Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Abandoned

Psalm 139:6-8 (New Living Translation)
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too great for me to understand!
I can never escape from your Spirit! I can never get away from your presence! If I go up to heaven, you are there; if I go down to the grave, you are there.


Eight days from now will be the six month anniversary of when Patricia and I were laid off from our jobs. It's been a harrowing experience that I fear is no where close to be over. All the signs point to the fact that things in our economy may get worse before they get better. Summer is almost officially over and all those summer jobs are ending so the employment rate is going up again. I don't know how we've made it this far. Well, really I do know; God never forsakes us. He makes sure we have what we need. I just wish His standard of "need" was the same as mine sometimes. I am fighting very hard today to be in good spirits and follow hard after God. It is difficult some days, especially when you took your daughter to work and returned home with the gas needle on zero. I don't know exactly how many miles you can go on zero. I was afraid that today I was about to find out. I wish I had some miraculous story to tell about how I heard a voice telling me to pull into a station and when I pulled up there was a man ready to swipe his credit card and fill my car up with gas. I would have felt like Elijah for sure and would have probably stopped right there and stripped off to my boxers and danced in the street. I don't have story like that. I pulled into the driveway, very thankful that God had gotten me home. I have probably about a thimble full of gas in my gas can for the mower. I was going to use it to cut the front lawn today.
Last week was a very trying week for us. Emotionally we were all spent. It seemed that every time I tried to spend time in prayer that I spent the majority of the time weeping. We felt abandoned by God and by the family of God. We were at a point of being weary of people asking us if we are OK. Our response has always been, "Yes, we're OK". We are not ok but we have found that if we are honest, people don't know what to do. They come to us with genuine concern and they really want to know about our circumstances. They just don't know what to do.
I was at the point of desperation last week and all I could do was cry out to God. I can handle anything that is thrown my way as long as I am not abandoned by God. As long as I can still hear His voice, I can keep walking, keep trusting and keep following hard after Him. There are times when we feel like that we are stuck on some remote corner of the universe, far away from everyone. No one hears our cries and no one feels our hurts. But as long as we know that God is there, that He's working on our behalf, that He is holding everything in His hands, we are OK. I will probably get up from this writing and have a freak out session in a matter of moments. I will cry and throw a tantrum like all kids do and then a little while later I will feel like a fool because I hear Him. I hear Him say, "Where can you go that I am not already there? Even if you walk through hell, I will be there". These words I know in my heart are true. Putting them into action in my life is another matter. I want to be the kind of man that follows hard after God. I don't want to be irresponsible and not take care of my family but I want my passion for God to far outweigh everything else. When my children sit around my table I want them to tell stories of how God was present in out lives. It seems that the stories they tell now are never about shopping trips and when we lived in abundance, it's always about times when walking and following and trusting were the hardest.
We can handle anything as long as we know that we are not abandoned.
My job is to follow hard after Him. His job is to be God. He does His job whether or not I do mine.
What will I do about the gas situation? I don't have a clue. I fully expect a miracle because without one I probably won't get out of the driveway. All I know is that God promised that He will be with me even when I have to walk to Rincon and carry Ashley back home on my back. I just have to be the kind of man that is OK, regardless. I just need to be thankful that I have legs to walk on, breath to heave in and out of my body and a charged up MP3 player to listen to and take my mind off the pain.
I hope that if you read this Blog that you understand this is not a chance for me to whine, or that I have an ulterior motive. This Blog is about me and my feelings, passions and struggles. I don't use this space to try to get a point across. I have no idea who reads and who does not unless they post a response or tell me they read it. This is a record of my journey. A journey that takes lots of twists and turns and highs and lows. This is my way to be transparent with myself and be honest about what I feel. I hope it encourages you but mostly it encourages me because I use the previous posts as monuments to the awesomeness of God. I look back and think how foolish I was to doubt who God is and what He can do.

Blessings
Allen