It’s not earth-shattering, Lord.
It’s not death or disease.
But even such a little thing can feel like destruction.
Even such a little thing is an assault on your gifts.
And they were your gifts.
In a time of financial empty you gave them to me, one at a time, over the long season of want.
A dishwasher and a new floor.
Both hand-me-down gifts that looked brand new.
I should have paid closer attention when something didn’t seem right in front of the dishwasher. Why did I wait until the beautiful floor seemed to buckle before sounding the alarm?
My heart dropped as the dishwasher was pulled from the cabinets and we saw the gush of water.
I cried as we began pulling up my beautiful floor, one long gorgeous board at a time.
We don’t live in financial nothingness now. But we’re still unprepared for this expense in this season of college bills and baseball teams.
Habit has long taught me to worry at such times.
But it has also taught me to give my worries to you.
That floor was your promise to me that all that was wrong in my home could be provided for in a snap when you chose to move.
Not only were the boards themselves a gift, the labor of love, the weekend of friendship was from you, too.
But hanging onto the gratitude is a bit testy while I watch my gorgeous floor boards crumble from the wet, smell the rank of saturated sub floor.
I’m not sure how to deal with this, Lord.
Even if there are enough scraps in the garage for the repairs, we don’t know how to cut and lay them.
And there is the issue of the gaping hole where a dishwasher used to be.
(I’m not thrilled about doing the volume of dishes we go through by hand, Lord.)
I want to fight through to gratitude and hope and praise and faith.
After all, if you cared enough to give me these gifts back then, isn’t such still important to you now?
The floor that my sweet family has walked upon, where I have fed precious children meal after meal. The room I’ve opened to guests, no matter how we had to crowded around my small table.
You care about my floor.
You care about my dishwasher.
You own the cattle on a thousand hills. This is not even pennies to you, this repair, this new provision.
Guilt whispers to remember all I have in this land of America. That I have dishes. Food to put in them. A comfortable home, pretty floor or not. Guilt says I should not care so much about such things as broken appliances and broken beauty.
But you’ve been showing me that your voice isn’t guilt.
You teach me to care about others, look for ways to serve and give, but not to pretend I don’t care about my own needs because they seem petty compared.
My needs and desires are my own.
And they are important to you, the hopes of this mom in America, just the same as the hopes of a mother in Africa who today prays for more immediate, life-giving needs.
I won’t live in guilt. I won’t pretend I don’t feel this need.
I won’t live in the knee-jerk hopelessness and worry of the past.
I will live in faith of provision.
I will live in the Truth that You see and care.
I will remember the provisions of the past and look to the provisions of the future, no matter what form they take.
Friends, I started praying with pen and journal this morning, talking to the God who Loves about this issue (and others). But this little blog beckoned, this place where I’ve chosen to be vulnerable about the big things and small. This place where I’ve asked for prayer, and it has been given.
I’m not sure why I choose to share this mundane problem. Maybe because I so desire to take a stand for hope and faith and to it in front of the whole of the Internet seemed definitive. Maybe because I know some of your stories and how my little tales of provision have given you hope in your own long season of want. Maybe because I know some of you will whisper a prayer for my attitude and my provision. Maybe just because we’re journeying together, you and me, and this is today’s journey.
As I type I whisper a pray for your journey of this day. Whether issues are big or small assualt or whether it is a day of sheer ease, I ask Him to bless you, to provide for you, to show His love. I pray that you have hope and faith. That neither you or I try to ease the stress by stuff that never fixes anything, like pigging out on cheese dip and chips. ;o)
Until Next Time,
