For the last year, and over the last month, I’ve been
struggling with the picture of an incapable God—a picture that my heart developed
inconspicuously over time, effecting my perspective on life, including thoughts
of a career, and about friends, and about discipleship.
·
God can't
give me a job I love, because it doesn’t exist. People go to school for years for degrees in specialized
things. Big things. I love the small things. The insignificant things. Ever been in a small group with me? I love details. Every minuscule task. Every tiny detail. My heart soars upon the exercise of
completion, of configuration of the small things. I love organization. I love creativity. But have no idea what platform would ever
allow me to be everything I love—especially when I have no idea what I want to
do. Cooking? No.
Nursing? No. Teaching?
No. Law? No. Then
what’s left? There is no way God can
structure a job that interweaves everything I love. It’s too complicated. He just can't.
·
God can't
redeem this friendship, because it’s too broken. She hurt my heart too much. She doesn't care. I was nothing. She's nothing to me now. There's no way we can recover. We don't even care about recovering what
we've lost. It's too far gone. It’s far too late. There’s no going back.
·
God can't
bring me a mentor, because my schedule is too hectic. Because it’s been two years since my last
mentor. If He could have, He would have
by now. Plus I'm way too quirky for
anyone to tolerate. This is the
south. I'm from California. I have a dirty past. What seasoned, mature Christian woman can sit
across from me at a table and not scowl at my life in judgment? Who can love me for me? Awkward humor, clumsiness, my idiosyncrasies? There could never be someone here that would
sit with me and not just tolerate me, but love me with her whole heart.
God can't.
God can't.
God can't.
Each time I've challenged God, I expected—I waited—I wanted
an answer. But I got nothing. God was quiet. And He remained quiet. God may be a lion, but just because He is,
doesn’t mean He wastes His breath on roaring at the prompting of His cubs.
And so I took His silence as agreement. “You’re quiet, because You can’t.”
What I didn’t know was that God’s silence was just a way
for Him to set the grandiose stage to give the gifts for which I longed, but
had no faith that He would ever deliver.
Oh, how God is faithful even when we are faithless!
I sit here exactly one month and one day into an amazing
job—career—that requires of me
everything in which I excel. Everything
I thought meaningless—everything I thought worthless, He’s using it. He’s letting me use it. The God Who designed the universe, designed
His daughter—what did He do? In the very
universe He constructed, for the very daughter He formed, He designed a
position with the very intent of filling it with her. It was nothing I ever imagined it would be,
because I couldn’t even fathom how great it could be, and is.
That friendship I counted as lost? He brought my friend—my sister, His daughter—back
into my life and not only do I feel close to her, but I feel closer to her now
than I did during the first season of our friendship. I love her more now than I have ever. There’s an excitement in seeing her, and an
anticipation when we’re apart. The
friendship I thought far too gone to save, God did more than save it—He rebuilt it from the ground up into this
beautiful home where deep love lives—the kind of love that is only born from
the redemption of strife. The kind of
love that comes from mended wounds.
And the mentor I thought did not exist, because she could
not exist? I just came from having
dinner with her. What’s funny is that we’ve
known each other for years. We have seen
each other, talked, and laughed, but because it wasn’t time yet, we were never
given the opportunity to go deeper.
Until now. Now is the right
time. This happened in His time. His Hand personally opened the door, and she
met me, arms open, smile wide, heart ready.
I sit here, overwhelmed.
In awe. Grateful, and
undeserving. So damningly undeserving,
because I let my can’t’s become
bigger than my God.
God can’t.
God can’t.
God can’t.
Have you ever been part of a surprise party?
Has it ever been your birthday and you thought everyone
forgot? You’re miserable. You want to go home and crawl under the
covers and complain that your friends don’t love you, because if they did, they
wouldn’t have forgotten?
And then you come home.
You don’t notice the cars hiding a block away. And you overlook the pink streamers.
Then you walk through your front door, and—SURPRISE!—there’s your best friend—the mastermind—who
carved out every detail to make you
feel loved, not because you deserve it (Hell, you just spent the whole day moping), but because they love you so much?
And then you feel like an idiot, because you wasted all
that time moping?
Yeah, I feel like the moron who just sat around
complaining about all the things I thought
weren’t being done, but, really, they were, and I just couldn’t see it—because
I wasn’t supposed to see it.
My truth is the lie that God can’t, and I let my truth
reign over my life as if it were truer than His truth.
When the real truth is…
God can’t
God is bigger and more powerful than any word, any
thought, any doubt.
And the good news is, if you’re at where I’m at, and you think
God can’t—just wait.
He loves to prove people wrong. He loves to love people. (And He’s excellent at both.)
