Eight months!

Just a quick post today to proclaim God's goodness as we passed the eight-month mark for this deployment this last Monday.  Sometimes I have no idea how we all make it to the end of the day, but by God's grace, somehow we do.  The weariness has set in, and I am continually amazed at how the Lord provides what I need when I just don't feel like I can keep plodding forward.  A recent example-- I was struggling with frustration over homeschooling this week. After begging God for wisdom (He promised to give it generously and without reproach! James 1), the name of an older homeschooling mom from church came to mind.  I called her to see if I could make a phone date to talk with her after I got my kids into bed, and she ended up driving quite a distance to bring me a mocha and talk in person that night.  Her words were, "I will be there in an hour with coffee and the Holy Spirit."  She was a tremendous instrument of grace, and I cannot begin to adequately thank the Lord for her.  She helped me remember why I homeschool in the first place-- something I was struggling to remember in the midst of the weariness.

So the Lord keeps pulling us through, day by day.  How would we make it without Him?  I honestly don't know.  I'm very, very thankful I won't ever find out.  He said He'd never leave me or forsake me.

For now, we plod on toward the nine-month mark!

Seek Me like that...

Psalm 63:1-- "O God, You are my God; earnestly I seek You; my soul thirsts for You; my flesh faints for You, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water."

Every new year I ask the Lord for a verse that can be my theme for that calendar year.  As we approached this January, I began praying for that verse.  The verse written above was very present in my mind:  "O God, You are my God; EARNESTLY I seek you..." (emphasis mine). The verse the Lord gives me is always providential as the year unfolds, and it is starting to become an adventure in my own heart to see how the Lord will use a particular verse.  Last year's verse was Ps. 73:26-- "My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever."  At the beginning of 2008, I wondered why the Lord would give me that verse, but on December 31, 2008, I knew that I had needed that ballast when my heart and flesh did fail often, even daily, through a very difficult year.  The Lord graciously never lets me see ahead, but looking back I always see His providence in the verse He selects for me.

So what about this year's verse?

This last December, as I was trying to think of a gift idea for Paul, I decided that I would transfer many of our old videotapes onto DVD.  Paul has a DVD player in his office in Iraq, so I knew it was a gift he would enjoy!  Our old 8mm camera had broken, so I spread the word among some friends that I would like to borrow one.  Sure enough, one family from church brought me theirs to borrow the next Wednesday night, and I was sure I could give Paul a really precious gift!

That night I went home, put the kids to bed, and started searching for the old videotapes.  I thought I knew where I had put them, but when I looked, they were nowhere to be found.  I was literally up all night, searching and crying as I tore the basement workshop apart looking for the lost tapes.  I was frantic.  I was very concerned that all of our video memories-- the kids' births, their first steps, their little antics-- were gone.

I think the stress of the last seven months all culminated in that one night.  I had finally hit my breaking point, and I cried for hours.  I could not imagine what had happened to those tapes.  I felt crushed and bewildered.  Where could they be?  I couldn't even begin to imagine.

I finally gave up my search-- exhausted and spent emotionally.  I had spent too much time looking for them already and the search was just going to have to wait until after Christmas.  I resigned myself to the fact that I wouldn't be able to make the DVD's for Paul after all.

Paul arrived home on Christmas Eve, and we had a wonderful Christmas together.  The only thing he REALLY wanted for Christmas anyway was just to be with us, and God gave us that gift!  Those missing tapes were never far from my mind though, and I was itching to get back downstairs and resume my search.

A few days after we made the jump into 2009, my dear husband agreed to spend a couple of hours with me in the workshop, sorting things and giving me some direction on the piles, bins, and boxes.  We have never lived in a house longer than three years, so I've never had the opportunity to collect and store and pile.  However, we are nearing three years in this house, and stuff has started to accumulate.  Coupled with my rampage through the workshop in search of the lost tapes, that space was an absolute disaster.

Paul and I went downstairs, put on some music, and got started.  With each box I opened, my heart sank a little more because I still hadn't found those tapes.  I was beginning to run out of places they could be.  I was even crying again, but my rational husband kept saying, "They've got to be here somewhere."

After two hours of working, Paul took the kids to go do some errands before dinner.  I set a timer and decided to search for another half hour.  I started into the "keepsake" boxes where all of the "memories" are stored-- the place I thought I put the tapes in the first place.  That would make sense, right?

I came to one last box-- a box I had searched in four times already, and the place I thought I had put the tapes last summer.  There, at the bottom, were all of the videotapes-- right where I had thought they should be all along.  I had looked in that box, dug through the box, practically torn the box apart, but I had missed them during my frantic search in December.  I haven't lined up the dates, but I think they are all there-- about 15 of them.  I was absolutely stunned.

As I stood at my kitchen sink a few minutes later, I began asking God what He wanted me to learn from this whole experience.  Why wouldn't I have seen them?  That was where I thought I had put them originally, and I had looked there so many times.  How could I have been so blind?  How did I not see all those tapes?  Was there a reason He didn't allow me to see them that night?

The Holy Spirit had one phrase for me:  "Seek Me like that.  Seek Me like that."

I have only heard that phrase once before.  Several years ago, a friend in a Bible study gave a testimony about losing her wedding ring diamond while she was out shoveling snow.  As she frantically searched through sparkling snow for the lost stone, the Holy Spirit had clearly said to her, "Seek Me like that." 

I haven't thought about that testimony in a long time, but when I asked the Lord what I was supposed to take from this, He VERY CLEARLY reminded me of that phrase--"Seek Me like that.  Seek Me like that."

"But, Lord, I dug through the dust and cobwebs and old memories and accumulated junk like a mad woman.  I was frantic and unconcerned about anything else but finding those tapes.  Why didn't I see them then?  I have thought about them constantly." 

 I was sobbing by that time.

"Seek Me like that.  Seek Me like that."

OK, Lord, I'm listening.  I think I finally understand...

"O God, You are my God;   EARNESTLY I seek You..."

 

Back to the Five of Us...

Paul left again today after fifteen wonderful days at home on leave, and it is now just the five of us again for several more months.  It was so hard to see him go.  The good-byes are very draining. I relished just being a complete family again-- doing typical family things.  We didn't do a lot of extra things while he was here, but we had a great time together.  We especially enjoyed the gift of celebrating Christmas as a family!  The other highlight of the last two weeks was taking the kids on a road trip to Great Wolf Lodge.  We had a fantastic time, and Isaac was just big enough to go on all of the slides in the water park!  We made some precious family memories those days.  The balm to my heart today has been the hope that the next time I see my dear husband, Lord willing, this deployment will be finished.

As I beg God for grace to sustain us through this continued separation, I continually reflect on four verses.  They are verses the Lord has given me over the last few years as I have sought a theme verse for each new calendar year.  They all speak to me about who I am in Christ and the joyous blessings He bestows on me as His child.  I would like to share them here as I begin this new year.  The parts in bold print are the phrases that have come to mean so much-- my "ballast phrases" on long days.  If you have a "ballast verse or phrase" that sustains you, I would love to have you add it in the comments at the end of this post!

John 15:14-16--"You are my friends if you do what I command you.  No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.  You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you."

Psalm 73: 25-26-- "Whom have I in heaven but you?  And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.  My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever." 

Hebrew 4:15-16--"For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.  Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need."

Jude 24-25--"Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever.  Amen.

May the Lord continue to make His name very great as we plod on day by day.