When You are Feeling so Inadequate

I stand at the sink, lean over the suds slowly dissolving into the warm going cold.

I cry into the dishwater.

Rivulets flowing down silent I think about Little Girl's words, such big thoughts and feelings streaming tearful from her five year old heart.

She misses her Great Maw-Maw and Great Paw-Paw, now in heaven. She misses her Godfather Dustin, Mrs. Courtney, and Carli, so far away in California. She misses Uncle Vance and Uncle Charlie Brown, saying she only gets to see them once a year on Thanksgiving. She misses her first little best friend, Gracie, who she thinks "broke up with her" as a friend, she doesn't understand why Gracie is gone. She doesn't know about the police that came, several cars of them, all she knows is that never again will we read Charlotte's Web through the chain link fence with the bright-eyed little girl who waited for her for hours for a chance to talk and play. I can't convince her it's not because she wasn't a good friend. All this that has been bottled up continues to pour out, I try to catch what I can in prayer, cupping my empty, useless feeling hands to the Father.

Now, scrubbing hard on porcelain plates at things dried hard I stop and let it all sink and I sob.

Sometimes soaking in water is the best thing to soften all that's hard.

And it's a hard word to choke out to Him, the Living Water that soaks through my tough-mama places but I admit it in my mind to Him because it's all I'm thinking and He's knows it anyway.

Inadequate.

Lord, I feel so... I am so... inadequate.

Just a couple of days ago she was asking me about the Trinity. And even more recently, more questions about why she is going to be adopted but not her sister or this new baby to be born.

She's five.

Don't know why, but I thought I'd have more time. For something. To prepare? To pray more? To grow up more myself?

And now... all these needs and wants and desires that I can do nothing but put a band-aid on... I can't touch the source that wounds us all, the heart bleeding that starts so young.

Loneliness. Loss. A need for friendship, community. Wanting to feel loved, wanted, enjoyed.

I press palms against stainless steel and draw a shaky breath. Surely this is only the beginning of all she will cry about that I can not fix for her. I remember the heartache in growing up...

... and I remember what finally stopped my tears... my fears... my loneliness. The heartache reminds me Who finally stopped it.

He is here, washing right alongside me.

The Lord washes all as white as snow... scrubbing on and soaking into tough, dried up me, until I soften and come clean.

I say it to Him again, lay a clean plate down for the rinsing.

Lord, I am so inadequate.

I hear Him gently whisper: you are.

I nod more drops off my cheeks, I know this in my bones. Heart-whisper more truth: And You, Lord, are NOT.

Again He speaks, comfort beyond comfort from Parent to parent Who passionately loves His precious child He let me carry, lets me steward: you were not created to, and are not capable of, meeting these needs she has. Only I can meet them. Just keep directing her to Me, I will never leave her or forsake her. I will gently lead you in what to say.

Relief and love for the One who loves me so well rushes out in liquid prayer and I pray I will let God be God in her life, and not try to take on that role myself, but by lifestyle and prayer and wise words and faithful love direct this daughter of mine to the One who can do more than all we can ask or imagine, Who fills all our empty neediness, His cup perpetually, gloriously overflowing.

And this beautiful communion of hearing Truth and being comforted in my pain is interrupted by this ugly thought that creeps in and clings hard, a shell covering over my vulnerability, my weakness.

Why hasn't my husband, who has been home for a while now, noticed that I am crying? Doesn't he care to know what's going on with his wife? Doesn't he care to know what's been going on with his daughter today?

Anger starts to choke back my tears, squash the peace and the Presence of all that's been cleansing.

The water is filthy and I pull out the stopper.

I feel a wordless prayer, I feel a plea because I know I am feeling all wrong and it is far too easy to attach emotion where it doesn't belong. Crush someone who isn't the enemy, simply because they are in the path of pain, and anger seems to be a wildly wider, easier detour than this narrow way.

But He is still standing next to me at the sink, the One who has seen my soundless tears, heard my unspoken prayers. The One who actually can read my confused, tired, rambling mind, the One my deceitful heart lies exposed before.

He says it straight, firm: your husband was not created to, and is not capable of, meeting these needs in you. Only I am.

It is His firm kindness that leads me to repentance.

I pour it all out, every last drop. A flood gate opened of fears for her future that I can not control, hurts that I can not bear for her, experiences that I cannot heart-impart to her, my inconsistencies that shame and humble me, my awareness of my utter weakness and vulnerability without Him.

And somehow, beautifully, He puts back together all my falling apart with the breath of His mouth. And as the Father comforting His weeping child He replays it softly... all I can bear witness to with my life His-story.

Remember, my beloved... when you cried to Me in your desperate loneliness, and I lead you to the place where you truly found you could be content with Me alone for the rest of your days?...

Remember when I answered your cry to be the faithful, loving Father to your fatherless daughter? You sought Me, and I answered you, and I delivered you from all your fears. I met you in that place. Jeremy was there. You have a witness to My coming to you that changed you...

He goes on and on until I am calm with a peace that passes understanding because the situation has not at all changed. But now I remember how The Faithful One does not change like the shifting shadows, but is the same yesterday, today, tomorrow, and forever.

Remember when... Remember how... Remember what...

... Remember Who. Remember Me.

And my weaknesses fade as I focus on His strength, choosing to think on what is true, noble, lovely, praiseworthy.

He is not inadequate.

My God shall supply all my needs, according to His riches and mercy. He will give His angels charge over me, Jehovah Jireh cares for me. For me. For me.

For my children.

For you.

For your loved ones.

He is not inadequate.

When God is Leading You into Desert Places

I write to a friend from Hosea, responding to a heart-cry, a struggling beat I well recognize.

And the words echo in micro-empty moments, a low rumble in my mind and spirit of what was once shouted into all my deafness.

