The Gift to Myself

All moved in. Boxes have been unpacked. Pictures have been put up, linens put away, and the cupboards have been filled with household items. Truth be told, I had unpacked everything within a matter of 48 hours. Yes, you may remark, I am a diligent task-master who despises clutter. I am also a procrastinator and I know that if I don't put things away NOW, I am never going to do it. Thus, there is now a place for everything and everything has been given a place. I feel a sense of accomplishment, a peace that I now have my own sanctuary. I have not stayed alone in my entire 37 years of life. I have always lived with family, roommates, friends, and a former husband. I both am both eager and anxious about this new stage of the journey.

With my recent acquisition of personal space comes with it the stark reality of financial challenges. How am I going to pay rent when I only have a part-time job? (I have been looking diligently, but nothing is happening as of yet.) How can I afford to pay my bills, take care of myself, and pay off loans and credit cards on my current salary? Divested of my former nurturing, healing place, I am now surrounded with the possibilities of failure. Can I do this, Lord? Do I really have what it takes? I began this journey with a sense of adventure and boundless hope. I gave up my wedding rings and received help from my parents to make this move possible. Through a set of certain circumstances, I felt the Lord releasing me from my former place of residence and calling me to take a step out of my comfort zone. As all things are when they are beyond one's sense of security, I felt vulnerable and insecure. I assumed that God had a linear plan of change for my life, i.e. "A then B then C," rather than, "A, then B, then P." It unnerves me when God chooses to work this manner. Can't He just operate in ways that I understand and control?

For the first time since my divorce, I am forced to look to God SOLELY for my source of provision and comfort. My safety net is gone and I have nowhere to go but to HIM. Instead of calling me out and immediately attending to my perspective of urgent needs, He is slowly and painstakingly stripping me of my creature comforts and making me aware of loneliness, hunger, and desperation. This isn't what I signed up for. I thought that after everything I have gone through within the past few years, I would receive complete release and stability. I forget that the righteous (of whose group I include myself rather insecurely and whose membership is only through God's grace) are often persecuted, reviled, fearful, and uncertain. David lived in the wilderness for three years worried that King Saul would find him and kill him. Paul spent years of his ministry in chains, in sickness, and in fear of his life. Abraham was called to sacrifice his beloved son, Isaac, before it was thwarted by God's angel at the eleventh hour and Joseph was handed over to slave-traders and imprisoned before he became Egypt's second in command.

The quiet space of my little apartment surrounds me with both hope and fear. The hope is that this season "to shall pass" and the fear is that it might not. I give myself the gift of grace today to view myself through God's perspective, rather than through the world's eyes, and the freedom to see beyond present circumstances to the promise of a new day. This is what I can do at this moment…no more and no less.