Oh, what an interesting week. As you may recall from earlier posts, we’re struggling financially. My husband’s six months of unemployment last year sunk us and, even though he is working now (thank God!), we’re unable to play catch up or even make ends meet. To top it off, things keep breaking. Since mid-December, we’ve had two vehicles die, completely die, and another one that keeps needing a fix. This past weekend the car’s heater went out…the week before that the wheel bearings needed replacing. Something…I can’t remember what, needed fixing before that. $200-$500 a pop, of course. Most graciously (and probably miraculously), God restored our twice broken furnace…at least we’re warm. We can’t get anywhere (for the car is always in the shop), but we are warm.
On Monday I started combing job boards. With a fast sinking ship, one needs to find a new way to bail or go under. I’m willing and ready and found some places to submit my resumé. As I pray, though, I keep hearing “No, do not look for work”. Well, that just doesn’t jive with what our closely tracked income and expenses is saying…that just doesn’t make a lick of sense. Does God want me to sit back and not pay some lenders? Does He want us to lose the house or make it improbable that Charlie and Emily will to go to college next year? I mean REALLY!!!
So, earlier this week, while home alone without a car/unable to go anywhere I prayed fervently asking for a clear answer, one I couldn’t second guess. “Shall I work?” was my question. I’ve been known to ask God to speak through a coin flip before and did so again. This time I went for two out of three flips. What did I get? Two tails in a row clearly said ”no”. Later that day, I sat down with my husband, Rich, and we talked about the “question” and I posited to him flipping a coin for an answer (without telling him of my coin flipping earlier in the day). He warned me that I needed to be able to surrender to whatever God said through the flip…that I had to be willing to live with the ramifications of the answer. Eagerly, and almost assuming I’d get a “yes”, we watched as the coin spun in the air, was caught and flipped on the back of my hand. Two tails in a row, not a head in sight. We got a “no”, a clear answer…one we couldn’t second guess. It even solidified the answer I got earlier in the day…God was making it clear, He doesn’t want me working. In response I sunk into the couch, deflated, flabbergasted and almost sick. We didn’t say much after that, not much to say…the links related to job openings remains tucked in the draft folder of my email…somehow I cannot, just yet, delete them. I’m obeying, but clinging to my way out of this too…not pretty, but there it is.
Yesterday, I swear I heard God say to do my Beth Moore Bible study…that He had a word in it for me. I was plenty behind (I missed class this week, as the car was in the shop) and had a truckload of time, so I sat down and dug in. And there it was, clear as a bell a ringing in my ear. In Moore’s study on the book of Daniel, she has participants turn to 1 Peter 5: 6. The verse leapt off the page and spoke directly to my heart:
Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.
So, there it is, the final word and, of course, God gets the final word. So, I submit, watch and wait. I bow and beg. I wonder why, I wonder how, I wonder if, I wonder when. I cannot see, but then again, I’ve surrendered to One who can see and whose Hand is mighty. I guess that is enough. I guess it is time to delete those job posting links…
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