Good Enough?

I am happy to report our church now has a Nursing Mothers Room fully equipped, not only with rocking chairs and a changing table, but also with SOUND! 

You can tend to baby and hear the sermon without interrupting anyone and best of all, without anyone interrupting you! (Which may or may not have happened to me on, ahem, more than one occasion by teenage boys. Not sure who was more shocked...me or them?)   

Many hands went into putting that room together, but it was The Engineer (and I am now told a friend, too) who crawled through the rafters and ran the wire. The Engineer did the calculations and saved the church a chunk of change by wiring a volume knob into the speakers. He was the brains behind the sound. And he didn't just run wire to the Nursing Mothers' Room, he ran it to the nursery and installed speakers there, too. Many said it could not be done. He has done it. Boo-ya. (Is that bad?) And I am thrilled and hope it will be a blessing to all those mamas tending their babies! Now he's been asked to wire for sound in the narthex...

Mama gave Little Man two giant metal dump trucks for Christmas a few years ago. Both have stood the test of time. The children like to play "wheel chair" in the big yellow truck. 

Which is awesome. And then someone decides to tie a rope to the back of the dump truck. This is awesome, too. But then that someone got a little over zealous and in their excitement and attempt at making a turn, slung Little Bit right out and across the driveway. A little scratch on her cheek and a big bruise on her forehead and lots and lots of tears later and she's good as new. 

No more ropes on the dump truck. Period.

When I was a little girl my grandmother (I think) gave me a record player for my birthday. I LOVED that record player. A few years ago I took it from my childhood home and brought it home to my children.

Can I just say books on record ROCK. The children listen while I make lunch. And the excitement of watching the record spin..wondering how the needle reads the record...laughing when we speed it up and the voices sound wonky...it's quite captivating for all three children. I call that wonderful.

Since writing this post about a month ago, I've been hit head on with some hard stuff. I read this (by a friend) and it was like all of the sudden everything crystalized and I realized something. Something hard. Is this whole journey, this wanting for more children and having the Lord close the door again and again, month after month after month...is He exposing something deep in my heart? Something I didn't know was there?

And how to put it into words...this is where I vomit my heart all over the blog. I have a plan. We have a plan. We want more children. In my mind I see how great it would be. I imagine what life would be like with another child and it is hard, but it is good. The Lord is clear in His word that children are a gift from Him and that they are a blessing.

He only gives good and perfect gifts. Why, why won't He give us more children? And I try to speak truth to myself. To remind my heart that is aching that God is good and what He does is good. 

I go to my favorite Psalm...Psalm 34...and I read, Oh taste and see that the Lord is good! Oh fear the Lord, you His saints, for those who fear the Lord lack no good thing. Blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him! And my heart cries out. He is good, but I feel I am lacking. We are lacking a good thing. Our family feels incomplete...like something or rather, someone is missing.

And then deep in my soul I begin to see it. To realize. To ask the hard question. Is God still good when He doesn't give me what I want? When what I want He says is a blessing? A good thing? But still, He says no.

But more than that, do I really trust that He is working all things together for my good? (Romans 8:28) And even more than that, do I trust, am I resting in His plan being better than mine? Do I really believe that He is enough? That His plan is good enough?

Because I have my plan and it seems really, really good. When He isn't giving me what I want, what I think is best, can I submit and bow before Him believing that this, His will for us, is really the best? Better than anything I could ask or imagine?

And when I see baby legs kicking, pumping up and down, and I watch as an infant is baptized, when I smell that newborn smell on a four week old, and when I see my own baby almost as long as her crib, do I...can I...am I resting in Him? Content?

Am I breathing in these days and living and embracing His perfectly sovereign will? Or am I whining that I want something different?

It is disbelief. I am struggling to swallow...struggling to swallow that He is enough. That His plan is more than sufficient. It is good. And it hurts. And I want to rejoice in His perfect sovereignty. In His goodness. In His will.

And does rejoicing mean I give up my hope? And why, when I've begged Him to change my desires has He not? No, the hope is still there, but to rejoice in His perfect plan while my heart aches...I can't do that. Not in my own strength. Isn't that where I cry out because I lack faith? Where the Holy Spirit gives the gift of faith? And brings my heart to a place where I can rest contented in the shadow of the Almighty?

I want to be in that place. That place of knowing deep in my bones, in my soul, with all my heart, that even when He doesn't give me what I want, He is still good. I want to be in that place where I love where we are, and I don't waste precious time wishing and wanting and thinking..."one day when..."

The last time I had to swallow something so hard was when my parents' divorce was finalized. Coming to grips with the fact that God, in His perfect sovereignty, could have changed hearts. He could have softened my father. And He chose not to. That realization was painful to swallow. Again, something I wanted so badly, and He said no. 

And so as all of this is dawning on me. And I am realizing that I have to stop and think before I can truthfully, with all my heart say that He is good and what He does is good. God doesn't change and His ways are not our ways.

And I look at my husband, my precious, precious husband, and I take in the faces of our three wonderful children and with tears, I ask, "is this enough?" Is God enough? Is what He gives enough? And choking back the sobs, I have to say "yes." Yes. My heart hurts and longs deeply. How do I reconcile a bleeding heart with the deep soul knowledge that God is enough? That His plan is good enough. Rich enough? That His grace is sufficient? That He is perfect and what He does is good. And I cling to the cross. I wrap my hands around its base and bow my face to the ground and I am weak and I am sinful. I remember Job 38 and God putting Job in his place, asking, "Who are you, oh man, to question Me?" And I pray and plead with God to give me the strength because I am unable, that His Spirit will enable me to speak, to pray with every fiber of my being, "even if it means three is it, not my will, but Yours be done." And my flesh and my spirit wrestle.