I am a homebody. I am happy in my ‘pumpkin’. I feel safe here, and useful, and competent. I know the routine. I’ve been making meals for us for nearly thirty years. I make bread and cookies too. I don’t iron but I do laundry, and I vacuum and once every few months I may even dust something or sweep a cobweb from a corner…It’s not the height of excitement being home, but life is meaningful and predictable, pretty much, and peaceful.
Intruding into that sameness come appointments: Dentist visits. Eye doctor check-ups…regularly scheduled commitments, the odd ‘occasion’ or event… and my routine is jostled. My insides flutter. Peace gets flustery. I’ve always been somewhat this way, easily put off kilter. But I thought with the wisdom and perspective of age, I would out-grow such nervousness. It seems quite the opposite. And I’ve been wondering why?
Could it be, I’ve become confident in a realm I can handle most of the time on my own steam? And have forgotten that all my competence comes from the Lord and that for every breath and every day I am dependent in reality on Him? Could it be that my ‘peace’ is more dependent on my feeling ‘in control’ than on any conscious dependence on God?
As March rushes to a finish, this homebody too is changing pace. Lord willing by week’s end we’ll be sitting on the old familiar ferry with bags in tow, heading out for the long drive to visit the grandkids for Easter week. Wonderful prospect, but first the anticipation, the getting ready, the upheaval of change… Then comes an additional twist to our plans. Tacked to the tail-end of this trip will be a flight on my own to Alaska for a last-minute ‘reunion’ with family while life and sanity remain. My dad is failing. My mom needs her kids to come and see him ‘one last time’ while he may still be mindful of us….
Why do my insides roil at the prospect? Why does anxiety rise in the face of change? My sense of being in control is threatened; is that it? Am I only at peace when I feel all the variables are under my control?! That’s pretty delusive. Since when is maturity about gaining competence that lets me think I’m ok on my own and no longer dependent on my Father?
An array of fears that now seem so little used to drive me to prayer and conscious God-dependence…getting behind the steering wheel, for instance. I remember too the grace that carried me beyond the safety of my closed little community to a distant place with the strange sounding name of “Alberta” for my last year of high school. Shy little me was the least likely of my childhood friends to have done such a thing—but for my adventurous mom, the mother with big dreams that had anchored her own to stay home and raise her kids…She had this vision for me and passed on the God-confidence to make it come true, even for me. Little did I know how life-changing it would be, or that one day visiting Alberta would be about visiting my grandbabies, who were all born there!
So as I book flights and make lists and take steps to avoid last-minute rushes, I’m consciously committing myself again to God’s care, asking HIs guidance in the details, and counting on Him to carry out His purposes in this too for His glory!
–LS
Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. II Cor.3:5
Search me, God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting. Ps.139:23,24
You will keep him in perfect peace, Whose mind is stayed on You, Because he trusts in You. Is.26:3