Lessons in Living

It's been one of those weeks. Taxes were due, bills mounted. Seemed like every time I turned around I had to get something else done. And my wife is gone for the week, which typically leaves me in a little more of an unstable emotional state than usual.

And I ran into reminders. I cleaned off the mail on one of the cabinets, and in doing so came across an old announcement from my sister-in-law. It was the graduation announcement for my niece, Jessica. Something moved in my heart, a flutter of pain, the first step towards tears.

I kept cleaning and came across another document mentioning Jessica; her funeral bulletin. Just over 6 months ago Jessica, at a way-too-young age of 22, lost her battle with leukemia but won the victory. That flutter of pain became a stab of grief, opening a wound I tried hard to keep bandaged, and I cried hard tears. Just can't make sense of it, just can't figure out why God didn't just swoop down and heal her.

I'm reading a book called When the Game is Over It All Goes Back in The Box by John Ortberg, In one chapter he tells the story about his uncle Dale who fell off a roof and ended up in a coma. Amazingly, he came out of the coma and returned home to his family. Yet those events helped Ortberg, and us, to understand that...

"One thing is much clearer to everyone; that life is a gift, that every day is an unpurchased miracle, every second is overtime. I do not know why life works the way it does. I do not know why some people recover and others die. I do not know why some prayers get answered and some (seem to) go unheeded. But I do know that life is a gift. I know that it is not something we earn, create, control, or sustain. I know that one truth about us is that we forget that we are going to die. The other truth is that we forget we are alive."

Remember this day that you are alive, that God loves you and there's nothing you can do, nothing better, nothing worse, that can change that fact.

Live life.
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Tax Day and Trust

April 15th, and it’s time to pay my taxes. Most years I cut it pretty close but this year I messed things up a bit and I owed quite a bit more than usual. But I had a plan. In February I worked on the budget, increasing the savings so we would have the money in the bank by today. I knew there would an occasional bump in the budget road, but nothing I couldn’t handle.

I had it all figured out.

There were more bumps than I anticipated, more than I ever imagined. Every time I got money into savings something would happen and I would pull the money back out. Sometimes we were our own worse enemies, not paying enough attention and having to cover budget overrun with savings. A deer ran into the car, and though insurance covered most of it I still would have to pay more than I had anticipated. No problem.

I had it all figured out.

The car went into the shop on April 14th, with payment due this week. I reconfigured the budget and moved all the bills to a later paycheck, opening up this entire check to pay the car and the government.

I had it all figured out.

Then I filed my taxes and they were rejected. Apparently I messed up on my son's return and as a result could not claim him as a deduction this year. I reconfigured my taxes and the amount I owed doubled. All of my plans fell apart; all of that careful manipulation of the budget went for naught. Savings would be wiped out and our plans to buy a new house stalled for awhile. I was depressed. My stomach hurt, I couldn't stay out of the bathroom. I could feel another panic attack coming on and was sure I would end up in the hospital.

And God said, do you trust Me?

Yes, I trust you, but this is not the way it was supposed to go! I HAD IT ALL FIGURED OUT!

Do you trust Me?

Yes, I trust you, but it's not fair. How am I going to be able to pay this? I began to think about putting it on a credit card, still trying to figure it out myself.

And God said, stop. Do you trust me?

And I stopped, and I listened. Yes, I trust you. I have no choice. You have provided for us our entire life. Why would I think you wouldn’t provide now? You gave us the means to pay without having to use credit. You’ve blessed us financially in ways we couldn’t imagine. You’ve never failed us. You knew the plans for us, you drew them up, plans with hope and a future. If your worried about the sparrows nesting under my air conditioner unit, your worried about me.

On this day, Tax Day, I make this declaration.

Father, I trust you.