Chronic Blessings (eBook)

CHAPTER ONE

According to Plan

“Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand.”
– Proverbs 19:21, ESV

Even as a child, I loved the sense of accomplishment I felt after a lot of hard work. There were days that I was too busy to play; but believe it or not, I genuinely enjoyed those times. I felt proud of being responsible for many things.

Conveniently, that came with the territory as we were a busy family, living in the country with a lot to do. I have two older sisters and a younger brother, as well as another girl who I will always consider a sister because she lived with us for years. Besides work around the house, we kept busy helping in the garden, working on my grandpa’s farm or cleaning houses with my mother.

When there wasn’t work to be done, there was plenty of fun to be had; go-carts, scooters, building forts in the woods, swimming in my grandpa’s bowl-shaped pool in the summer and riding bikes in it during the winter. With my grandparents living on one side of us and my great aunt and uncle on the other side, we had plenty of land to roam.

When I was 12, my sisters were away staying with relatives due to poor schooling options in our area, and my mother became sick with Lyme disease. I hated that my mom was suffering, and she hated that so much of the burden of the household fell on me. But I didn’t mind the responsibility. The feeling of being needed was something that gave me joy, and I gained a lot of satisfaction when I was able to prove to my family that they could depend on me. Because I have a caretaker personality, I found that I enjoyed this feeling more than the fun of play.

Maybe that’s why I dreamed so much about children. Marriage was definitely important to me, but what I thought about most was taking care of my children. I wanted three to five kids, and I wanted at least one of them to come to me through adoption. To me, the thought of having a family without adoption in the picture was something I couldn’t fathom. Two of my mom’s brothers, my dad’s sister and one of my own sisters were all adopted. Having been raised with such a beautiful culture of adoption, it simply seemed like a natural part of having a family.

I did dream of having a good job, but it was more important to me that the job would be able to take a backseat to raising my kids. As I entered college, I dreamed of living overseas as a missionary—not necessarily long term, but for a couple of years at least. I wanted to take my kids on mission trips and open their eyes to the world around them. I longed for them to live lives of service with an outward focus, like Jesus did.

It all seemed so simple then, but maybe that was me being one of those annoying, make-you-want-to-gag kind of people who had a pretty easy, uncomplicated life. I had the best parents ever, and amazing siblings; I even had four incredible, healthy grandparents. Of course, my family and I went through difficult times, but overall, I had it good—so stinkin’ good. I planned everything out, and everything went according to my plan. Decisions came easily to my clear, focused mind.

By my senior year of high school, I knew exactly what career I wanted. I began working toward that goal the summer before college actually started—no time, class, or money wasted. College was a blast, not only because I got good grades and had great friends, but also because I received scholarships for working with campus ministries and playing women’s fast pitch softball.

My first day of college, I met the love of my life, whom I have now been married to for 20 years. Greg was—and is—God’s perfect match for me, and I didn’t even have to wait for him. He is the kind of guy who makes me laugh, even when I don’t want to. He is easygoing enough to go with the flow of my type A agenda, yet not too laid back that he drives my type A personality mad.

He was totally on board with my very clear goals in life, and even though we were practically babies when we got married (20 and 21), we stuck to those goals. Just days after my 23rd birthday, I graduated with my masters in physical therapy, and two years later he finished college as a physician assistant. We were living in Ohio, and we had purchased the most adorable little house I have ever seen. We had incredible friends surrounding us. Life was good.

Sickening, isn’t it? Easy. Too easy actually. When everything in life is a piece of cake, and all is well around us, we tend to keep our eyes on the things of the world. What we truly need is to be looking up. When we don’t look up—or don’t look up enough—God loves us enough to allow us to fall so low that we don’t like what we see on our own level. Eventually, when we get sick of crawling around in the mud, we will look up to see if there is something better.

When my vision becomes too horizontal, I am grateful for a God who loves me enough to give me mud.

A couple years after Greg and I were married, we were part of a weekly Bible study and prayer group with a few friends. We were blessed with amazing men and women in our lives who had very deep connections with God. You would think being surrounded by people like that would have strengthened one’s faith. Oddly enough, it seemed to weaken mine. Because of their deep relationships, these friends often shared stories of God’s presence and the way He spoke to them. They were beautiful stories.

And they made me mad.

Why was God talking to everyone else but me? I felt like I was pursuing God. I was going to church, praying and meeting for these Bible studies. So … what was the holdup? Why didn’t I get to experience God the same way that my friends were?

I struggled with this for a long time, and began to have a crisis of faith. I called out to God and did not receive answers. At the time, I could not understand it. Why was God so utterly silent?

Looking back, I am now convinced that He didn’t speak because I did not sincerely see my need for Him. All was going smoothly, and I was so self-sufficient. I needed these friends and their maddening, sickeningly sweet stories of their talks with God to clue me in to what I was missing. I needed His silence—combined with examples of what a relationship with Him could look like— to make me truly seek to know Him personally.

I continued to struggle with His silence. At one of my lowest points in this journey, we went with a group from our church to Willow Creek, a megachurch in a northwest Chicago suburb that was founded by Bill Hybels. They were having a youth leaders’ training session, and for some reason (that is totally beyond me now), I thought I’d be interested in working with youth. The music and worship atmosphere there was powerful, and I was swept up in the experience. I felt alive because I could feel God’s presence in that church and in myself. It was a spiritual high point. I was grateful—and also relieved—that God had once again made Himself known to me.

However, by the next weekend, when we were back at our own church, I felt dead again. Dead and angry. Angry at God, and angry at myself. Why did I need some big production in order to feel His presence? And had it even been His presence in the first place if I could no longer feel Him?

I found myself sitting in a bathroom stall, staring at the walls for what seemed like forever. I began yelling at God, “Where are you? Why have you left me alone?” In an attempt to pull myself together, I’d walk out of the bathroom, only to start crying again and run back in. Each time I’d endeavor to exit the bathroom, Greg would say, “Let’s just go home.”

But I couldn’t. I was desperate. I wanted to stay … I needed to stay.

Eventually, I pulled myself together and walked into the sanctuary. The sermon had already started, and we sat down in the back. I listened with rapt attention as the pastor continued …

“Such a dark, cold, lonely pit. How long did Joseph stare at those walls and cry out to God, ‘Where are you? Why have you left me alone?’”

Chills ran down my spine as I recognized those exact words. Pulling myself together had been pointless because now I was bawling all over again.

Poor Joseph had been thrown in that pit by his brothers and was about to be sold into slavery and taken to Egypt.

How could I compare that to my life?! I was nowhere near Joseph’s desperate situation, but I sure could relate to how he felt in that pit. I thought God had left me alone.

Joseph likely thought the same, but God had incredible plans for Joseph. He would be second in command of Egypt. He would save his family, his people and the Egyptians from starvation. Sure, he was also going to be ripped away from his family, forced into slavery, accused of rape and imprisoned for years. It would not be easy, to say the least. I’m sure it was not what Joseph dreamed of when he planned his future, but I doubt at the end of his life that he would have had it any other way. He would consider all of the trials and pain he had endured as worth the cost.

Looking at Joseph’s life, it felt a bit silly to have been so upset over God’s silence. Yet I was still relieved that He had chosen to make Himself known to me through Joseph’s story. It is hard to truly convey the power of that moment and how it renewed my faith.

I was now able to recognize God’s presence more frequently— without the need for a big...