The daylight is retracting on padded feet, exiting the yard with a hush, and I’m watching the woods fill up rapidly with layers of feathers in downy gusts of white. There’s a cathartic release as I watch the two transitions… All days and all years end for a new one, and oh how the Lord covers all things with refreshment, at just the right moment.
We end this year as two weary kids, tucked in by our Father’s quilt of white, warm despite the cold, fed with unbelievable heavenly morsels, made a little braver each small day this year. We’ve lasted in a sort of blurry survival mode, and many days it felt like there was just enough adrenal-sputtering to shuffle to the next place, be it work or church or the next doctors’ appointment. Truth be told, there have been so many hours unwillingly relegated to a couch this year, ‘enough’ rest to even out this sickness never seemed retainable for more than a few days at a time. As I look back at this year, I actually cannot form a timeline, cannot recall all the portions of it—it sloped and swung into unexpected places—for us as a family, making medical decisions and treading water with immigration paperwork, but also just as two humans, watching a world go through a lot of pain and uncertainty and transition for one year.
Many, many times in these last months, we have felt like the current journey looks a lot like this painting: plodding forward with all our strength, unable to move too far, but persistently hopeful, certain that we’re following Him, and filled with the knowledge that this following is what’s important, and that He will not let the waters overwhelm us.
In these months, I have heard this in your stories too. You are exhausted students, you are steadfast and sometimes at-the-end-of-your-rope parents, you are caretakers, wives and mothers and husbands and friends, but your journey was one marked with exhaustion this year, it was dusty or busy, heavy, numbing or just “off” and a bit unclear. The loss of your job pricked through your identity, the loss of your child stole your breath, the whole political climate filled you with grief and fear or anger.
We are reminded daily lately that we simply need a Savior. These things are too big, we cannot overcome them. But HE. But God. Every statement that could come after that is changed by those two words. And with His sovereign, overflowing love, all is made well. All is covered in Heaven’s down, made newly smooth and Peaceful in a way that people can never accomplish.
Jonathon and I have been reflecting this month on verses about waiting, JOY, health, community, hardship and plenty, and what trust (and the blindness that often precipitates it!) really look like. We’ve known for a while that with the ending of this December, we would be walking into financial blindness for the foreseeable future, bekoned to trust God for our provision as we serve in the callings He’s put before us, but walking out into a newly blatant sort of dependance on Him—a truly moment by moment kind. Where in the last two years, I’ve known that I had enough pledged financial partners to carry us through each month, we knew 2017 was going to begin with a huge shortfall and the reality that we cannot cover most of our needs has made us pray for eyes that ever seek Him—for hearts that will pant for Him and not lives that measure stability by provision.
This month, as God has covered our woods with unexpected blankets of snow several times, we have been reminded especially by the swirling, wing´ed birds that even the winter is filled with LIFE—jubilant creatures have frolicked about in this harsh season—the Infamous Tailless Raccoon visits us and leaves cute, wobbly trails, Stellar Jays careen past our windows, leaving a streak of indigo in our vision momentarily! We have been praying for the Lord to “bring interesting and wonderful things to our window" (a prayer Johnny began whispering many years ago), and we’ve been BLESSED with the most remarkable creatures this snowy month! On Christmas Eve, even an enormous, elegant heron swooped into the woods and alighted upon the snow-capped cedar-stump in front of the stream. Johnny saw him first, and we both went to the window and watched him. He looked straight at us, majestically arched and spread his awesome wingspan, and flew through the trees straight towards us—growing in size, gliding as he reached the house, swooshing upwards over the porch awning!! It was breathtaking, and recalled to our hearts all the messages of Hope that God Himself has connected to egrets and herons in our minds over the last years. I felt known and especially-loved.
We can be tricked into thinking of winter as a barren season, but it is a mystical time of watching nature depend on its Lord for a wayward winter-fish in the stream, for a shelter, for crisp life and air. I am reminded of the many messages in nature of dependence and of how humility brings life, how unknowing makes us capable of really walking with Him.
In Hannah Hurnard’s book Hinds Feet on High Places, even the water sings an exultant song of the joy it has found in falling down, of being brought low:
Come, oh come! let us away--
Lower, lower every day,
Oh, what joy it is to race
Down to find the lowest place.
This the dearest law we know--
"It is happy to go low."
Sweetest urge and sweetest will,
"Let us go down lower still."
Hear the summons night and day
Calling us to come away.
From the heights we leap and flow
To the valleys down below.
Always answering to the call,
To the lowest place of all.
Sweetest urge and sweetest pain,
To go low and rise again.
Nature knows this message; it exults in rhythm, in cycle, in smallness, in honest need and outcry. It waits for its Lord to usher in the change, the meal, the light, the warmth. It even allows for natural disasters, and by His design, it is the Body that is meant to help when craziness breaks loose! It is in the HUGE, blatant, messy needs that God is given opportunity after opportunity to strip away our false realities and the false things we put our hopes in, and then, when things are good and raw and fascinatingly impossible, we get to watch Him provide, from inside His presence, from humble, on-our-knees nests, like kids in awe, dropped jaws and funny grins. It is when we are brought low and crumpled that we are able to see all of what comes next from our small place on the ground.
This last week of 2016, He has begun laying a groundwork of awe-inspiring things for us to watch! In this framework of need, impossibility, and exhaustion, we see Him urging help from far corners of mystery to provide for us in ways that leave us laughing, knowing His goodness, and having to SHOUT it! We have felt g o b s m a c k e d !—The Lord has sent some of you, (we don’t even know who!)—that specifically asked to cover our rent for the month of January, and then, but a day later, we received notice of another mysterious donation, and then another from dear friends. The amounts cover the rest of the shortfall for the month of January and into the month of February! Body of Christ, thank you! We do not know who to thank, and in this anonymous generosity, it is made clear we must always thank Him! Dearones and dear Lord, we, like the winter sparrows feel so known and loved and watched over. May you, with us, remember piercingly how like the sparrows we all are. Not one will fall without His knowledge, without His deep compassion and available presence. And through the Body that compassion is fleshed out, and we prepare for one another His choicest care in the winter.
Recent things of note we’re CELEBRATING and things to PRAY for (THANK YOU, beloved friends!):
PRAISES!
-Mystery-person(s) paid our rent for January, and 2 other large gifts were given that will cover our shortfall for the 1st 2 months of the year!
-We FINISHED our Spousal Sponsorship, Permanent Residency, and Work Permit immigration applications and sent off the almost-4lb., 300+ page packet yesterday!! This is a major victory after so many hold-ups! It is a three-years-in-the-making project and we are SO relieved and grateful!
-I had a few really good health days! The fevers have stopped(!!) and we PRAISE God for these needed positively-plateaued days that help us get through the harder health days!
PRAYER REQUEST:
-My doctor asked me to begin decreasing the steroid again, now the it seems the infusion medicine has begun to work. Unfortunately even just going down half a milligram caused bad flare-up symptoms to start Thursday.
