Difficulties or Discoveries.....

The challenge of single parenting hits me at various times. I laugh at the things that frazzle me. You would think it were big things. Nope, it's trash day. My trash can is impossible. It's Amy sized. It's a 5 foot awkward beast that has no way of maneuvering. I push it and it resists every move. I try pulling it and I trip over my feet and go flying. Every Friday I go and get a good look around the neighborhood checking to see if anyone is out and about, before I sacrifice myself to humiliation!  I attempt with various ways to get it down my driveway without falling, tripping or running over my heals. I have tried picking it up on one end and wobbling it... It makes a scraping sound that grabs the attention of the jogger running by.  They look at me like I have lost my mind. But every Friday when the trash can gets the end of the driveway you will see me doing a happy dance! Because YES, I have conquered the trash can yet again.  

Empowerment, the giving of an ability; enablement or permission.  There have been moments where I have felt empowered because I gave myself the permission to figure out something new and the ability to fail at it.

It started in a puddle of tears. I wish I was kidding but I am not, and I have a friend to back me up. I called her in a panic one afternoon, sobbing because I couldn't figure out how to hook up the DVD player!  I had let a little black metal box get the best of me. I sat it to the side and a few hours later walked over with the ability to give myself permission to fail and whaa-laah... I took one little cord and attached it to the TV and DVD player. The complexity of the problem was my inability to allow myself to try and fail and then try again until I got it to work. 

We have these moments a lot. There are things we are doing for the very first time that we are now seeing the freeing power behind a new challenge to conquer.

Instead of seeing moments of unfamiliar territory we are embracing them with a sense of  discovery. 

Like emptying the vacuum. Not sure why I never had this job or why in all my existence I hadn't dumped out the full tub, but I had been spared from this task! Zadyn and I looked and looked for how to release the junk inside into the trash can. He is a thinker and problem solver so this was a great game for him! As I held the vacuum tub, he pointed to the bottom. He showed me that the bottom was suppose to open up, but how? I pushed my thumb up against one side that looked like an imprint, and without hesitation in one loud pooof a cloud of dust and dirt covered poor Zadyn head to toe. We stood in shock and laughed and laughed at not only our accomplishment but our new discovery. 

It says in 2 Corinthians 12:9-10

 “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

Life will present us with new difficulties. Some may be big like an overbearing trash can, that seem impossible to maneuver. Others may come with a messy discovery and literally blows up in our face. But the empowering moments are when we realize that with each malfunction we are rediscovering who we are in Christ. Struggle and hardships are not just difficulties, they are discoveries that empower us to surrender our weakness so we can grow in His power. 

More than enough.

Each morning I awake with swirling questions of what has taken place in my life over the last three months.  My life has changed. There are even times that I see my reflection in the mirror and it takes me a moment to decide, "Oh yes there I am." This change has been from the inside out. The life I knew instantly stopped and a new life has begun.

There is loss. There are gains.

We wake up each day depending on things to remain the same. Each morning the sunlight wakes me up reminds me that God is again saying. "Good Morning" to his world that he has set into motion. We depend on water coming out of our shower, and the lights flicking on and off. We assume the people that make up our life will be greeting us. As I rub my eyes each morning I stumble on the same things that were laying on the floor from the day before and wonder when will I get that picked up! There may be small things out of place like your car keys, phone or your kids backpack but for the most part day after day the solid things remain.

“A person will worship something, have no doubt about that. We may think our tribute is paid in secret in the dark recesses of our hearts, but it will out. That which dominates our imaginations and our thoughts will determine our lives, and our character. Therefore, it behooves us to be careful what we worship, for what we are worshiping we are becoming.” 

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Worship I have realized sometimes comes from a place of confidence in the things that surround me. I have my loving husbands arms around my waist as I sing to God, "You are more than enough." What if it were more than your car keys that fell out of place? The root of our souls are built around relationships. Some come and some go but there are ones like marriage that are suppose to be firm and solid and unwavering. What if your very foundation falls without a choice?

God is revealing his love to me in a new way. I have always know him to be a God of choices but in the midst of this new reality I have fallen deeper in love with the very freedom he has given us. Free will. Freedom to choose. We have the freedom to do anything. Our choices can either take us on a wild journey to nowhere or set us wildly free to live out His purpose. It seems crazy that he gives us the option to choose. When committing your life in marriage to someone you assume they will indeed choose you. That they have the free will to wake up each morning loving you in return. But the other reality is that they have the freedom to choose not to.

That very thing has happened. The world I once knew now looks very different. The things I thought were solid and unmovable...moved. I don't resent free will. I embrace it.  Free will molds us and shapes us into something new with each choice. It can make us or it can also break us. He gives us a choice to write our story to paint our canvas with all kinds of choices. We can choose to embrace Him and allow him to write the story for us or we can choose to write our story ourselves. The conclusion has a dramatically different effect.

God has a perfect design. He created us and then set us free to choose his love. 

 Real surrender is when you choose God to restore you and it requires letting go of what the end result may looks like.

I can run to Him in my reckless abandonment and know that he too understands the pain from loving someone when they choose something else. He allows me to see that I can surrender my heart to his restoring power. Surrendering to God is realizing that what has been broken may be restored and appear different than it did before.

It is like a dish falling from your reach and smashing all over the floor. Millions of tiny pieces are scattered. How will He ever restore it? There are still moments I look at myself and ask, "Who am I now?" I must trust that He is picking up the pieces and how He is restoring me back to a whole. I must surrender to Him the ability that what He is forming may not look like a dish anymore.

"But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?'   Romans 9:20

 In fact what if His restoration means creating something new? What if He takes the broken pieces of a dish and decided to now form it into a beautiful vase? Not only is He restoring it into something entirely different but it also may have a brand new purpose. What was used to hold something minimal may now be used as a center piece to hold flowers that are blossoming. When we surrender to His restoration we can expect that what was once broken will be restored into something brand new.

"See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?"  Isaiah 43:19

My cousin made me laugh when he referred to himself as an individual unit, by him being single. I guess that makes me a value pack! Me +4. I am excited to see what new things he has for us.  How he is creating something new with pieces of brokenness. He is already overwhelming me with his vast love for me. His love reaches beyond all loss and pain. Even when I am sitting in the tears of my brokenness his love is being thrown at me as if to surprise me. I assumed that I would experience great loss every morning as I get up without a huge piece of me. But God's unfailing love directs me each morning....

"Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you. Show me the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul. "
Psalm 143:8

Each morning the sunrise and all it's many colors seeps into my bedroom window and His light says "Good Morning, Amy" as it kisses my cheek. His love is more than enough for me. He shows me that I am not enough for the pain and loss I see in my kids eyes. That they too will have the choice to accept His intoxicating love. That He will be more than enough for them if they surrender to His love. That even though we didn't have a choice to how this would be, we accept restoration as He helps us as a value pack embrace something we do get to choose. How to take what was broken, and make it great.