The Lord knows your breakthrough is taking a long time. He is waiting, too.
He knows the enemy has tried to wheedle his way in and get you on the merry-go-round of doubt:
Is it because I still haven’t learned my lesson? Is it punishment? Is it because I don’t deserve what I’ve been hoping for? Is it because someone else needs the answer more than I do? Is it because I’m too stupid to figure out the answers?
The Lord knows the lies and accusations you’ve been wrestling with. Here’s some truth to hang onto:
He is giving you the wisdom you need as you abide.
He doesn’t love anyone else more than He loves you. He’s not playing favorites.
His provision has no limits. He doesn’t have to choose between needs to fill.
His timing is protecting you from things you don’t know about, and preparing you for more than you imagine.
If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.
— James 1:5-8
You don’t have to know what you’re doing when the Lord tells you to do it.
You don’t have to wait until you have it all figured out. In fact, a lot of people do it that way but it’s just disobedience pretending to be responsible.
Yes, do some research. Figure out your first step. But if He tells you Go, then do it asap. Your joy is at stake.
Show Him you can be trusted with the little things so He knows you are ready to steward the bigger things you’re asking for, too.
You can do the thing He’s calling you to today. The big, brave thing, and the small, annoying thing. The new unfamiliar thing. The strong, steady, obedient thing.
He’s holding favor for you as you trust Him. He moves mightily on your behalf and loves your heart that pursues Him and chooses His ways over your own preferences. He is taking that surrender and molding your desires so they align with His, making it easier and easier to hear Him and know the way to go.
My soul makes its boast in the Lord; let the humble hear and be glad.
Oh, fear the Lord, you his saints, for those who fear him have no lack!
The young lions suffer want and hunger; but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.
Come, O children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord.
What man is there who desires life and loves many days, that he may see good?
Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit.
Turn away from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.
— Psalm 34:2, 9-15
There will be people out there who misunderstand you maliciously and religiously.
So caught up in their own misinterpretation, refusing to see other perspectives, eager to judge and be offended, they will miss the forest for the trees just as they have missed the point that could have broadened their own understanding.
Sometimes they cloak their condemnation with misapplied scripture to keep themselves on a high horse of self righteousness while criticizing those they know nothing about and quenching the Spirit they don’t understand.
But you will know them by their fruit, Jesus said.
So abide. Keep abiding. Keep doing what the Lord has called you to do. It is the only way we bear fruit, and our growth is helped by a good application of manure every once in a while. 😏😎
Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit.
— Matthew 7:15-17
Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.
— John 15:4-5
The Lord is not waiting for your perfection or performance to deliver you. He did not bring breakthrough or deliverance or answers to people in the Bible because they checked off all the boxes. He doesn’t deliver because we are perfect, but because He is.
Want a print-friendly version of this post? Here you go.
I never rearrange furniture, but here we were doing it, moving shelves and purging drawers and hauling a chest up two flights of stairs.
Somewhere in the process of measuring to see if everything fit, I lost the tape measure. It wasn’t clipped to my pants, wasn’t on one of the shelves, wasn’t anywhere on the floor amid the piles of stuff everywhere. So I hollered upstairs to Finn.
“Did I leave the tape measure up there? On the counter? Maybe on the kitchen island?” I heard him rummaging while I sorted stacks of unused picture frames.
“Found it! It was in the drawer!” he yelled back down.
I walked back to the stairway thinking, In the drawer? I didn’t put it in the drawer… and as I came to the foot of the stairs, he approached the top of the stairs at the same time – and an image flashed through my mind of him throwing the heavy tape measure at me down the stairs. Because he’s six, and he might do something like that without thinking.
And then he did it.
His arm moved and the tape measure hurtled down the stairs at me, and I screamed.
And then I stopped screaming as it unrolled and flitted to my feet, harmless.
Here’s what happened: I was expecting the same tape measure I had lost – you know, the heavy, metal, retractable kind – but Finn had found the tape measure I use for knitting, which is just a long, plastic ribbon 60 inches long. And that’s what he threw at me.
