I spent many days alone for a few years now.
It wasn't the first time I wiped a tear or two from my eyes, turned up the music in my too-quiet home, and looked forward to better days.
And it’s was okay.
Really, it is!
Life again started as a newly widowed single gal in her 50's, far away from the a life I knew and a place God placed me in, I learned the hard way that days can hold laughter and longing at the very same time.
I often pulled out a seat at the table, a sandwich in front of me and empty seats all around, and this thought unexpectedly crossed my mind: you are lacking no good thing.
It caught me by surprise, seemingly out of place with my current circumstances.
Now I have been walking through a ten year season of grief and loss, learning to give grace — both to others and to myself — in the midst of unexpected and unwanted changes.
There were significant decisions right around the bend, and to be completely honest, in the middle of loss I’m was at a bit of a loss as to what to do, which way to go.
I wrote a diary about choosing to believe God is still good and kind even if He doesn’t come through how we hope He will, how we know He could.
And I’ve learned it the hard way: Be careful what you write to paper because you just might live out that message forever.
I have shared with courage about asking God “Where are You?” and trusting His goodness to be true.
I wrote about His presence staying near and guiding the way through the wilderness as a pillar of cloud by day and fire by night.
I wrote those words during the storm and the fire, with the ground beneath me shaking and the waves coming one after another after another.
And then, days later, the figurative flames became literal as smoke my old life away. You are lacking no good thing . . .?
I wiped crumbs from the table, turning the phrase over in my head, quietly offering words in response
“I believe You, God, but right now I feel lonely, I see lack, and I hear silence. Help me look past what isn’t to what is, and help me call it good.”
As a sat there at the table, intentionally listing the gifts, the grace He has lavishly poured out: relationships seemingly broken beyond repair now mended back together; asthma, minor surgeries, depression and pregnancy sickness before age twenty-six, all with the same result: wellness;
His financial provision through years of a good life.
Looking at the list, I realized each gift came from a storm I wouldn’t have chosen.
Over time, the very waves that threatened to take me out pushed me to shore. The flames that threatened to destroy became the fire that refined.
And when everything around was shaking and tomorrow so clearly not a guarantee, He was a solid foundation.
He was there in all of it — in the hard and the holy.
In the ordinary, He was waiting to be found.
In the unknown, He was constant. In the broken places, He was holding me together.
As I remembered what has been re-membered, the truth was clear: every last thing is a gift because He was redeeming every last thing.
He is a way-making, promise-keeping, battle-winning, water-walking, storm-stilling, faithful Friend and Savior.
My list of what isn’t didn’t change after making my list of what is, but my perspective did.
And so I began to make another list, this time of God’s many gifts of “no” or “not yet.” Because the truth is, although there are most certainly things I still long and pray for, one of the most frequently spoken sentences in this home is “Thank the Lord He didn’t give me always what I asked for.”
Sometimes what we think would be best would actually be flat-out terrible.
And sometimes we pray and hope and pray some more, only to later find God had something much better in store, something we never would have thought to ask for.
I discovered that there are gifts hidden in the timing of the answer and in the prayers that seemingly receive a “no.”
He is a Father who loves to give good gifts to His children, and He has promised to supply all of our needs. And so, it must be that what we don’t have now, we simply don’t need now.
There is a greater Story being told, and we can’t see beyond the page we’re currently living.
As Charles Spurgeon said, “Remember this, had any other condition been better for you than the one in which you are, divine love would have put you there.”
I won’t lie to you: this was not what I expected my right-then life to look like.
This was not what I would had prayed for.
But I trust the Author, so I have to believe that this was exactly what I would choose for myself if I could see the entire story line.
There is a good God who gives good gifts — gifts of what is and what isn’t. And so today, I believe that all is grace and all is well.
Here, with my two lists, I can truthfully say I’m grateful for the things I’ve received . . . and the things that, praise God, didn’t come my way.
God Bless Everyone,
Nana
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