It was the day we had been waiting and preparing for: my daughter’s appointment with DMV to take the knowledge test for her Learner’s Permit. She had spent the last week of her summer vacation studying for it, and she was due to start school the following week. We had timed things perfectly so she would get her Learner’s before school started and thus begin school with the stress of that behind her.
We had been standing in line for a few minutes when someone came over the speakers, announcing that the computer system was down, and they didn’t know when it would be back up and running. They made us all reschedule.
No one apologized. (I realize it was not their fault, but an apology would have helped.) Not one of the 20 people I saw working there seemed to show any compassion for us. Apparently they are so used to things not going according to plan that they are no longer fazed by it at all.
Such was not the case with me. I am typically a very controlled person. I almost always manage to smile at others and remain patient in unpleasant situations. But not, apparently, that particular day. My inner fuse, like the temperatures in Virginia in August, was reaching dangerously high levels. I was about to blow.
I begrudgingly made the new completely inconvenient appointment and trudged out of there with, I’m embarrassed to admit, tears flowing down my face. I was so upset that one more thing had not gone right for my child. Like all you other moms out there, I can take disappointment when it only affects me a lot better than I can stomach yet another disappointment for my child.
So there we sat in the car, and I was just apologizing to my daughter, Kendall. I was telling her how I would fix this if I could, just like I would fix the other struggles she has had to endure over the past few years. As a Christian, I believe in God. I have always prayed for His wisdom and direction for my own life, but also for my daughter’s. And when things continually seem to go wrong, in spite of a mother’s earnest prayers and a daughter’s diligence in her own walk with the Lord, it can be discouraging.
And as I ranted and processed life out loud with Kendall, we both came to the same conclusion at the same time. We blurted out, in unison: “Maybe our lives aren’t meant to go smoothly. Maybe we think that’s what God wants for us because that’s what we want. But what God really wants is for us to trust Him regardless.”
We realized that my overreaction to this latest setback was really just a culmination of so many other heartaches. This just happened to be the one that topped them all off, and my cup ran over.
Over the next few weeks, as I was praying through different challenges, I felt like God revealed to me that as a mother, my default mode is to put all of my hopes and dreams for my daughter in one basket. Take, for instance, her education. My husband and I pick a good school for her to attend, and I carefully place all of the hopes and dreams from my mother heart in that basket. Only that basket breaks when I become disappointed with negative experiences my daughter has at that school.
So I fall to the ground, desperately trying to pick up all of my now-bruised hopes and dreams for my daughter, and I place them in a new basket. This time will be better. This basket is sturdier. But after a while, that basket, too, begins to rip; and pretty soon, I’m bending down to gather up my hopes and dreams once again and looking for a new, safer basket in which to store them.
At what point do I recognize that I will never find the right basket for all of my hopes, dreams, and expectations? Nothing on this earth will protect these heart treasures of mine well enough. There will be rips in all of these earthly baskets. Whether we’re referring to school choice or church choice or even our choice of the person we marry or the house we live in or the car we drive.
These earthly things will never be able to fully satisfy or protect us. If we’ve learned anything in the past year with COVID restrictions, we’ve learned how uncertain our plans are, how easily the most highly anticipated events can be cancelled.
My faith should not be in any school or any house or any car or any big event or in the DMV’s ability to keep appointments. My faith is not in my own or my daughter’s successes. My faith is not even in – gasp! – life going the way I hoped or expected that it would. My faith is in God. Hebrews 11:1 tells us, Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.
What you and I have seen in these past couple of hard years, these big emotions we have felt, the losses we have mourned – none of this has to undo us because we don’t place our trust in what we see. Our faith is confidence that God is working everything out according to His plan, for our ultimate good and for His glory (Romans 8:28).
Jesus said in John 16:33, I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.
I love Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 4:16-18:
Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
So if you find yourself holding a basket that is busted open with your dreams falling all over the unforgiving ground; if you find yourself about to lose it at the DMV, remember – our God doesn’t sleep. He’s not ignoring us or unable to hear our cries for mercy or justice or help. We may not be able to see what He is working on underneath the surface, but we can be sure that He is working.
We need to refuse the idea that our lives are supposed to be easy or supposed to go smoothly. Comfort is not what’s important here. God’s presence in the midst of our disappointments is. Our hope is in eternal things, not temporal ones. Our faith is in a God Who knows just what we need, even if we might disagree with that sometimes. He is with us. This makes all the difference.
I lift up my eyes to the mountains—where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.
He will not let your foot slip—he who watches over you will not slumber; indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.
The Lord watches over you—the Lord is your shade at your right hand; the sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon by night.
The Lord will keep you from all harm—he will watch over your life; the Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore (Psalm 121).
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