Apple Pie & Embracing the Unexpected
I have a wise friend who says none of us have control issues: we have illusion of control issues. Ask the woman whose baby has been torn from her womb, or the one who lives in a place and time where healthy children are miracles, not assumptions. And I have felt its sting these days, the white-knuckled panic of stepping into things unknown: MRI’s and teaching hospitals and diagnoses with names I’m still learning to pronounce, uninvited reminders that I do not know what the future holds.
And I have espoused trust on the outside, and striven hard to make this trust work. I remember when I labored, swollen nine months full with my eldest daughter– this eldest, the one who skips into waiting rooms and rolls her eyes when I ask if her back hurts and tells me, with a slight hint of annoyance that forecasts teenage years a decade away, she answers, “Mom,” (as if it’s a two syllable word) “this is just the way God made me.” And when I was in labor with this child, I knew that I must relax my muscles to dilate, and I had studied up and read the book and taken the classes, and I knew in my brain how to relax, and I worked hard at it, and I down right stressed out over relaxing for many a painful hour that long night. And I could not do it.
And that long night was all I could think about last week, as I worked so hard to trust. But trust, I am learning, is not something I can produce. It has more to do with unclenching fists than careful crafting, more leaning into than laboring to construct.
And I snapped last Thursday night, and admitted I’m afraid, sore afraid. I put voice to the reality that I am willing to trust up to a certain point, and when asked to even consider the possibility that that point could appear on the horizon, I revolt, and none of this belief or understanding – the books I’ve read and classes I’ve taken, none of it means anything in the moment when fear rushes in. And I am discovering that hiding that fear under a veneer of the appearance of trust keeps me trapped there, just fear and I, alone, running circles around the what-ifs and worst-cases.
I expected the world to fall apart, when I said it, that I was afraid, and was struggling to trust God with the unknowns and the tomorrows. But it didn’t. Grace caught me, all unexpected. In the listening ears of a weary, steady husband, grace caught me. In friends who care and ask and listen, grace caught me. And in family who know how to minister deep with their prayer and apple pies, with text messages and coffee and listening presence, near and from across the country. And the comfort I receive reminds me that grace abounds, is always pulsing through this broken world, offered free and deep.
Today, I’m wondering why in the world does trouble and heartache and the weakness of my faith surprise me, and when did I become so healthy and fine… just fine, thank you, that I was not desperate for grace and living water? It is the sick who need a doctor, and this day, I am the one who is needing treatment.
I am wearied by surviving by my own sufficiency and the false comfort of all the little securities in this world. The cracking open and breaking down of all these illusions of control plunges me back into the grace, and I am thankful for the brokenness that reveals His grace. And I am grateful for the grace-givers who lead me there.
Counting Thanks Today with Ann & this sweet community:
– For my Mom’s apple pie, and the comfort of family
– For long distance prayer
– For sisters who listen
– Teaching hospitals and compassionate doctors
– Sunny afternoons jumping in leaves
– Happy play dates
– A favorite stuffed animal, dearly missed and now found
– A pumpkin chai and long talk with a new friend on a windy day
– The intersection of Operation Christmas Child and Compassion’s Ecquador Trip and the passion it’s stirring here