For the Lord loves justice, he will never abandon the godly.
Psalm 37:28a
This is fresh from the pages of recent history. Last week in fact. I think we all have things that are hard for us, no matter how many times we face the same thing, it seems always to be an “I don’t know if I’ll get through this” kind of moment. Sometime in my 50’s I became aware that I have struggled with a fear of abandonment probably all my life. While I am bold on the outside, emotionally, I am filled with anxiety if I feel abandoned.
This is a problem when you are married to someone who is called to travel a lot! While my intellect is on the right track, often if Gary is away and I am at home, inside I would feel a sense of shame, disorientation and like a loser generally not knowing how to initiate to others. So I knew I was going to face a test when he was going to be away on our 40th anniversary. I was fine months ago when we talked about it and agreed that it would be a good thing to do to bless the church he was going to, and we have had to be flexible many times about when a certain birthday, anniversary or whatever was celebrated, but as the time grew closer, I became aware that I needed to ask God to heal me from this stuff.
I asked the Lord to be my husband, like I have many times, and that He would teach me about the truth that he really is my best friend. Many times he has shown me this, and I have many beautiful stories of how he has shown up practically and been a friend, a husband, a father, whatever was needed, but it has been the same thing as with faith…I leak…and each time it would be the same struggle. The day of our anniversary started with hosting the school board group here at Dominion Hill, which turned out great. I got to use my hospitality gifting, and even had a great chat with the superintendant as we went along about my dream of teaching disadvantaged elementary kids how to grow food.
After that was over, I was just keeping my eyes open for what God was going to bring me for an anniversary gift. I know he’s into long term commitment, and figured that he would like to celebrate that somehow, because he’s into celebration. As I was eating supper on our porch, I just happened to look down our driveway, and there was a lovely bright rainbow right at the end of our driveway! Now that is a gift you can’t buy in any store. I knew it was the gift. The maker of the universe took time to send a rainbow to Digdequash, and made sure I was in a spot where I could see it. Wow, how is that for attention to detail?
I read again the story of the first rainbow, and the themes I felt were appropriate for this time were: a new beginning, and the promise of God’s faithfulness to a family who will obey him, no matter where the mainstream is going, and his honoring of obedience in the face of looking foolish.
With this rainbow gift came a peace that only comes from seeing God show up in such a profoundly impacting way that you can’t mistake it.
And don’t worry…we are going to celebrate our anniversary in Sweden when we’re there in a couple of weeks!
Responses to “A Test”
July 8th, 2011 at 9:42 am
Thanks Joy for sharing this, like you often do, of how the ‘inside’ world struggles to flow with what God calls us to do in the ‘outside’ world. Bless you and Gary on your 40th! Isaiah 40:25-31. LL
July 8th, 2011 at 11:14 am
Thanks Char
Yes, like you said, I didn’t think about the future much, although I do remember My sister, Dawn saying that she thought for sure Jesus would be back within 20 years (I guess in the 70’s sometime) and I did think at the time…I’m not so sure. Anyway, now my quest at this time in life is to bring joy to his heart for the long haul, and like you I need constant encouragement from my Father that I actually am capable of doing that. I often say to Him “how do you do it, being God I mean”, I would just do another colossal blow up and give up on us all!
Love you, Char, sorry I forgot your birthday this year, but I am glad you were born!
Joy
July 8th, 2011 at 12:33 am
Ah, Joy. About a week ago, I remembered that you and Gary had your 40th coming up – you’re about a year behind us and I wanted to write you guys. Sorry, one of my weaknesses is that I don’t celebrate well. Were you like us thinking that we would NEVER find ourselves decades into marriage, never mind 40 years? Jesus was coming back somewhere between 2 to 5 years after we were married. We thought we’d be long in heaven by this time, celebrating Jesus’ triumph over death and sin – not an ongoing celebration on earth of his continued grace to us in our stumbling efforts to follow him and giving us strength to keep on following him when we feel utterly inadequate to do so well. I’m so glad God gave you a rainbow experience. He gave me one too, about 20 years ago. Apart from his written word, it is probably the most comforting thing in my life about his faithfulness to me and that he will be there with me/us until the end. Isn’t he a good and kind Father?