Today I must be real. Not that I lack the place of truth where my words usually come from, but oftentimes I write upon feeling a romance with life, with God.
Today I feel no romance.
This season I feel no romance.
Practicality strikes again. I say this as though practicalities are a bad thing. I don't believe so, but I do believe my tendencies towards some all-or-nothing extremes make practicalities somewhat burdensome in to my soul, just the way that my adventures end up totally extreme with me alone in a truck stop on the other side of the country alone and penniless. Right now, though, I am not living a life of adventure on the other side of the country. I am right in the middle of the country being as practical as I can.
Daily I pinch my pennies saving for a car. Daily I press my coffee exactly four minutes after it has steeped and leave for work thirty minutes before I must clock in. Daily I search and pray and wonder what the Lord is preparing me for, what I have in my near and far future, and where the hell is this car that I've been trying so hard to buy? I have coupled my prayers with action. That is how it's supposed to go, right? Faith without works is not necessarily dead; God does not work within the confines of our own human minds. After all, He made the hills and the trees, and those kooky clouds in the sky, but I also can't sit on my booty all day and hope that a shiny car gets dropped into my lap (more specifically, a 2002 manual Subaru Impreza Outback Sport under 130,000 miles.. ehm). I must work within what I know how to do and allow God to take care of the parts that I have no control over.
Where had that gotten me?
I had a man sell a car away from me the day I told him I was going to buy it.
Another man told me he would save his car for me so I could drive down to Indianapolis and pick it up, but he sold it to someone anyway before I was going to leave for Indy.
A man at a dealer lied to me telling me he had the car I was looking for, so I drove 30 minutes with every dollar I owned in my glove box only to find out he was lying, and he actually was going to try and sell me a different car.
Another dealer blatantly lied to me multiple times this morning.
Did I ever mention that I actually had a car stolen from me? I have. Cars and me are like oil and water apparently.
In between every almost-purchase I began to leave the thought of buying a car behind. Although Abigail Von Wedge has 226,000 miles on her, radio doesn't work, I climbed in and out the passengers side for three months, she is incredibly loud, and has given me on and of troubles over the winter, I still tried to let go of the thought of a new car. Until the Lord put those new keys in my hand and nudged me to keep hoping.
So keep hoping I have. I have kept and kept and kept until now, I can't keep anymore. I can't keep hoping. I have a chiropractor trying to inject me with local anesthetics to ease the muscle pain that doesn't exist in my neck just so he can charge my insurance company. I have a dentist who seemed so wonderful send me a $180 bill for the "free consultation" I signed up for. I have people lying to me all around me.
I am being lied to, and I am also being left behind. I have friends and family getting jobs, and moving homes, and going on adventures in places I would love to be. God is blessing them immensely and bringing them their hearts desire, their place of thriving. Yet here I am, hoping and struggling to even buy a silly little car. So God, have you forgotten about me? You know the flight of every sparrow, and you count the grains of sand, but are you watching over my life? How come you haven't protected me from the men who have dashed my high hopes at those cars? How come you haven't given me peace about moving forward with anything I have prayed for?
Once again my heart hurts for being a forgettable person. Not only have I been erased from the past of others, but from the thoughts of the God of the Universe. Aren't You supposed to be the ONE in this broken world to whom I can truly feel safe and cared for by? But I don't. I have, I always have, but right now for the first time I don't.
I believe within my heart of hearts that God does not forget us. God does not forget His people. God is not confined to our own boxes and understandings. God is in the details and in the big things. He's in the blades of grass and the snow-capped mountains. God is watching us as we open our eyes every morning and brush our teeth every night. I believe that is the truth EVERY day and ALWAYS.
But my emotions teach me otherwise right now. My emotions are the most tangible thing I can hold on to in a season of life where I can't quite grab anything else.
So in this season of hopelessness, where I feel like God is being just downright forgetful and mean, I ride on my bike into the sunset of these spring evenings with my bible in my saddle bag and a blanket on my back. I marvel at the consistency of the sunset and the blaze of passionate colors that sweep the sky for only minutes. I view the Psalms through the light of my headlamp looking over the silhouette of the field before the sunset, and read aloud:
"I lift up my eyes to the hills,
From where does my help come?
My help comes from the Lord,
who made heaven and earth.
He will not let your foot be moved;
he who keeps you will not slumber.
Behold, he who keeps Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.
The LORD is your keeper;
the LORD is your shade on your right hand.
The sun shall not strike you by day,
nor the moon by night.
The LORD will keep you from all evil,
he will keep your life.
The LORD will keep
your going out and your coming in
from this time forth and forevermore."
-121
"O LORD, God of my salvation;
I cry out day and night before you.
Let my prayer come before you;
incline your ear to my cry!
For my soul is full of troubles..."
-88
"My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there were none of them."
-139
I do not feel. But I can act, and I can see; These things will help me to trust, because sometimes it's just downright hard.