Life has been throwing a lot at all of us lately, hasn’t it? We often don’t realize how on edge we are, just waiting for the next blow.
We had sat through three hours of questions and exercises and tests, and Reagan had not even spelled her first name correctly. She answered the simplest of math questions wrong. When the doctor asked her how old she was, she said, “I twenty-seven,” and told him her birthday was in September. But she’s sixteen, and it’s not.
I was devastated. Ten years of parenting, homeschooling, trial and error, endless repetition, and this is what we had to show for it. All I could think was, What must this man think of our efforts as parents? It was Reagan’s assessment, but I felt like I had failed the test.
The doctor and I went over the results, her responses, her IQ, her behavior at home, the anxiety of testing, and the complications with all of her special needs. The whole time, I was bracing myself for judgment, condemnation, the pitying shake of the head, the professional condescension.
But none of that happened.
Instead, he said this:
“You and your husband have done an outstanding job with Reagan.” He paused. “The fact that she can read at all is remarkable.”
Aaaand that’s when I broke down sobbing. The weight lifted and relief flooded over me. The psychologist frantically searched for tissues, having no idea what to do with a crying woman across the desk. But he kept talking and he wasn’t just being nice; he went over all the challenges again and juxtaposed our efforts and Reagan’s abilities over them, and the result was stunning. I’m still not over it.
But what about the good things that come out of nowhere, too? What if instead of the crash you expect, the Lord has prepared a soft landing?
A friend of mine said this a few weeks ago: Have you ever braced for a hard impact only to end up getting a soft nudge that barely upset your balance? It was like that. I saw the redirection coming and I expected it would bring me to my knees, but in minutes, I could already see His plan was better than mine.
I haven’t been able to get it out of my mind since. We white-knuckle our way through these crazy days, expecting disappointment and catastrophe, resigned to the worst. But this is not the way of the Lord, and this is not what Godly surrender is.
For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.
– Romans 8:18
This brings me to a word I learned recently, so here you go:
Eucatastrophe: the sudden, unexpected, joyous turn of events.
J.R.R. Tolkien coined the term, but the eucatastrophe is all God’s doing. And this, friends, is where we’re supposed to live. Our fear can give permission to the enemy for what we dread, but our trust and expectation make way for the breakthrough.
No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. That is why his faith was “counted to him as righteousness.”
– Romans 4:20-22
Often, we have perfectly good reasons to brace for impact because we’ve seen how things play out. But we’ll have more peace in the preparation if we recognize that we serve the God of the eucatastrophe – the one who stills the storm, breaks bread for the multitude, and causes recklessly thrown projectiles to flutter harmlessly to our feet.
It is the story of Mephibosheth, the crippled grandson of a previous king who was called into the presence of King David. Mephibosheth had no reason to expect anything but slaughter for himself and his family; it was typical then to completely eliminate the previous regime’s offspring. He knew he’d been living on borrowed time, and it looked like that time was up.
He had no idea that God was already moving on his behalf, that the eucatastrophe was already in motion. He could never have imagined that King David was looking for a remnant in his family line not for the sake of hunting them down, but for the sake of showing kindness to them out of love for his old friend, his best friend…Mephibosheth’s father Jonathan, who died years earlier.
And Mephibosheth the son of Jonathan, son of Saul, came to David and fell on his face and paid homage. And David said, “Mephibosheth!” And he answered, “Behold, I am your servant.” And David said to him, “Do not fear, for I will show you kindness for the sake of your father Jonathan, and I will restore to you all the land of Saul your father, and you shall eat at my table always.”
– 2 Samuel 9:6-7
We keep expecting more situations like what we’ve already lost. But loss is not what God gives us when we turn to Him. Our losses are not compounding; they are recompensing.
Be glad, O children of Zion, and rejoice in the Lord your God, for he has given the early rain for your vindication; he has poured down for you abundant rain, the early and the latter rain, as before.
The threshing floors shall be full of grain; the vats shall overflow with wine and oil.
I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten.
