It’s been an interesting past couple of days.
We’ve returned home from our vacation, our toddler is still on Eastern time, we had a funeral to attend today, and our house is a disaster zone. No joke about the disaster zone part.
Piles of laundry, every surface covered in dust, no groceries, no semblance of peacefulness, a hundred tasks on the to-do list, flooring guys banging floor boards into place and a toddler who’s overtired and very needy. Not to mention she just spit up regurgitated milk all over her car seat. UGH!
It’s enough even to make my laid back head spin.
I’m pushing through, holding on to the promises, and doing one task at a time. Trying my darndest not to succumb to the temptation to sit back and avoid the reality that is spilled about me.
But adding to the chaos of returning home was realizing that we had a funeral to attend. I made reference to the fact that someone was ill here but I never really chatted much about it. Sometimes when we don’t have long heritages of believing family we inherit “spiritual grandparents.” Mary Ann and Eileen have been in my life since I was married. They taught a “homemaking group” through our church which has really just become a “sit and soak up knowledge” kind of a time 7 years later. But both in their late 70’s, early 80’s, they have been more than just “grandparents.” They’ve been faithfully showing me how to be a wife, how to be a mother, how to be a woman who puts her trust in Jesus.
After a battle with cancer, Mary Ann’s husband is at the feet of Jesus. After having watched someone die, front row seat to his immediate children grieving while standing beside my mother as she grieved the death of her husband, there’s an ache in my heart as to what’s ahead for Mary Ann’s family. We, the girls of Titus 2, will miss him, but there’s an ache a family feels when a loved one has passed.
And he wasn’t just any ordinary man. He was a living and breathing example of how to abide in Jesus. He was faithful to his calling as a man, husband, father and grandfather. And we knew this firsthand in enjoying his company and more so, through the eyes of his wife. The stories she shared and the love she had for him was incredibly evident. Their marriage is an example of one we can only hope to have. A legacy we can only hope to live.
We are blessed to know them, I’m blessed to have these incredible examples of faithful servants in my life. So we’re celebrating where he is and our hearts are heavy for the days ahead for his family and we’re abiding in Jesus, knowing He’s enough.
For all this mess and all this loss and all this heartache.
Abiding means one foot after another we can move forward.
Because He’s enough.
It was the middle of summer the first time the question arose. We were out on his boat, like we often were, and the lake was gorgeous, sun high up in the sky. And in response to my question he answered “I want to build boats in a large barn in our backyard.” I didn’t realize then but he was laying the groundwork.
Similar responses were given as we continued our new relationship and every time my heart did a little flutter as I realized what was in store if I married this man. So much unknown. And he was doing me good by preparing me for the life as the wife of an entrepreneur.
I remember often I’d say, “Of course you can build boats. But our bills will be paid right?” And really his questions had nothing to do with whether the bills would be paid. They were questions leading at my heart. They were asking in no certain terms; will you support me, cheer me on, encourage me, stand behind me. Will you be for me and not against me.
Nothing other than having an self-employed father could have prepared me for the heart of my husband. My father, though self-employed, stayed in one field. My husband has incredible dreams, intense work ethic, and he follows the One who leads him.
But more challenging than anything else in our marriage for me has been letting go of “normal.” Letting go of the idea that you must work a job with a boss and co-workers and health insurance. That you taking risk is risky and life should be orderly and under our control.
But that’s not what He whispered and that’s not the life to which I’ve been called. I’ve been called to rely on Jehovah Jireh, PROVIDER, and to support and encourage and help my husband. We’ve seen hard times and very little money coming in the door and we’ve had really good years, when all our desires are met. But throughout every year our “needs” have been covered. We’ve never been without food or shelter or clothing or care from our Shepherd.
We’ve flipped houses in a horrible housing market, sold houses and lived in a rental, we’ve bought rental property and finally our own house. We’ve remodeled houses and prayed for provision. We’ve successfully carried on a business or two in stride with paying for our living expenses, no small feat.
And when the times get really hard and money gets tights my first earthly response is always “honey maybe it’s time to go back to work.” And then I remember the times in the boat, the conversations about building boats and I look across the table at the man I married and my heart swells with pride. For what He’s done for us. For the way He’s created my husband and wired him to work for himself, hard and faithful to the calling to provide. And as a result we’ve had to lean in really close, beckon and ask the Lord for provision, calling on His name of Jehovah Jireh, and He’s answered and not always the way we thought He would.
This isn’t so much about my husband or about myself as it is in knowing that when we abide under the Lord’s wings, He’s got us. He knows our needs better than the birds, He knows our hearts, He knows us. Inside and out. He knows our worries and the cares we carry on our shoulders. He’s showing us that we don’t need earthly storehouses overflowing for the rainiest of days. We don’t need to bury our money in the ground.
He’s got us. I struggle all the time believing this. But I know much more now than I did as that naïve wife 7 years ago.
7 years in and I wouldn’t change a thing for the Lord has shown me more about provision through our marriage and my husband than I ever would guessed. I needed to trust the One who gives not the two hands in front of me. I need to believe that what He says in the book about who He is and what He does is TRUE. HE PROVIDES AND CARES AND LOVES US.
And He always gives us what we need.
Always.
Need sometimes looks a little different than what we originally thought.
And now I’m headed out back to see what kind of boats we’re building today.
