Do you ever feel like you're missing it? Like beautiful, profound, holy things are happening and you're just not seeing it? Like just beneath the surface God is invisibly weaving miracles and you're too busy, or tired, or angry to notice? I had this wake-up call about a month ago.
Somewhere between my dreams I heard the faint jingle of our chubby French bulldog's tags against her collar. I lurched from my sleep and headed to the living room hoping to catch her before she peed on our carpet and throw her out the back door so she could do her business where nature intended. Our squatty girl has a small bladder and sometimes still, at three years old, struggles with this potty training thing. Naturally, at this point, I was already feeling annoyed. I had been awoken from a dead sleep at 1:30 in the morning in order to prevent having to scrub yet another urine spot out of our cream-colored carpet.
Out of the big glass window, one of my favorite features of our living room, I saw what just barely registered to me as snow falling. The lights from the elementary school across the street illuminated the fluffy flakes drifting from the sky as the whole world slept. The grass outside was frosted with a thin layer of the beautiful, glistening, stuff.
I had to wake my husband up. He is a snow enthusiast. We just sat on the couch for a few moments with matching groggy grins, taking it in together. This snowfall was completely unexpected as it was the middle of February after an almost dry winter. In fact, the weather had been in the 60s just a week prior. This really felt out of the blue and therefore surreal.
Then a thought crossed my mind that filled me with instant bitterness. "What if we get a snow-day tomorrow?" I asked my husband. As a stay-at-home-mom who's married to a teacher, the prospect of a snow day usually fills me with glee. With it comes help with the baby, an adult to talk to throughout the day, and bonding with some of my favorite people on the planet.
This time, though, a snow day meant only that I wouldn't get to sub. I had been substitute teaching once a week as a means to get out of the house, keep my foot in the door of education, and to earn a little bit of income. My friend and I happened upon a really great system. Both former teachers and current SAHMs to one year old boys, one day a week she watched both boys while I subbed and vice versa.
Recently, there had been several weeks when, for whatever reason, I hadn't been able to sub. Sometimes I couldn't find an opening on a day that my friend was available to babysit. Sometimes the small district I worked in just didn't have any openings at all. The previous week, I had a sub job scheduled for a Friday, and my friend got sick on Thursday. Every time I missed a job, I felt frustrated, stressed, and anxious, mostly because it meant loss of precious income, and let's be honest time away from my child, that I treasured.
When I feared I was about to miss out yet again, because of a snow day of all things, I thought,"This is just like God to do this to me." It seemed like the stars had aligned just perfectly to deprive me of subbing that day. As if God had orchestrated this. My job was for a Wednesday, the district had no school that Friday, and my childcare buddy was unavailable Thursday--this was my only chance to sub that week. My natural inclination was to assume that God would rearrange the weather no-less, just to short-change me.
I felt those words crawl out of my throat, "It's just like God to do this to me." When I heard them play back, I knew they could have only been birthed out of some ugliness in my heart. What was I believing about God? I was essentially believing that God was intentionally holding out on me. That he knew how much I enjoyed subbing and how much I would love to have that money, and yet he plotted behind the scenes to take those good things away from me. Isn't that the original lie that Eve believed in the garden of Eden?
Here's how it went down in Genesis 3:
"Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” 2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’ ” 4 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it."
The snake (aka Satan) essentially tells Eve, God isn't protecting you. He's holding out on you. He knows that you would get this good thing from eating the fruit, but he is choosing not to give it to you. Sound familiar?
Lies can only be quenched with truth. The truth is that God is a good father. "Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God" (1 John 3:1). The bible describes me as a child of God. What parent doesn't want good for their children? Sure, we may sometimes deny their wishes out of protection or preservation. But I know that as a mom, I am looking for opportunities to bless my son. I love to say yes to him. It's not always possible (you can't have jello for every meal), but when he wants something and I know it's also in his best interest I delight in giving it to him.
God is no doubt the same. The bible says, "Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? So if you who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!" (Matthew 7:9-11). God is a better parent than me! If I love to give good things to my children, then of course he loves to give good things to me. God isn't arranging the cosmos behind the scenes to hurt or deprive me. It is quite the opposite, "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future," (Jeremiah 29:11). He is looking for ways to bless me. He is working all things together for my good (Romans 8:28).
So, what came of that snowy night? Well, instead of school being cancelled it was simply delayed: we had a two hour late start. That meant that I got the whole enchilada: extra time with my husband, an opportunity to sub, and the full day's worth of pay that comes with it. Not only this, but because of the snow that brought on the two-hour late start I'd received extra blessings.
When I arrived at the school and made my way to the preschool classroom that I happened to be working in that day, I began to read the sub notes. The nitty gritty details were scrawled across four plus pages of yellow lined paper. The words "toileting," and "diapering," quickly caught my eye. Here I was doing this at least partially to get a break from diapers, and this job would require me to wipe behinds additional the one that was waiting for me at home? That bitter feeling crept back into the pit of my stomach.
Then, a paraeducator walked in and informed me that due to the late-start, preschool had been cancelled for the day. Preschool took place in the early half of the day. The rest of the day the teacher I was filling in for worked with small groups of kindergartners. It also happened to be Valentines day. Which meant that said kindergartners would be spending the day eating pink-frosted heart-shaped cookies and passing out cards that read things like, "You rock, Valentine," rather than doing their regular school work. My job for the day was exceptionally simplified. I had essentially nothing do to for the morning, and in the afternoon I'd basically be watching kids delight over their treats. God had lightened my load.
Additionally, I ended up helping another teacher with some of her prep-work in lieu of teaching preschool, and she encouraged me. In side conversation we approached the topic of staying home full-time to care for young children--something I constantly doubt and wrestle with--and she told me that she believes it makes a huge difference. She said that as a preschool teacher, she can tell the kids who have had a parent (or relative, or great nanny) provide their full-time care. She said that it has the potential to make a difference in development, manners, and demeanor. She described these children as confident. This is something that I desperately want for my children: for them to know that they are loved and to feel secure. I felt encouraged to press on in my work as a stay at home mom.
It turns out that it was just like God, to do this to me. It was just like God to give me those sweet moments in the middle of the night to appreciate his beauty alongside my husband. It was just like him to give me extra rest. It was just like him to remove the burden from my day. It was just like him to arrange for me to hear the very encouragement that my heart needed.
Why did I expect cursing, rather than blessing to come from God? I believed a lie about the very nature of God. We inform our view of the character of God based on a lot of things. Past experiences, past hurts, past disappointments can often seep into the way we see him. Sometimes the enemy of our souls whispers about God into our ears. We can start to believe that he wants bad for us rather than good. We can start to question whether or not he really loves us; whether he is really for us. We can start to expect God to behave based on this false character that we have assigned to him. When we view God through these tainted lenses, we can miss out on what he's doing. We can mistake things he's intended for our good as bad. We can even see blessing as cursing.
How are you viewing God today, friend? Are you just waiting for him to bless you? Are you believing that he is a good father who wants the absolute best for your life? That because he didn't withhold even his son from you, there is no good thing he would deprive you of (provided that it's actually in your best interest)? Or like mine was, is your view of him distorted? Are you anticipating the next heartache he's going to bring your way? Are you just waiting for him to leave you in the dust?
Let's remind ourselves who God is, what he's done for us, and how he feels about us. Rather than viewing our God based on what we know about our situation, let's view our situation based on what we know about our God. So that the next time God weaves together a miracle in our midst, we'll think to ourselves, "It is just like God to do that."