– Joel 2:23-25a
I had a dream recently that Vince had been emailing back and forth with someone about a history course he offers. The man’s name was Bao Leng, and when he purchased the course, Vin said, “Bao Leng came through!” In my dream, I immediately heard the Lord say, Look up the meaning of that name. So I tried to do it, but as often happens in dreams, things didn’t work – I tried typing letters into my phone but they wouldn’t enter correctly, the search engine was all messed up, and my laptop was just as useless.
But as soon as I woke up, I looked it up. And here’s what I saw:
A breakthrough. Huh. Not like we haven’t been talking about that at all lately.
Okay, so now we have two new words in our vocabulary. Let me give you one more.
Respair: The return of hope after a period of despair.
And this is also where some of us are being called to. We were never meant to walk in fear, talking ourselves out of the big things He’s called us to instead of getting to experience the eucatastrophe of His grace on us.
She had been setting her teeth and clenching her fists for a terrible blast of lion’s breath; but the breath had really been so gentle that she had not even noticed the moment at which she left the earth.
– C.S. Lewis, The Silver Chair
Yes, situations are hard and the world right now is a circus on psychotropic drugs. But no, fear does not get to win the day. Fear doesn’t even get to take a backseat and come along for the ride. Fear needs to be shoved out the door while we’re hauling down the highway.
What if some of the struggles we’ve accepted as just part of life were actually just part of a broken mindset? What if some things are meant to be easier, and not harder?
What if the things we’ve struggled over in time-consuming labor came effortlessly in comparison? What if the path was made flat, the boulders moved out of the way, and we could spend more time enjoying the view?
What if the Lord is still turning Sauls into Pauls? Because He is, and each person transformed changes the trajectory of our culture in this era.
What if instead of bracing for impact, we braced for breakthrough?
While we endure, God is working on our behalf in ways we would never imagine. So we trust Him with great expectation. That hope is not wishful thinking; it is the powerful currency that buys us time before the eucatastrophe.
The day we met Reagan is the day we
made the decision. We’d read all the translated paperwork and what
little history there was to give us. We understood about delays,
physical, emotional, and cognitive. We knew there would be years of
catching up to do.
And then she walked into the room, and all that changed. No eye contact, a little overly compliant in some ways, and constant stimming movements that indicated institutional autism. Still, at almost seven, a toddler.
In
retrospect, the paperwork we’d received was a positive spin on
things, leaving out crucial information that we filled in later as
best we could. And I guess I followed its lead, because during that
first week of getting to know Reagan, I blogged only a few times and
put the same kind of spin in those posts. There was too much to think
about and process. And I don’t remember when Fetal Alcohol Syndrome
came into our daily vocabulary, but we knew that first day that her
needs were not what we thought we had signed up for.
That
first day, meeting her in her orphanage, we realized we needed to
make a different kind of decision.
Will you still say yes? the Lord asked us. And we did. We have said yes every day for the last ten years. It has been imperfect, victorious, clumsy, gritty, and stubborn, but it has always been yes.
So
I guess I don’t like it when professionals who are new to our
family decide to lecture me on things I have lived with all these
years while they have sat comfortably behind a desk.
“FAS can be very…ahh…” The doctor hesitated, apparently looking for the right words. “Difficult…to live with. And…long-term…there are many issues that need to be considered –”
“We adopted Reagan ten years ago, and it was a two year process. We’ve had twelve years of considering. We know what we signed up for, and it wasn’t to foist her off onto some government program as we get older.”
“Ohhh,
well, good. Yes, I completely respect that.”
But
then she hesitated again. I was pretty sure I knew where she was
trying to go, and she confirmed it with her next sentence.
“The, um, challenges involved with Fetal Alcohol damage are lifelong, and I don’t know how old you are…”
Why is it that professionals with letters after their name and only two sentences of information about our kid feel it their duty to tell a parent the obvious? Which one of us has spent years caring for the child, twenty-four seven?
Frustrated
with the beating around the bush, I brought out the chainsaw to help
her out.
“We
already know we will never be empty nesters.” No
cure, irreversible damage, yes, we get it.
