Meeting You in the Gap

Usually it is my husband coming to you with this kind of prayer, God, but he is so busy now, that I come into the gap. Not so much a gap though, more like a terrifying chasm and we are slipping over the edge. And we fall...

Now here in the pit, we are at the end of our wits, we are at the end of our resources, and we look up at the impossibility of the climb to freedom in front of us, and we wonder, did we misread You about this house?

Like scenes from the movie It's a Wonderful Life, here is what I see while I wait here in the pit:

• I see us trying to operate on 1/3 the income we had two years ago, not an easy feat when your income was only on the high side of modest at the start.
• I see the particular financial hardships of the last four months like firey darts hitting us, coming at us out of the dark, impossible to see and plan around, and none of them coming at us due to our own laziness, negligence, or unworthiness of success. (In other words, in this time and place, we have not been tricky, deceitful, conniving, etc. so as to invite hard times as a form of "getting what we deserve" so to speak.)
• I see my husband getting up at 3-4 am in the morning, going out into the cold dark to do work that is drudgery, then coming home at 4-5 at night to quickly change clothes so he can head out to do a second job as an official. This one will keep him busy until 8-9 pm. I also see him excited that he might be able to pick up a third job doing stadium security. He doesn't even complain about the unfairness of being down-sized nor about the unfairness of the unavailability of a job that matches his skills or ability, nor about the unfairness of the long hours, the physically taxing labor, nor the lack of adequate recompense. Oh, God, how can he be so noble? I can hardly understand it. I wonder how he can stand up under the strain of what You're asking him to prove about who he is.
• I look at my five-year-old, and then receive the comforting embrace of my 18-year-old as I cry quietly and whisper to this eldest son why his mother cries: that I'm wondering if I should destroy the illusion of Santa for the little one this year, for it is surely better for him to know that there is no Santa than for him to think that the reason he got nothing from the man in the red suit was because he was a bad kid, as the common thinking goes.
• I listen to my father, who is now supporting my sister and her kids, say to me on the phone: if you can't afford to come down for the holidays don't worry about it; and let's just skip the gift exchange. To which I said, but we already bought things for her (and now I guess his at least financially) kids back when our own kids did a school fund-raiser, and we were a little better off. He said, "Oh, well, yes, gifts for the kids." I know this was to be an offering of help, but it felt like such a loss.
• I cry out to You for answers. I'm not being bitter here, I'm really asking: did we miss Your will on this? So many other things in life have the stamp of Your intervention, You are right there with answers, bold displays of Your presence, and yet in this...no justice, no end to the hardship, no hope...

But then You remind me of things...

You remind me of the dream I had in which I was swinging on a rope in the dark, in danger but safe as long as I held on. You reminded me of this dream, months forgotten, several days ago, and the dream keeps coming back to my mind. Then today, while walking in the grocery store and looking for a way to create a supper with my last $5, I saw an ad for Dove soap. (And doves are special birds to You aren't they, birds whose moan You hear in Your compassionate heart or so says Your Word.) The ad showed a young girl standing, holding a rope that rose up, out of the picture, just like the rope in my dream. The similar imagery jarred me enough that I went back to read the ad: "She thinks she's ugly. Let's teach her the truth." I almost wept right there in the store. Then, as I drove home with my tomato soup and fixings for grilled cheese sandwiches, I saw another bilboard ad that did put me into tears: "You'll be as attached as the garage," said an ad I'd never noticed for a local realtor. But today was the day I needed to notice that ad, for in this house, the garage is completely attached!

So thank You for being faithful. Thank You for being interested and willing to comfort and console me, to even give a hint as to why the hardship is necessary. Help me learn this truth that I and others with me might not suffer one moment longer than is absolutely necessary for good to prevail.

And help Thou our unbelief! Carry us through this storm of discouragement and hopelessness. Keep speaking to us, and on a personal note--help me see the beauty You see in me...that I might live the life You've ordained for me, that I might live it well.