I remember when it began. When I finally began to love The One and Only first, best, and wholly.

I was a young twenty-one, a single mother finally, truly, heart-single by a heart-wrenching choice. Slowly unfurling my mothering-wings and flailing in ever-changing, all-new territory. One year old daughter in the nest, relying on me to bring her True Nourishment, and me the soul-starved just learning to eat the Non-Toxic Bread.

Then I was given charge of two little ones, a tender three and one, and my own babe as well, babysitting and housesitting while the parents were states away. For eight full days.

The busy days wrapped up in a flurry of warm baths and brushed teeth, pajamas and songs, prayers and covers pulled high, stuffed animals tucked close. Then the open stillness of the house pressed in hard, empty stretching out hollow into the high ceilings.

I didn't have him to call.

My routine of replaying my day and listening to his, either over the phone or in his arms, having this broken was so... lonely.

And loneliness feels all wrong, aching deep into soul-marrow, for truly, we were not created to be.

And I find myself reading His Hosea words to me, longing for a soothing for the real, gnawing needs. And I scream-cried at His remedy, beginning by breaking all that was twisted, warped, to reset and heal all that was crippling me.

Then His scalpel went straight to a scarlet letter, one of the only sin-words I did not recognize was branded deep, the heart-source of all the other breaks and scars and wounds bleeding years and memories.

"When the LORD began to speak through Hosea, the LORD said to him, “Go, take to yourself an adulterous wife and children of unfaithfulness, because the land is guilty of the vilest adultery in departing from the LORD.”

~Hosea 1:2

He exposes it plainly, and I cannot deny my role in our relationship, how unfaithful my heart has been towards Him.

“...Let her remove the adulterous look from her face

and the unfaithfulness from between her breasts...

I will make her like a desert,

turn her into a parched land,

and slay her with thirst...

Therefore I will block her path with thornbushes;

I will wall her in so that she cannot find her way.

She will chase after her lovers but not catch them;

she will look for them but not find them.

Then she will say,

‘I will go back to my husband as at first,

for then I was better off than now.’

She has not acknowledged that I was the one

who gave her the grain, the new wine and oil,

who lavished on her the silver and gold—

which they used for Baal.

“Therefore I will take away my grain when it ripens,

and my new wine when it is ready.

I will take back my wool and my linen,

intended to cover her nakedness.

So now I will expose her lewdness...

I will punish her for the days

she burned incense to the Baals;

she decked herself with rings and jewelry,

and went after her lovers,

but me she forgot,”

declares the LORD.

“Therefore I am now going to allure her;

I will lead her into the desert

and speak tenderly to her.

There I will give her back her vineyards,

and will make the Valley of Trouble a door of hope.

There she will sing as in the days of her youth,

as in the day she came up out of Egypt.

“In that day,” declares the LORD,

“you will call me ‘my husband’;

...I will betroth you in righteousness and justice,

in love and compassion.

I will betroth you in faithfulness,

and you will acknowledge the LORD."

~Hosea 2:2-20

And there in desert whirlwind, eyes hot and stinging, throat clenched tight and dry, His words ring clearly and without competition from all the usual howling voices.

"For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. This is a profound mystery--but I am talking about Christ and the church."

He desires me to leave all else and cleave to Him.

He is drawing me ever deeper, leading me through this aloneness that nurtures oneness. I have known this to be true for other relationships, barely begin to understand it for He and I-time spent alone bonds the hearts close. Develops unity.

"On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you."

~John 14:20

Tears well now again, for what is this wild Love that wounds Itself to heal me? Loves me faithfully through my adultry? Slays me with thirst so I can realize that I'm thirsty? Offers me eternal quenching for all that's long run dry?

And He whispers it tenderly, blowing away all bonds that can not reach as long and high and deep and wide as this protective desert-ocean of His love.

"It is for freedom that I have set you free."

So beloved if... when... Your Husband and Your Friend is leading you further out and deeper in to all that seems so barren, dry, empty... lonely. Fear not!... GO. He means to speak tenderly to you, give you His Name in unity. He means to set you FREE.

The Scent of Him in Spring

"But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him. For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life. And who is equal to such a task?"

~2 Corinthians 2: 14-16

"If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him."

~James 1:5

"I can do everything through him who gives me strength."

~ Philippians 4:13

"The foremost quality of a trusting disciple is gratefulness."

~Brennan Manning, Ruthless Trust

Counting thanks today, exhausted from two nights without sleep due to a sick baby while growing this new one and still homeschooling the five year old, keeping house, being a wife... but so grateful, SO grateful, that in nothing I struggle through am I ever, ever left alone. How great is His faithfulness...

#417 being under the leadership of a husband who tells me hard things in love

#418 the forgiveness and resilience of a 5 year old girl

#419 backlit wings, glory transparent

#420 bowed seeds, lime green worship

#421 Being lead around by a finger

#422 her in coral mardi gras beads

#423 her "please brush my teeth" face

#424 husband-built trellis, raised garden bed box

#425 vines climbing higher, promise flowering

#426 veins running red, pumping life into tender new green

#427 exhilaration in half-second increments

#428 the way baby girl says "bug, bug, bug!"

#429 the way she communicated perfectly in baby language " uhm, mom, I am not sliding down this slide again until you move the bug" (see the fly on the bottom of the slide?)

#430 duplo cakes, coconut cream being my favorite

#431 my teacher's assistant, so helpful with grading

#432 salvia, gloriously dressed in purple ruffled gowns

#433 creativity and imagination, ingrained from infancy, illuminated in child-play

#434 brother and baby with big ideas, trying to work them out

#435 spring air, thick with love bugs

#436 His love expressed to all senses in all seasons, spring heavy with the fragrance of honeysuckle, gardenia and jasmine