“Ohhh,
okay,” she said, obviously relieved.
But
I wasn’t done. I’m not sure what kind of idiot parents she
usually deals with, or if she’s just another professional without
personal experience who assumes parents need the expertise of someone
who has spent more time studying special needs than actually living
with them. But ignorant condescension fries me.
“We’re not contacting you because we’re new at this,” I said. “We’ve been her parents for a long time. We’re not suddenly at a loss for what to do with her.”
“Oh!”
she said, surprised. “Why are
you contacting me?”
“Because
apparently Reagan needs to have this testing done in order to stay in
her current school program.” It’s a hoop we have to jump through,
nothing else.
“Oh!” she said again, and once on level
ground, we finally got into the details of the assessment.
But
really, this assessment is more than a hoop. It will be an IQ test
and several other “instruments” (alas, not the musical kind) that
test Reagan’s cognitive functioning and achievement. It will be
results, and labels, and numbers. It will be many things I don’t
really want to know, and many other things that we already know that
will suddenly, miraculously, become official because an expert who
will spend less than an hour in Reagan’s presence will finally
verify them.
Yippee.
Pardon me if I don’t applaud.
I
am completely torn about it. We adopted her to keep her from being a
cog in a wheel she would not have survived. We homeschool to keep our
kids from being plugged into systems that strip nearly all
individuality and innovation. But Reagan is now officially in high
school, and to keep her current homeschool program that she enjoys
and is gaining small measures of victory in, she must be slapped with
codes and spectrums and assessments to validate her presence there.
“It’s
just a number,” the doctor hastened to reassure me. Yes, I
agree…but it’s so much more than a number, too. It is like the
brain scan conundrum – for years we toyed with the idea of having
one done, curious about the amount of damage Reagan is actually
living with. But if we saw it, would it matter? Would it be a relief?
Or would it leave more questions than answers?
Here’s the real question: Would it remove our faith for a miracle? That’s the one that causes bile to rise and my eyes to water. Sometimes we know too much, and it gets in the way of what God wants to do.
I
had a dream once, years ago, that Reagan could speak clearly,
perfectly, just like you and me. Long, clear sentences, enunciated
words. In the dream she was an adult, a beautiful woman.
She’s getting there physically, at least. Sixteen and beautiful, but not an adult. Without divine healing, she will never be an adult.
Behold, the Lord God comes with might,
and his arm rules for him;
behold, his reward is with him,
and his recompense before him.
He will tend his flock like a
shepherd;
he will gather the lambs in his
arms;
he will carry them in his bosom,
and gently lead those that are
with young.
– Isaiah
40:10-11
Every year on her birthday I am astounded by her new age, but I think we’ve finally hit the point where it no longer surprises us and that grieves me, too, because it feels like jadedness. In a few years it’ll be, “Oh, Reagan’s twenty.” Later, it’ll be “Reagan just turned 27.” And people will continue to drop their jaws in polite disbelief, not understanding or having any frame of reference for her abilities, or lack of them, or for how far she’s come, or what she went through to make it all so difficult in the first place.
In
typing that, I pull my hands away from the keyboard, and cover my
face with them, and weep. It is the hymn of a special needs mom.
I
do not know if she will change. I do not know if we did enough, or
are doing enough. I know what I would tell a friend in the same
place, of course, and what you would probably tell me, but I also
know there are so many things I could and can be doing differently.
But like most special needs moms, I am tired. Exhausted. Overwhelmed. I feel lazy if I take a break, but I need breaks, so I take them, and then I accuse myself of laziness. I waver between radical hope and weary cynicism, and the whiplash between the two makes me dizzy and confused. The future is coming fast and I can’t control it. She will always need help, and we may not always be here to give it to her.
For
crying out loud, I know.
I
know that when we signed up for this, we signed our biological kids
up, too, and I also know that wasn’t fair for anyone. But what
Reagan was born with and went through and lives with isn’t fair,
either. For her to live at all required a family to step up for her,
and God called us to be that family.
So
there is no fairness; there is only goodness and endurance and love.
