His purposes, not mine

I gave up.

Did you notice?

I gave up on Purposeful Living.

Not on the concept, really. I still want to live purposefully. But having it as the title of my blog completely belies the circumstances of our lives. I can't imagine anyone who took a cursory look at our lives would accuse Keith and me of living purposefully. Sixteen moves in less than eleven years of marriage? I don't even want to count how many different jobs we've had. How many churches have we been a part of? How many endeavors have we begun and failed? I don't even know. I don't even want to think about it.

Keith recently listened to the book "Risk is Right" by John Piper. His brief explanation of it to me blessed me. I feel like a failure in the eyes of the world. And that's hard to deal with sometimes. We have risked a lot for the sake of Christ, and it seems like we have lost a lot, too. I know, I know; whoever wants to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for Christ's sake will find it.

But it hurts, it stings, it brings flushed embarrassment to my cheeks when I think how foolish we must seem. Even to our close friends, even to our Bible college buddies, even to our families. More than seven years ago, sure of God's leading, we left good jobs in Utah, and a wonderful church family, to move to Idaho. And when we got there, all our dreams crashed and burned. And of course, we went through a similarly painful season again this year when we had to leave Iowa.

What then? What do you do when your dreams crash and burn? What do you do when God calls you to something, and you're sure it's Him, and it ends up being utterly painful, and you can barely make it through? When you honestly get so broken that you think how much you want to die, maybe not commit suicide exactly, but just be done with all this broken messiness and pain and sin of this life, when going home to heaven just sounds like the sweetest and most wonderful idea in the world.

And this week, this month, we face change again, because that's just how life seems to be rolling for us. It's not so bad this time, and I am beginning to embrace this hardship as discipline now, beginning to rejoice because I know that God will work it out for His greater glory. But Keith has to find a new job, and I told someone, and of course their response was... "Again?? Just pick something and stick with it, man!" Ouch. Like that's what we needed to hear. Like we're just switching jobs for the fun of it, like being broke all the time is super fun for us, like Keith was hoping to lose his job right now, like I enjoy spending half of the year, every year, packing up our homes and moving to new ones and unpacking again. Like we enjoy not having a home church or a small group or close friends around.

It just so happens that I am reading through Galatians right now. Wonderful Galatians. I think I forget how much of a people-pleaser I am until I read Galatians. "If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ." Holy smokes, Paul! I can hardly stand up under those words. Not because I am trying to please others outwardly, necessarily. But in my mind, I do. I wonder what people think of us. I worry about it. I ache and hurt over how I think they must perceive us. Our friends don't call us because we are too much of a burden, I think. They don't email because they are tired of us going through crisis after crisis. They just don't want to hear about it anymore.

Maybe that's true. But I still don't want to spend my life thinking about it. And honestly, I don't really want to spend my life thinking about all the ways I am failing to be a purposeful parent, either. Or in any other area.

So. Purposeful living. It used to mean considering all that I do, and seeking to do it in a godly way, seeking to do everything we do to the glory of God. It's not that I don't want to do that anymore. It's just that I'm tired, and I'm clinging to God's grace a whole lot more. And maybe that's okay, maybe I am okay with that now.

When my children were very young, I was so very purposeful, and I would cry if any little thing was off. Like, they would get up, and I might as well have been an activities director, not because I crammed every little thing in, but because I made absolutely sure everything was as pleasant and peaceful and gentle and well-ordered as I could make it. From the moment they got up until the moment they went to sleep. And it really was pleasant. Everything was sweet and I was so purposeful about everything and it was a lot of work, but it was so pleasant and peaceful and I liked it. I was tired, and maybe a little obsessive, but I liked it.

But life simply hasn't been able to be that way for several years now. Life has been move after move, job after job, struggle after struggle. And our kids are growing up in the midst of that, in the midst of all this chaos and confusion, and it breaks me. It's not what I wanted for them. I never wanted them to see me stretched to the breaking point. I never wanted Ezekiel to move five times and across three states and attend several different churches in his first three years and not even know what it's like to be a part of a small group. I never wanted to have to explain to him, still, seven months after leaving Iowa, why we still can't go back to our old house. I never wanted to lose my patience so much, never wanted to have heaping piles of messiness in the middle of our home, never wanted to have bare walls for months on end because I still can't find the stinkin' picture boxes in the incredibly disorganized garage. Never wanted to go through all this seemingly senseless, purposeless chaos, not even just once but over and over again.

But I am trusting that God is doing something in this, not only for Keith and me and those whose lives we may happen across (although I truthfully doubt the effectiveness of that, as it seems we are so rarely involved in somebody's life for any meaningful length of time that it's impossible to really invest well in anyone), but also in the lives of our children. He is at work. I know He is. I know He must be. I am trusting that our children will be taught by the Lord, will learn grace in all of this... will handle change better because of all of this? I wince when they talk about "the next time we move" or "our next moving truck." But God can be in the midst of  that, God is working in them too and it's His purposes, not mine, that I am beginning to care about and seek out. His will for us that I am seeking, and most of all His grace that I am thirsty for. Grace! Oh, I am so thirsty for His grace. Grace to cover me, grace to cover my family. I want to see the results of His grace in our lives, to reap the benefits of His gracious purposefulness, not because I have earned it in even the smallest kind of purposeful way but simply because I am open and I am broken and I know that I need Him.

I am learning grace in all of this. I don't know what to rename this blog, exactly. But it sure isn't about my purposes. It is about grace, grace, grace, grace, grace. I have to trust that whatever is going on with us, it's His purposes, His gracious purposes, that will prevail. Keith has been able to reach out to a few truck drivers on this route that he's been driving. Is that why the Lord led him to take this job? So he could pray with a nighttime gas station attendant who was just that day the victim of domestic violence? Or so he could share truth with these different guys who are leading these sad, lonely nighttime truck driving jobs? Who knows, right? I don't. It's not my purposes that are happening here, and apparently, it's not my purposes that matter so much. Because having my husband be away all night is really, really, really not what I would have picked for these last five months. So what will happen next? I don't know.

I have no idea what this year has ahead for us. No clue. Could be anything. Don't care. Really. Just want Jesus. I know He's doing something and, truthfully, I don't really care what it is. Doesn't matter what it is. Good or bad, fun or horrible. Could be a year of worldly successes or more total failures. I just want Jesus, just want to know Him more, just want to drink deeply of His grace and walk in His presence through any crazy or happy or sad or suffering kind of thing might come our way. Just want to be in the shelter of His wings.

Just want to be with Him.