“You don’t start living until you’ve lost everything.”
I tell myself that possessions are simply that, possessions. It isn't people. It isn't anything that God can't give back a 100 times over. And yet...
It is still a very painful process!
There is so much fear and stress involved when things fall apart. Even if it isn't your fault, no one cares that it isn't your fault. I cry out to God to bring peace, to walk with us through a journey we never thought we would be on.
After all, a house with mold happens to other people.
Surely, after fighting to keep our home through unemployment and many crises, we should not be in a bad spot now. Right?
Wrong.
Things have compounded and made life difficult.
But we're Christians? We tithe. We serve in ministry. We homeschool. Doesn't that guarantee that we won't have these battles?
Also wrong.
Like Job, I hear others say things that seem to cast the blame. Surely, my husband and I have committed some "great sin" and are being punished for some reason.
Well... my husband and I have covenant relationships with our Lord. We make mistakes, but we repent when the Lord convicts and corrects.
I am spending a lot of time getting closer to my Lord through this process. Dave Ramsey likes to say that he met the Lord on the way up, but got to know Him on the way down. He's absolutely right. On the way down, when you turn to the Lord, you really get to know Him. You learn that without His daily Presence, you can't make it.
I find myself fighting a lot of fear and stress. I want to cry, and often do. I miss my home, even if it was a place that was very challenging. I miss the walls I painted, the garden I spend hours in, the clothesline I hung my clothes on, the flowers in the front. I miss the familiarity. We were there for nearly ten years. I could take the seventeen steps in the dark from upstairs to down and back.
I truly accepted Christ in that house. I was baptized in the Holy Spirit in that house one night as I cried out to Him in prayer. I spent hours praying in that house for my children. I had prayed over that house, for God to protect all who enter.
And oh, the memories... so many, some bad but most very good. I brought my youngest home from hospital to that house. There were ten years of birthdays, holidays, first days of school, family dinners.
I have had to give myself permission to grieve, just a little. My dream had been to own a home, to have stability. I would have done anything to keep that home...
Anything...
Except risk the lives or health of my children.
Despite all the things that had gone wrong and needed repaired, mold was the last straw.
And so, with a broken car we can't fix, and a house that we had to leave, it often does feel like we have lost everything. We worked hard, sacrificed a lot, for a long time, only to feel like big failures at the end of the day.
We are now adjusting to a different life. It's not the same. It's more challenging in so many ways.
I miss my home. This apartment just doesn't feel like home yet.
I pray. I sometimes have to pray moment by moment just to get through, just to breathe. There are days I am angry. There are days I want to scream out how unfair it is that we have to go through this. I want to punch those that, in their "piety", believe that God would never put them through something similar.
If it wasn't for the Lord, I would have nothing to cling to. I don't know fully all the lessons that He has for us in this. I just know that this experience has taken the fight out of me. I spent years being the fiesty one, determined to fight the injustices I saw. It was that determination that helped sustain me during all the life "events" we've been thrown; daughter with type one diabetes, unemployment, custody issues, abuse. But now... I am not the same.
It's no longer my battle. God has me studying about having a meek and quiet spirit. And, just to make sure I get it, I am humbled beyond anything in my life. I am totally dependent upon Him as events unfold around me that just leave me feeling utterly powerless and helpless. It all is up to Him. If we take more than a credit hit, it won't be because I can do anything other than keep going every day. I can't stop or fix anything at this point, and this is the point where God has to be in control... because I have been shown completely that I AM NOT!
Others say they understand, but I feel that those that understand truly are the ones that have been there.
Maybe one day God will take our experiences and use them to show others that they aren't alone.
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