Parenting a newborn,
Living dollar to dollar,
Caring for someone dying,
Shouldering too big a load,
Drowning in debt,
Grieving unexpected loss.When I gave up my education career to move to a small town across the state--simply because I thought God asked me to--I moved into this adrenaline neighborhood. What I never saw coming was that two of my children would leave us to finish high school with their dad and nearly every day I would wonder how we were going to make it.
I know the adrenaline of survival.
And mine wasn't a shadow of what reams of people the world over face every waking moment: hunger, no shelter, war on their very streets, rampant disease, and the list goes on.
Does God care for us?
It is hard to find him in those moments where it feels that adrenaline is the only momentum.
It is sort of surprising to remember that he created that adrenaline, the very drug-like substance that keeps us alive moment to moment on our most harrowing days and months.
He purposed that very function, knowing that over and over our hearts, minds and bodies would need to turn to it.
For me, he added the most important question that cycled through my mind for close to 20 years:
Do you have enough for today?When I wasn't secretly screaming at him or overcome by fear of my circumstances--when I let the question take over my mind--I would have to answer yes.
Then...silence.
I learned that my yes to his question was all I was going to get and that he expected it to be enough.
More adrenaline...and crazily, another day of survival.
If you get to move into the next phase, where there is:
A good night's sleep,
Enough money to see to the end of the month,
A poignant look back at the loved one's life,
A lessening of the load,
A debt solution,
Space and strength enough to breathe through the unexpected loss,You will wonder how in the world you made it.
There is no explaining the twists and turns that God trumps with his grace and guidance.
I can only say thank God for adrenaline and for knowing better than I.
I might even one day say, Thank you for that suffering journey.
Comments are welcome at feedyourstrength@gmail.com.
