So I imagine God sitting at the family dinner table at night with all the saints that have gone before regaling them with stories of His kids that day. "You will not believe what they did today!" Unlike when earthly parents talk about their kids and say "who did they get that from?" God knows and He doesn't make mistakes; He doesn't lie awake at night crying, " Where did I go wrong?!" But I do believe He shakes His head at us and chuckles sometimes.
I don't believe He is a God ready to strike us down at when we do dumb things, but I do think He lets us go through things to teach us. It's amazing to me how when we go through certain things and we are on the other side we say to ourselves, "Wow, I can't believe I did that!" Then later on another trial comes to make the first one seem like a piece of cake and we would rather be on that trial again!
When Wade was in Iraq the first time and missed the birth of our first child, I thought their could be few things worse. When he left 2 years later again, leaving me with 2 toddlers, giving birth seemed like a breeze! When we lost our son, none of that compared. Looking back over our marriage, we have had difficult times financially. Now that we are both full time students, the little paychecks we received while in the Army look like a fortune to us now!
I've said this before and I will say it again, God has been faithful on this journey. He has provided our needs and many times the wants we have especially to do fun little things with our girls. However, God and I have these talks and I know He loves me to put up with me at times. But these conversations go something like this:
"God, thank you for this unexpected blessing that came in at the last minute, I really am grateful. But you know I would also be grateful if I didn't have to wait until the 11th hour and be stressed about this. If you wanted to say give us what we need for 6 months at a time you could put your time into things like oh I don't know world hunger, our president, etc. I would be okay with that! And at about 5 months 15 days provide again?" This is the time He shakes His head and says, "Oh yeah this is why I make newborns so cute, so I can remember that time and not kill them later on!" Then goes on to tell me again why I need to trust Him daily for my needs and that He is big enough to take care of all of the above mentioned including our financial needs.
And I know I will look back on this time and my faith will have grown leaps and bounds and I will be amazed and strong enough to take on the next thing He has for me. In the meantime I'm sure the family dinner table gets lots of good conversations about me.
Disclaimer: My theology may not sell books but it gets me through the day. You can disagree if you choose and that's fine by me just don't argue with me! ;)
