Wrestling with the “God Who Allows”

I have been afforded several opportunities to come into a family’s home and care for their infant children, enough that the idea of becoming a mother does not frighten me as it would had I not already had those middle of the night experiences with a fever-ridden child who wants only to be held and rocked for three hours straight.

There are so many things I have a heads up on.

Like potty-training. I’ve done it. Successfully.

Like weaning a child off the bottle. I’ve done it. Successfully.

I’ve learned a lot of practical things that will definitely be part of my arsenal when I embark on the adventure of motherhood. I’ve also learned a lot of spiritual things about how God the Father sees and loves me; sees and cares for me.

My most recent charge is family. Kayleigh belongs to my cousin and her husband and when she was still in her moma’s womb I felt the Lord say, “Clear your schedule. You need to take care of that little one.” She was already enrolled in daycare but I could tell the very thought of taking her six week old baby girl to daycare was breaking her moma’s heart. So, when her moma was about three weeks away from returning to work I offered and they accepted.

Taking care of her has been a different experience for me. Never before had I gone into a home already loving the little one I would be caring for. I grew to love everyone of them, some of them so much so I would have given my life for them without a thought but I had to get there. Not so with Kayleigh.

No, I loved her before I even met her. I loved her because of who she belonged to and I loved her because in a small way she belonged to me. She is my family.

While I loved her she wasn’t too sure about me in the beginning. I think she had to grow to love me. Or at least I think that is what those inconsolable fits were about.

That little girl has some lungs on her! She would just cry and cry and nothing I did would make it better. I was starting to feel inept. Then I discovered that if I just put her down she was fine.

As the weeks have passed we have become friends but then one day last week she lapsed and this fit she threw was worse than any of the others.

She had been fed. She was dry. Nothing was sticking into her skin or poking her. She was fine but she was screaming.

I went into soothing mode, wondering if it was her tummy that was giving her fits. I did everything that had ever worked in the past to calm her down. None of it worked.

Fifteen minutes later she was still screaming and I was about at my wits end. Finally I swaddled her up and with pacifier in hand we went to the rocking chair. Holding her tightly I rocked and rocked and sang and sang. She screamed.

That is when I heard Him.

“Does she look familiar?”

“I’m sorry?”

“She looks familiar to me. She looks like you have looked for the last several months. Since Jeremiah got sick, really. I want you to notice everything you do for her in the next several minutes and I want you to really pay attention to the motivation behind why you do what you do.”

A different kind of cry interrupted me from the unwanted and unrequested assignment. It was a cry of frustration and anger and I brought her tighter to my chest.

By this point I had ascertained that she was fighting sleep and so the rocking intensified. Without realizing what I was doing I pinpointed the motivation behind my actions. I brought her tighter to my chest and intensified the rocking to let her know that I wasn’t just going to put her down because she wanted me to. She needed to sleep and I was going to get her there.

She just kept on screaming.

As the minutes ticked by I thought about giving up. Just putting her down in the crib to cry it out by herself, but my spirit wouldn’t let me.

“I will never leave or forsake you.”

“But You let him get sick. He loves You. Our family loves You and You allowed him to get sick.”

“I will never leave or forsake you.”

The cries began to subside as she finally latched onto the pacifier. She still made little whimpers around it insisting that I know she was still not happy with me. I continued in the same manner as before. Rocking and singing.

“Lord, I see the parallel You are trying to make but Kayleigh was just fighting going to sleep. Jeremiah almost died. I know the “almost” should be enough to make it better for me but irrational as it may be I still feel like you betrayed us by allowing this to happen.”

“I will never leave or forsake you.”

She finally fell asleep. As I gently placed her in her crib I realized I was exhausted. It had taken everything out of me to remain calm and in control of the situation. And then I wondered, if God was not God and inexhaustible, how often I would have left Him exhausted with my kicking and screaming.

I imagined myself wrapped up in His holy arms as Kayleigh had just been wrapped up in mine, kicking and screaming at the top of my lungs because He was allowing something to happen to me that I did not like. It was not an attractive picture I will tell you that!

Weeks later, after the picture had left my mind I wondered what my problem was. I just couldn’t shake off whatever funk had settled over me the second week Jeremiah was in the hospital. I was ironing the seams of my latest quilt project and as the steam rose around me I finally settled on what I had been doing for the last several months.

Wrestling with the “God Who Allows”.

My selfish nature is shown so clearly in response to the “God Who Allows”. When He allows me to be blessed I praise Him. I draw close to Him. I fall more in love with Him. But when He allows me to be persecuted or allows bad things to happen in my life, I rebel.

What I refuse to acknowledge in the moment is that I cannot have one without the other. I cannot have the God who allows the good without the God who allows the bad.

While this may not make sense to my finite brain His holiness makes it clear that He does not have to explain Himself to me.

He is Almighty God, the God Who Allows and when we wrestle with Him He wins. He always wins.

Over the course of my life I’ve wrestled with the Lord more than I am proud of and in the end he always wins but there was something very different about this victory. There was no relief on my part that the wrestle was over. There was no sweet, yet sovereign whisper that said, “Now that you’re done can we get on with it?”

