Because God is always good

{If you’re subscribed here via email you probably found a few old posts popping up in your inbox.  I finally finished up a few posts I’d started after the kitchen was remodeled and left them with the original date so they’d stay in chronological order.  Yes, I’m a bit obsessive about things like that. 🙂 If you’re not subscribed, scroll down past the recent posts about Zara to see pictures of our brand new kitchen!}

I think we all thought our crazy life would certainly take a turn for calmer days.  But life remains anything other than boring.

Sunday night after the boys were in bed (one of the biggest perks of the school year? Early bedtimes!), David and I were talking about our future.  We discussed different things, but one thing was clear.  We felt our time here at camp would continue for a time and one of the things we discussed was what he could be learning in order to better serve camp.  Sometimes I really fight my limitations and inability to get involved.  David and I would love to be able to work more as a team, especially when he does in-home visits.  I have several web pages rumbling around in my head and long for down time to be able to flesh them out.  But I am only one person and right now it takes everything I’ve got just to be a mom and a teacher.  I absolutely love being a mom and wouldn’t trade it for the world.  I just wish I could go without sleep so I could find time to do everything I want to do. 🙂

On Monday I called Adam’s pediatrician about a strange dark line that appeared in one of his fingernails.  I’d ignored it for almost two months, assuming it was some kind of mineral deficiency or minor trauma (he’s a boy, right?) and waited for it to grow out.  It didn’t. According to the all-famous-currently-my-enemy-google, a dark vertical line often indicates melanoma in adults, particularly after a certain age.  I searched and searched and finally found an article on kids that said it is most often a benign (2 out of 19 kids were malignant in one study) mole, but one that must be monitored closely because of the chance of melanoma developing.  There were horrifying articles that talked about shave biopsies versus punch biopsies and the risk of permanently losing your nail because of damage to the nail bed.  And of course the terrible, I had to have my finger amputated kinds of stories. The pediatrician said to go straight to the dermatologist.

When I called, they asked a few questions and whether I was particular about who I would see.  I didn’t know anyone so I said no.  They recommended seeing a physician assistant so that we could get an appointment this week instead of waiting until December and said a doctor would need to come in the room anyway.  My heart dropped a little at the urgency.

{The view through my kitchen window the morning before Adam’s appointment. I’ve never seen a sunrise create a vertical line like this.  It felt like such a visual reminder that God already knew all about the etiology of the vertical line in Adam’s nail and his future is still brightly colored.}

An hour after I’d called the dermatologist, our renters called and said things were working out for them to take early retirement.  They’ll be out of our house the end of January.  David and I are thrilled for them and so happy that they get to go home to their own lovely home in South Carolina.  But we are equally sad to see them go! They have been the most incredible renters you can imagine!

Monday night’s conversation was about our future also, but it had quite a different tune.  “So, what are we going to do?” I asked.

“Oh, that’s easy,” said David. “We’ll call Marjorie (our fabulous realtor) tomorrow and put it on the rental market.  If that doesn’t work, we’ll sell it. And if that doesn’t happen, then we’ll move back. I’m certainly not going to lose any sleep over it.  If God wants us at camp, He’ll take care of it.”

I didn’t lose any sleep over it at night, but in the daytime, I’m in the market for some testosterone. 😉

E.ver.y.thing seems to once again hinge on the unknown, just like it did when we felt we were supposed to come to camp and put the house on the market in the first place.

One minute I’m thrilled at the potential of living in Virginia again.  The next I’m cringing at the enormous work of moving out of state again. And I’m wondering what happened to the sure feeling we had about David’s work not being finished here.

But when I strip away all the emotions, it really is as simple as David said.  I believe with all my heart that God has good in store for us.  I also believe that He will show us very clearly what He wants us to do.  I just struggle with the way He seems to show us at the last minute.  I’m the girl who buys a 2015 planner in November. I’d like to know now what is going to happen so I can start planning, you know. If it were up to me, I’d choose most anything over living in limbo.

But maybe that’s missing the point.  Maybe we’re supposed to have this time of unknown to wrestle through what is in our hearts and to have the opportunity to get to know the Father heart of God even better.  If I’ve learned anything in the past three years it’s this.  No matter how long or how dark the unknown is, there is no place safer or more sure than to know you are in the center of the will of God.  Even when it doesn’t make sense.  Even under all the questions that pop up in my mind.  Even in the moments when it all feels like life could get turned end over end … there is an underlying settledness that brings you back to a place of rest.

David has been reading George Mueller’s story to the boys the last few days.  It is a riveting story of faith and of a man who prayed and believed when there was no evidence to go on. Today in Sunday School we talked about Ruth.  I’ve always loved her story, but this time with all that is swirling in my own brain I found it riveting how much Ruth believed God would bless her.  Ruth tells Naomi she will go and glean in the field of one with whom she will find favor.  And in the next verse she is gleaning and it says she happened to be in the field of Boaz.  No conniving.  No asking, what is this owner like.  Ruth simply acted on the belief that God would take care of her.  Fundamentally, that’s what it all comes back to.  If I believe that God is good, I won’t be afraid. Ruth had every right to doubt God’s goodness.  Her husband dies.  Her brother in law dies.  Her mother in law moves home, a completely foreign country and culture for Ruth, because she hears there is once again bread in Israel and Ruth decides to go with her.  And yet when they get back they are hungry and without bread.  Apparently there weren’t any huge welcome back grocery showers happening.  Not only that, her mother in law is so upset at everything that has happened she changes her name to bitter. Yet Ruth chooses to live out of the belief that God is good.

Because He is God, He is good.

We’d love if you’d join us in praying that we would be able to cut through all the voices of our own desires and our own plans for the future and that we would hear clearly what God wants for us.

Adam’s appointment was like having google come to life.  The dermatologist looked at it and said he feels confident it’s a mole in his nail bed.  The fingernail emerges through the mole and thus carries the color with it as it grows.  Come back in six months to have it re-evaluated.  Then he looked at it again.  Actually, come back in four. We went from there to Zara’s appointment with the pediatrician.  He is still very concerned about her.  I’m discovering that having a child with an illness is enough to make you irrational.  Every time I’ve pretty much convinced myself she’s okay, we see a doctor who is convinced she’s not.  The irrational side of me wants to run away, the same way I wanted to take her and run right back out of Johns Hopkins where no one could say things I didn’t want to hear.  Apparently I’m not the only one who feels that way. When we pulled in for her first follow up appointment, I snatched the first available parking space.  Adam looked up and said, “Um, don’t park here.  Remember what happened last time we parked here?”

I mentioned Adam’s dermatologist appointment to her pediatrician who wanted to take a look.  He studied it for a bit as I explained what the doctor had said.  “That’s very unusual,” he said.  We were ready to walk out the door when he pulled me aside and said, “Let me look at that nail again.  Watch that closely and if he develops anymore of them or a fever bring him in right away.  It looks a little bit like a splinter hemorrhage and could be a sign of endocarditis.”

SERIOUSLY. Can we please just not hear about one more wierd thing that happens to kids for a looooooooooooooooooooong time?

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