| | My Impossible Home -- A Refiner's Fire
I was looking at this book
again recently, hoping to find something to get me on the right track spiritually
again. I hope I turn the book back
up. In the meantime, I will recall what
stood out to me just the other day. She
was talking about Psalm 139. Here, let’s
look at some of the particular verses right now, verses 13-16:
For You created my inmost being;
You knit me together in my mother's womb.
I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
Your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from You
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
Your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in Your book
before one of them came to be.
She said the words, “inmost
being” had something to do with our personalities, what we are really
like. I am certainly not defined by my
weaknesses (at least, I hope not!) but I remembered my poor organizational
skills. God knew, before I was ever
born, that I would struggle with figuring out how to store things. He also “ordained” the fact that I would find
myself in a home of about 1,000 square feet, housing a family of five. This was no cosmic joke, no classic bad luck
to come my way. This was a plan, a
design.
My attempts at dealing
with this have ebbed and flowed.
Sometimes, I really do work at it.
I tackle an area, am delighted by the progress I make. I might even start getting the whole house semi-passable. Then I relax a bit, maybe just for a day or
two, and it looks horrible all over
again. Sometimes I will think about the
impossible situation this is – there is no way to find a place for everything
in a house designed for two or three people at most, when there are five of
us. Why try? I can’t succeed, after all! Then I realize that I am expected to do my
best. This is the job God called me to. So I start again.
Anyway, I had just gotten
to one of those days just after the good phase, and was feeling defeated again,
when I read that. It occurred to me that
God intended this situation for a purpose.
I live here for some reason. This
is intended to be my crucible. I have
been put in the refining fire. What am I doing giving up? I’m supposed to be learning something by struggling with this, not by sitting back in
defeat!
If I can remember that for
more than a few weeks, I’ll be doing well.
I think it is high time I learned whatever I am supposed to learn
here. Then, maybe, God will provide a
bigger house! |
