad. Why?
Because He is good. He works all
things together for the good of those who love Him. And if this is so, He doesn’t work the bad
in. How counterproductive, then, is it
for us to shake our fists, yell up at heaven, or separate ourselves? He wants to partner with us always, in every
moment.
Now, to be clear, despite this fabulous epiphany that I’m
sure you all have had and I’m just late to class, I have had some VERY human
moments in the last week. I’ve cried, I’ve
snapped at my kiddos, and I’ve doubted so very much. I’ve literally had to overcome despair on a
daily, if not hourly, basis. And I don’t
use the word despair lightly. It’s hard to be knocked down by wave after
ominous wave and not feel alone, even betrayed.
And those feelings pull out some very human moments and reactions.
I was driving to the store to buy even more garbage bags on
Saturday, and all of the sudden the story of Elijah on the mountain popped in
my head. As soon as I had a moment, I
quickly re-read it. It’s found in I
Kings 19 and worth a re-read. Elijah
ended up running away, fearing for his life, and hiding in a cave. He just wanted the Lord to take his
life. He literally uttered “I have had
enough, Lord,” in verse 4, the very thing I was uttering when this story
invaded my conscious thought. If you’re
familiar with the story you know that God told Elijah to go out and stand on
the mountain because He was about to pass by.
In verses 11-13, we find this well-known part of the story:
“Then a great and powerful wind tore the
mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord,
but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there
was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the
earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord
was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah
heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth
of the cave.
Then a voice said to him, “What are you
doing here, Elijah?”
I always took this passage to mean that God’s voice doesn’t have
to be mighty and powerful, but we are to be quiet before Him to hear that
gentle whisper. I always took it to be a
lesson to be still before the Lord. I’m
reading it differently now. One thing
Elijah had going for him was familiarity with His maker and His ways. You see, Elijah was done. He was throwing in the towel. He had retreated and given up. But God wasn’t done with Him. Calling Him out to the mountain, God was
waiting for Him to respond to His voice.
But Elijah’s response required him to drown out all the noise. The wind that shattered the solid rock before
Him was just a distraction. God was not in the wind. The earthquake that
literally shook Elijah as he firmly stood waiting for the Lord was not mistaken
as a punishment or a redirection or an answer to a prayer to end his life. And no, God was not in the fire that raged
after the other waves of destruction had invaded Elijah’s territory. How long was he standing there I wonder? Does it matter? After having been called out on a mountaintop
with a promise to hear the voice of God, only to experience the elements betraying
everything you can see around you, I don’t think it would take long to get
discouraged and feel betrayed. But
Elijah waited, knowing God isn’t bad. He
is good. And He wouldn’t call us to the
mountaintop to leave us disappointed.
Elijah had to wait through the wind, through the earth shaking,
through the blazing heat of a fire to hear a whisper.
So, here we are, standing on our mountaintop. We’ve been blown by the wind. We’ve been
shaken by the earth. We’re feeling the
fire. And we’re waiting for the
whisper.
And in waiting for
that whisper, we have seen an amazing outpouring of love and support by so many
around us. In just a few days, we have
received enough financially to clean and repair our basement. We have been well fed, which is great because
all the air movers in our basement literally have rendered our kitchen
appliances useless, causing a blown fuse with even use of our toaster! We have people donating toys to my kids who
have lost their playroom full of toys.
Old friends, new friends, and many I don’t even know are reaching out to
us. And though it’s “just” a basement
flood, to us, it’s a mountaintop moment.
We’ve been standing up here awhile and are growing weary. And the sacrifice and kindness of so many
people who love the Lord and are being obedient to His whispers are sustaining
us.
Thank you to everyone who have sustained us. We do not take
one meal, one toy, one dollar lightly, knowing how much sacrifice each one
is. Though we are weary, our hearts our
full of encouragement. This is the
church. It’s beautiful.
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