God moments

Last night I was visiting with some friends. We hadn't seen each other in awhile and so, over two pints of Ben and Jerry's and one Spiked Lemonade, we laughed and cried and generally chatted about our very full lives.  Three of us have recently experienced life-jarring events that turned our worlds upside down and inside out before we figured out how to adjust to whatever the new normal was and move forward.  These are the kinds of events that have the great potential to root anger in our hearts towards God and the equal potential to remind us how incredibly good and great he is--the outcome of which is not dependent on the circumstances themselves but on the working of the Spirit who turns our hearts away from anger and towards greater dependence and trust.

We all confessed to feeling angry along the way, but also spoke of all the "God moments" as one friend called them.  When we can't see our way out of the dark, these are the moments where God reminds us he is in control, that he's got it covered, so to speak.  They don't take away pain or change the very real struggles we face. They're often quiet and quick, fleeting even. And they happen when we cry out, "How is this going to be OK?" And then it is, for five minutes or five seconds, and we think, "Oh, yeah, I forgot." After a God moment, we go back to the place of being OK with the unknown and peaceful in the face of trials.  We are a forgetful species and it turns out that we can quickly lose our grip on that perspective, and when we do, God zips another little moment in our day to remind us again...and again....and again.

So we made a little pact, which we'll probably not always be very good at, that we would remember to tell each other about these moments, as a way of strengthening our faith and of offering a little perspective.  We usually know when bad stuff is going on in each other's lives, and we pray regularly for one another. But we don't always share the source of our hope along the way.

For instance, I know that one of my good friends and her husband have been facing significant financial struggles in the last couple of years, but what I didn't know was that during a time when things seemed particularly bleak, a neighbor they didn't really know that well gave them a significant amount of money for doing some work on her house.

Or how about the morning after K's diagnosis when I woke in my hospital bed in the early hours (I wasn't sleeping much at that point) feeling completely alone and lost.  I turned on the TV and there was my uncle, on his Sunday morning broadcast.  I don't even know what he was saying, but suddenly there was family in the room from far away. Instant comfort.  I fell asleep again watching his show, the remote against my ear so as not to wake up Mark who was on the cot next to me.  When I awoke the next time, someone was singing that well-loved hymn, "It is well with my soul."

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

Do you know what it is like to wake up to a very hard day with those words playing in your mind? Your first thoughts?  Just before pain seeps in again? Pure balm.


Sometimes, when Mark had cancer, I would say something out loud like, "How am I going to pay this $500 bill?" And hours later a check would arrive in the mail for exactly that amount.  Or I'd be out of diapers, and behold, diapers would appear at my door.  


Now you could argue that such moments are pure coincidence, that those of us churchy religious people have our eyes peeled for such little coincidences so that we can attribute them to some higher power.  I'm gonna be real here and confess that skepticism used to claim the better part of my heart on this issue, too.  Until life got really crappy for awhile.  And I realized that for all the crappiness it held, I couldn't shake the sneaking suspicion that the little aha moments were really God moments.  But whatever, call it what you want: coincidence, karma, serendipity...I can't convince myself anymore that the moments happen without intentional design.  They're too perfect and there are just too many of them to ignore. I also prefer to roll with the idea that the suffering life deals us is not just random and useless and dark.  Dark, yes, but not hopeless, not useless, not random.

So, here's my resolution--our resolution, really.  I want to be more intentional about sharing those moments, with friends, family, and especially with my kids. While I'd prefer to shield them from hardship for the rest of their lives, I know that isn't really possible.  Instead, I'll try my hardest to show them, not with mini-sermons and finger wagging life lessons, that God is good--that he is real and present in our lives, that he cares about our hurt and sorrow, that he reminds us in small whispers, in gentle breezes, that he is good and powerful.  That he is enough. More than enough, in fact.

So here's to telling our stories with honesty.  Life is hard and complicated, but isn't it sweet and good, too? And if we're paying attention, that sweetness and goodness and mercy can permeate a gray day and a dark night. And we can carry each other if we're willing to, simply by telling our stories.