There was something very solemn about this victory. Perhaps it was because we both knew He would give no answers. Perhaps it was because we both had to acknowledge that while I was not fighting Him anymore, He still allowed. Or perhaps it was because we both knew I should have known better. I should have known not to panic in the midst of our pain.

But I did.

I panicked.

And as I laid hold of the panic I let go of trust. That was my first mistake but then there were more. When I let go of trust, fear and anger crept in and it attacked my unguarded mind. After several weeks of that battle, having won, they moved to my heart.

Thankfully this is when my Savior intervened.

“I will never leave or forsake you.”

How undeserving I am of a Longsuffering Lord!

So, I’ve let go of the panic, of the fear and anger and I’ve crawled back into the lap of the “God Who Allows” knowing even as I climb that like the old hymn says, His Love never let me go. His joy sought me through the pain and even though I tried, my heart could not close to Him.

And so, it is with eyes filled with tears of gladness, peace even in the midst of unanswered questions, that I will rejoice because I have been made whole by a Love that will not let me go.

If Ribs Could Talk

“Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field.

But for Adam no suitable helper was found. So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and closed up the place with flesh. Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.”

Genesis 2:19-22

Growing up in church as I did I never heard the above passage mentioned without reference to the importance that woman was created from man’s side.

Not from his head to rule over him and not from his feet to be trampled upon, but from his side; to walk beside him and to be protected by him in the comfort of his arms.

This is great imagery and I assume very helpful to men but as a woman, what does this teach me about what it means to be a woman? When I am floundering in what and who I am supposed to be and how and why God created me a woman what does this picture tell me?

Nothing, really, except we need to be protected and covered. That I already know.

Maybe it would help to look more closely at what it was God used to create us.

A rib. Not very glamorous, but let’s look closer.

What does it do? What is its function? Could the body remain the same without it?

A rib shields the body’s vital organs from injury. The heart, lungs, and kidneys are all protected by the ribcage. A rib enables the lungs to expand with necessary oxygen by expanding the chest. Without the ribs our bodies would be exposed to fatal injury simply by walking around our homes. Bumping into walls would be catastrophic and a simple fender bender would land us in the morgue.

A rib allows itself to literally be crushed before it lets any harm come to the vital organs of the body.

What does this teach me about what it means to be a woman?

We were created to be a shield. To protect those around us, to expand as our sphere of influence increases, we were created to shield.

Specific to our men, what are the vital things that are important in their make up?

Character. Integrity. These are their hearts and lungs.

A woman who is operating fully as she was created will allow herself to literally be crushed before she lets any harm come to the character or integrity of her husband, her father, her brother.

I’m overcome with emotion at how incredibly beautiful this is.

There is no role on earth that I look forward to more than to be the Rib to the man God has for me. Knowing how taxing it will be makes me diligent in making sure I do not settle because if I am going to allow myself to be crushed he will be worthy of such a sacrifice.

Will he be perfect?

No, but he will be worthy.

This is one of those truths that so transformed my life that I remember exactly where I was and who I was with when I first heard it.

Up to that point the word submission sat in my stomach as well as Ipecac.

Not well.

How weak does a woman have to be to submit to her husband? I didn’t want to do anything of the sort. I was also really stupid and had no idea what God’s intention was when he gave such instruction.

However, when He dropped the picture of the rib into my heart I understood the strength it would take, I saw the beauty of sacrifice, and I wanted it. I wanted it bad.

I still want it. Because the man who is worthy of such sacrifice, also deserves all I am and that adventure is one I’m about to crawl out of my skin to embark upon…but I digress.

So what about those men who aren’t worthy of the sacrifice? What about the fathers who beat their daughters? What about the husbands who beat their wives?

What happens when a man breaks the Rib that was created to protect him, leaving her completely ineffectual in her function?

She must be removed and given time to heal.

She must be protected and shielded herself.

She must be given room to expand and grow.

I am by no means suggesting you make yourself a doormat. Many women with a flare for feminism would call this weakness in the highest degree but no weak rib can withstand the pressure to protect the heart and lungs, nor can a weak woman protect the character and integrity of an imperfect man.

Only a woman of incredible strength can do such a thing. And only a woman of incredible strength can discern between a man worthy of the sacrifice and a man who is not.

We cannot control what anyone does to us, but we can control our response to them and if every man you meet is paying the price for what was done to you by one, there is no strength in that either.

Are you protecting? Are you shielding your family from hits from the enemy? Or are you allowing the hits to come from within?

What would happen if the ribs shot fire at the very things they were created to protect?

The body would never survive.

Ladies, stop bad-mouthing your husbands. Even if they “deserve” it, just stop.

There is nothing uglier than someone acting in a manner that is contrary to how they were created to act and there is nothing more beautiful than a woman who shields and protects her man’s character and integrity from everything she can…including herself.

So, the next time the Ribs get together for “Ribs Night Out” and the conversation starts to veer towards the heart and the lungs, stand up under that pressure and make sure no harm comes.

Be beautiful.