necessity
Necessity does the work of courage
- George Eliot, Romola
In the States, I would not have blinked once at the prospect of taking the kids to church by myself, going to a soccer game or showing a friend around town. Yet with Steve traveling last week, I found myself in the mildly uncomfortable place of peering into the face of doing these things alone and having little choice but to act. What George Eliot missed in the little quip I typed above is that small, but meaningful stepping stone from urgency of felt need to performing a significant act that requires courage. The step forward almost always includes a bent knee, empty hands and a realization that in some minute but pivotal way I have come to the end of myself.
Am I short-changing myself? Maybe. But I am speaking as one whose natural bent is to view life through perceptions and through intuition. What else can move me beyond what I think I can handle, besides self-will and my mind? Yet I've tried telling myself that I can do it! and to think positively and I falter in this. There lacks a certain sense of meaning when all of life is merely just me stepping forward to the logical next step, trusting in my own human strength and will.
The bent knee, the empty hands, the understanding of weakness, bring me out of myself, out of the self-absorption that I usually find myself wallowing in, and to Grace (Which is not a THING, but a PERSON).
I am relational and I was made for relationship.
So when I found myself without my husband, being asked to move forward in things that I have not done alone, I came to Grace Himself and He walked me through the work that was courageous.
Yes, I know that going to church, taking the kids to soccer and driving around town sound so mundane, but when you're in the Middle East and you contemplate driving the four most valuable treasures you have been given through the jungle that they call traffic to a location that is at best fuzzy in your mind, you feel that you've been tasked to find the New World or something heroic like that :).
And when the embassy asks you to sponsor a family who just arrived in Jordan and you end up driving them to different schools so that they can register their two kids as quickly as possible (even though you still perceive that you are NEW to Jordan), you say yes because you remember how Terri had made the beds in your home before you arrived and Amy brought you grocery shopping and Kristen dropped by two bags of books because your kids had only brought one or two each and were bored out of their minds. And it was okay that you ended up getting to dizzyingly lost trying to find the American Community School that you were literally driving in circles around circle seven trying to determine whether to drive toward the two black towers or away from them...because you were stepping outside of yourself.
And in doing this, that you were allowing Him to grow you beyond what you thought you could do, could be.
Because if I was left to my own devices, I would stay where I was comfortable. In my routine, predictable day. In what I know.
I would stay in a small, small place.
But what, then, of this?
10 Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. -2 Corinthians 9:10
or this:
You let people ride over our heads; we went through fire and water, but you brought us to a place of abundance. - Psalm 66:12
So this week, I will stop at the gas station and ask, in Arabic, for the attendant to fill up my tank with octane 90 gas, then I will drive to the airport to pick up my hubbie with four kids in tow.
I will continue to make my house a home here in Jordan.
I will reach out to those God puts in my path.
I will trust Him with our future.
This is grace.
All is His grace,
and all this for His glory,
soli deo gloria.
- George Eliot, Romola
In the States, I would not have blinked once at the prospect of taking the kids to church by myself, going to a soccer game or showing a friend around town. Yet with Steve traveling last week, I found myself in the mildly uncomfortable place of peering into the face of doing these things alone and having little choice but to act. What George Eliot missed in the little quip I typed above is that small, but meaningful stepping stone from urgency of felt need to performing a significant act that requires courage. The step forward almost always includes a bent knee, empty hands and a realization that in some minute but pivotal way I have come to the end of myself.
Am I short-changing myself? Maybe. But I am speaking as one whose natural bent is to view life through perceptions and through intuition. What else can move me beyond what I think I can handle, besides self-will and my mind? Yet I've tried telling myself that I can do it! and to think positively and I falter in this. There lacks a certain sense of meaning when all of life is merely just me stepping forward to the logical next step, trusting in my own human strength and will.
The bent knee, the empty hands, the understanding of weakness, bring me out of myself, out of the self-absorption that I usually find myself wallowing in, and to Grace (Which is not a THING, but a PERSON).
I am relational and I was made for relationship.
So when I found myself without my husband, being asked to move forward in things that I have not done alone, I came to Grace Himself and He walked me through the work that was courageous.
Yes, I know that going to church, taking the kids to soccer and driving around town sound so mundane, but when you're in the Middle East and you contemplate driving the four most valuable treasures you have been given through the jungle that they call traffic to a location that is at best fuzzy in your mind, you feel that you've been tasked to find the New World or something heroic like that :).
And when the embassy asks you to sponsor a family who just arrived in Jordan and you end up driving them to different schools so that they can register their two kids as quickly as possible (even though you still perceive that you are NEW to Jordan), you say yes because you remember how Terri had made the beds in your home before you arrived and Amy brought you grocery shopping and Kristen dropped by two bags of books because your kids had only brought one or two each and were bored out of their minds. And it was okay that you ended up getting to dizzyingly lost trying to find the American Community School that you were literally driving in circles around circle seven trying to determine whether to drive toward the two black towers or away from them...because you were stepping outside of yourself.
And in doing this, that you were allowing Him to grow you beyond what you thought you could do, could be.
Because if I was left to my own devices, I would stay where I was comfortable. In my routine, predictable day. In what I know.
I would stay in a small, small place.
But what, then, of this?
10 Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. -2 Corinthians 9:10
or this:
You let people ride over our heads; we went through fire and water, but you brought us to a place of abundance. - Psalm 66:12
So this week, I will stop at the gas station and ask, in Arabic, for the attendant to fill up my tank with octane 90 gas, then I will drive to the airport to pick up my hubbie with four kids in tow.
I will continue to make my house a home here in Jordan.
I will reach out to those God puts in my path.
I will trust Him with our future.
This is grace.
All is His grace,
and all this for His glory,
soli deo gloria.
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