2018 wisdom

Hannah brought Samuel to the temple and left him there. What is God asking me to “give back” to him?

“Just value people, and I’ll take care of the rest.”

If God doesn’t rescue me, I will not be rescued. “Though He slay me, yet will I trust him.”

The sentences above were written by me at some point through the year. I had planned to make myself notes to chronicle some of the things God was doing in my heart all through the year. All I ended up with were three things. And yet they are important lessons from 2018.

Hannah brought Samuel to the temple and left him there. What is God asking me to “give back” to him?

Little did I know when I chose 1 Samuel 1 for my passage for the year, that I would be asked by God to bring my own “Samuels” to the temple to give back to him. I imagined it was a figurative thing - that God was asking me to loosen my grip on “stuff of this earth” and hold with open hands the gifts he has given me, for which I have prayed with tears. But the fostering journey has been one of the most heart-wrenching roller coasters I have ever been on. I have been so broken. I have been held and loved and blessed. But I have felt such grief and such inadequacy and selfish anger too. It has been so evident that God uses weakness to accomplish great things. Truly the desire to foster babies was a gift straight from him. And the strength and courage to do it was also from him. The uniting of our entire household around these hurting babes has been a gift of gifts. The most painful gift has been the opportunity to hurt - to feel the grief that I would only have stuffed down in the past. These lessons on how to feel, and on how to grieve, have been a rung on my healing ladder that I could never have imagined. Who could ever imagine that learning how to grieve would be such a soul-feast? A plate of nourishment and gut-warming comfort. A tall cup of sparkling water in a dry and weary land.

“Just value people, and I’ll take care of the rest.”

Part way through 2018, God and I started to make this deal: I’d tell him, “OK, I’ll do the very brave and difficult thing of valuing this person - of remembering they are your creation, loved by you, and your image-bearer….but I NEED you to do the rest.” I would feel overwhelmed by fear or by intimidation or by impatience with someone (often impatience and annoyance), and God would prompt me to react to them with love. Of course, I would prickle and make excuses. But after I discovered this deal, I was amazed how much easier things became. And God always held up his end of the bargain! Every single little detail that had given me fear or annoyance or any other excuse, God took care of it. He did. Every time.

If God doesn’t rescue me, I will not be rescued. “Though He slay me, yet will I trust him.”

God’s rescue. How often do I settle for less? I have learned this year that sometimes I need to refuse lesser rescue. The shortcut to an appearance of healing is tempting. But it sells me out. God’s rescue doesn’t leave any bits behind. It doesn’t sweep anything under the rug. God’s rescue acknowledges the horror of my deepest regret, and then redeems it and uses it for good. God makes my shame beautiful.

This year I learned a lot about forgiveness. I began the year with an understanding that I could never embrace cheap forgiveness - you know, the kind that says, “Do it for your own sake. It’s not about them, but about you. Forgive because of how much you’ve been forgiven.” All these might be true, but they had become trite sayings to me. And I couldn’t bear the thought. I wasn’t against forgiveness itself. Of course, I believe in the power and gift of forgiveness! And I am painfully aware of how much God has forgiven me. But the thought of the ability to forgive him was unthinkable to me. I didn’t even want to think about him, let alone forgive him! But God kept teaching me new things about forgiveness itself, leading me along a path that winds beside the still waters of the Spirit.

Brene Brown says, “For forgiveness to happen, something has to die.” This rings true in my heart of hearts. And I am aware that, often, what has to die is the plan within my own mind of how things should go. Satan loves to paralyze me with what might have been. And truly there is little more paralyzing than regret and anger at things we cannot change. This year I realized that death can be a gift - a way of giving to God what we cannot bear to carry any longer. I have been carrying the corpse of who I might have been for a long time. This year I was given the gift of releasing her body into God’s hands. I buried her in the ground, planting seeds of hope and life.

From Rob Bell, I learned that to truly forgive myself, I must begin by forgiving others. I learned that debt is heavy - both debt carried because I owe it, and also debt that is owed to me. This blew my mind. Carrying debt - something owed to me by another - is heavy. And often I can do little to alleviate the weight of the debt I owe others, but I can always lighten the load of debt owed to me. All I have to do is forgive it. Suddenly I will find I’m not carrying it anymore. In 2019, I will put this into practice in tangible ways. Small at first, but bigger and bigger as I build up my “forgiveness muscles.”

Yes, 2018 was truly a year of giving back to God. Just as Hannah walked with little Samuel to the temple, all the way knowing she would be leaving him there, so has this year been for me. But I believe Hannah knew something profound: giving to God is not giving away. It taught her to grieve, and each year as she went, taking a little coat she had made for Samuel, she gave him to God anew, placing him in the hands of the One who loved him most. This is the only safe place for all my hopes and dreams and plans. The hands of God are the only ones strong enough, loving enough, and honourable enough to hold my future and my past.