Month: October 2020

Facing Impossible

Yesterday I suddenly became overwhelmed with all of the impossible we are facing right now.

We have been driving two vehicles since the end of June when we swapped our dying 15 passenger van for a minivan. We look regularly for another big van but everything we’ve seen is either way beyond our budget (which is pretty low) or is very far away from home.

We live in a province that is not seeing an increase in hospitalization or deaths from Covid-19 and is in fact looking at fairly low numbers in general but are being placed under increasing restrictions due to rises in positive cases in certain regions of the province. One restriction directly affects our family and many others as the newest order does not allow people to have more than six people visit their home. We have eight kids. Under this order, we would not be allowed to visit anyone else in their home.

We have a house that feels as though it is falling apart bit by bit. The list of projects continues to grow, right at the time when I’m starting to feel like we need to look into selling and finding something more suitable for us. Again, money must be spent, and we don’t have a whole lot.

There are other situations we are in the middle of that also feel impossible – no matter which way I play them out in my mind or talk them out with Mike, I cannot see how they will be accomplished.

I took a bath yesterday and put on an unfamiliar worship playlist from Spotify. The first song was one we sang in church on Sunday: Yes, I Will. The chorus rang out and the tears started flowing:

“Yes, I will
Lift You high
In the lowest valley
Yes, I will
Bless Your name
Oh, yes, I will
Sing for joy
When my heart is heavy
All my days
Oh, yes I will”

My heart is heavy and I feel as though we are in the lowest valley right now. I know I need to lift Him up regardless of all of this but it’s not easy.

Then Rattle played: “Since when has impossible ever stopped you?”

I have seen God deal with the impossible in my life before. I’ve seen Him do it in the lives of others as well. Why do these mountains feel so big? Why does it all feel like too much?

Each of these situations on its own may not pull me down but it’s a bit overwhelming right now when they all present themselves in front of me as things that cannot be solved with anything I do. And I know this is true – I cannot stop the government overreach or lack of transparency going on in response to Covid in Canada. I cannot instantly acquire $30,000 to buy the van I’d really like and another $50,000 to fix all the things wrong with my house. I cannot make all of those other situations play out perfectly or disappear, no matter how hard I try.

In Matthew 19, Jesus told His disciples that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. They marveled and asked, “Who then can be saved?” He said to them, “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

All things are possible with God.

All things are possible with God.

All things are possible with God.

I’ve been in the habit for the last year of telling mountains to leave in the name of Jesus. Mountains of migraines, cancer, illness, depression, etc. And sometimes I have seen healing happen after those commands. I just haven’t been very good at telling my own mountains to be cast into the sea.

And even with all my prayers of “God, fix this! Deliver and protect us! Provide! Give us direction!” I will admit that my faith in His response has been weak. I have struggled to really believe that we will be delivered, protected, provided for, directed. I need to build my faith and at the same time let these things go and stay in His hands instead of constantly pulling them back out to worry over.

I think we’re all facing mountains right now, in one way or another. Some are very personal and others are societal. We look around at the world we’re living in right now and sometimes it’s hard to feel a lot of hope. Facing the impossible has only one response – give it all to Him and let Him deal with it. When we need to act, He will show us what to do, but if we try to hold it all and lean on our own understanding, we will flounder and become overwhelmed.

I will admit that even writing this I have a hard time believing that it’s all going to be sorted out. That’s because I think with my finite mind and cannot see what is going on behind the scenes in the spirit. He is working on these things even when I cannot see or feel it.

“Even when I don’t see it, You’re working
Even when I can’t feel it, You’re working
You never stop, You never stop working
You never stop, You never stop working”

I sing these words easily enough but it’s time to start believing them.

Silence

It’s not that I’ve been avoiding this place. I haven’t been feeling well this last month and have only had one or two times when I had an idea for a post at all. This one came weeks ago but today I decided it was time to dive back in.

I had to make a doctor’s appointment and at the moment, they all start out with a phone appointment where they decide whether you need to come in or not. My house is full of noisy people (crazy, hey?) and so when I got my appointment time booked, I took my Bible and notebook out to my van and closed myself in. I could have gone into my room and locked the door but every time I do that, there is an inevitable fight that breaks out or a demand on me that I can’t ignore.

When I shut the door to the van and settled in to read my Bible while I waited for the phone call, I realized just how quiet it was. I hardly ever experience real quiet. I try to get up before the kids in the morning, and most days I succeed, but usually only by ten or twenty minutes. My daughter gets up before me anyway, so she is often around and wanting to talk. In our house, the little kids go to bed between eight and nine but the baby doesn’t go down until after ten and the oldest five kids go to bed when they want to – sometimes as late as midnight. They are supposed to stay quiet but we recently had to move the oldest boys out of their bedroom downstairs and into the family room there. So now they are directly below the living room and my bedroom, meaning late night quiet isn’t really a thing either.

I soaked up the quiet in the van for around fifteen minutes before the phone rang. I thought about how silence is a bit scary to me at times – I just want to fill it with music or speech or something to laugh at. But I know it’s needed, especially with a life like mine, full of people and sound.

It has been a trying six weeks. I developed gastritis from the stressful situation I was in at the beginning of August and haven’t fully shaken it yet. We had a bit of busyness that was unavoidable and I got wrapped up in things that only distracted me from opportunities for silence and reflection.

When I was a teenager, I went to twice yearly “silent retreats.” Now this didn’t mean that we were literally silent the entire time and didn’t fellowship with each other, only that we had hours at a time to go off by ourselves and be quiet before the Lord. Ideally, I would have time each day to read the Word and talk to God in the silence before my kids get up, but I have learned that some stages in life require creativity.

This is not profound or anything, just a reminder to get away in silence now and then. We live in a noisy world – kids or not – and a little bit of silence is a beautiful gift to ourselves.