I know, I know. Epiphany was in January. Apparently, I'm on some kind of delayed calendar system, because mine just came today. I was driving home from SuperTarget (all these great revelations happen on the way home from SuperTarget, I really should go there more often!) when David Crowder Band's version of "Thank You For Hearing Me" shuffled up on my iPod. I listened to it with glee, since the song had been on my mind since I read this article that my friend Rachel had posted on FB yesterday. It was then that this thought floated into my mind...God said "I AM hearing you. YOU'RE not hearing ME!"
Behold, my FB status update from yesterday morning: "Felicia Castillo Powers has had a long, busy, hard week so I'm ready to be recharged, refilled and experience God right down here in the "woe is me I move in one week" zone where I live..."
And so He came.
I'm so stupid, I keep asking for this stuff and then I can't really act surprised or betrayed when it happens. When God comes down and shakes me like a baby that can't stop crying* - I can't be mad at that when I asked for it.
Here are the things that have been impressed upon my heart within the past 24 hours:
1) I asked God for several things. I asked Him for my husband back. You see, way back when we were traveling through Unemploymentland, my husband turned into this other person that felt foreign. He wasn't the guy that I married. I was so mad. I felt deceived and angry and shaken and abandoned and afraid to trust him because if a little hiccup in life like being between jobs could shake him and turn him into this other person that I don't even want to know much less be married to...how could I trust that? Well, through this journey of being apart, my husband has gotten a good look at what life without me looks like and let's just say that he looks at that says "DO NOT WANT!" at the top of his lungs. Not that I'm that much of a prize, but together we just work. When we are both at the top of our game, we are awesome together. Anyways, the point is that I asked for him back and through this process of being separated by force he has slowly and magically returned to being the person I used to know. I just wasn't too focused on that. I was too busy being a crybaby over having to move.
2) I also asked God to change my heart and make me happy and excited for this move. I'm pretty sure I also completely sabotaged anything He ever tried to do to work in me by constantly bitching and moaning about this move. So I was smart enough to say "help me want this thing that You have planned for me even though I desperately don't want it" but yet not smart enough to let go of my fistfuls of angst and sadness so I could hold on to Him and get there. Dumb, dumb, dumb. I don't know what to tell you. I used to be a blonde and the bleach must have seeped into my brain, causing some residual brain damage.
3) I also asked God to take care of our needs. And He provided, He provided abundantly while Mr. was out of work. He provided enough for us, our extended family, people we don't know, and then some. It was like Hanukkah without the oil and lamps. And when He was done showing us how He will always tend to our needs, He blessed us even further with a great new job for Mr. I saw that, but I didn't see it enough. I didn't give it sufficient credit. I am guilty of not valuing the path He chose to show us His provision for us. My vision was blurred by incessant tears as I mourned the loss of all I've ever known.
If God had a physical voice that He had elected to speak to me with, today He would have said something like this in an incredibly exasperated tone: "Woman! I am hearing you. And I am giving you everything you asked for, and even more on top of that! Would you just look around you? Do you see how I have provided everything you need for this move, for this journey? I gave you friends to help you and hold you and love you. I gave you a ridiculously cheap moving truck. I even gave you the boxes! I gave you free packing tape from your Staples rewards card. I gave you every single little thing that you need and you STILL will not STOP complaining. I gave you your health insurance back, I gave you a beautiful brand new home on the other side of this trip, I gave you the husband that you loved and missed and wanted back. I looked down and gave you THE WORLD on a silver platter and you, you ungrateful little jerk...YOU won't let go of what you have now so I can show you all the amazing things I have for your future! Three years ago, you never thought that you would feel this way about this place. I brought you here because I had something for you to learn here and I'm bringing you there because I have something even more wonderful planned for you there. Now would you PLEASE stop your complaining and just let me work?"
Okay, okay...I hear You. Thank you for hearing me.
* never shake the baby.
1 comment:
I alternately laughed and cried reading this. I think you should come back and read it again, because it sounds like you need it now.
And I don't think your god would call you a stupid ungrateful jerk (though I think SOME people's god would - but that's not YOUR god). I think he would hold you in his gentle daddy arms and stroke your hair and shhh in your ear and tell you it's alright to cry, to cleanse your spirit, to empty your cup. And when you're finished, you can hold it out to have it filled again. I don't doubt it will be.
Post a Comment