I have noticed something about praying for restoration. The breakthrough happens in the strangest ways, at the most unexpected times. God is a master storyteller. His stories are always full of surprise twists. He almost never writes the story the way I would.
I have been studying the restoration that is recounted in the biblical story of Nehemiah and finding startling parallels to the restoration project going on in me and in my family.
Nehemiah had been praying for God's intervention for months. In private, he prayed and wept. In public he hid his anguish, put on a happy face, and did his job. It was a government job; serving the most powerful man in the world, the king of Persia.
I have had seasons in my life when I have trudged through my days with a happy face masking my broken heart. It happened when my parents divorced. It happened again when my first husband told me that he didn't want to be married anymore, and again when I found out why he didn't want to be married anymore. There were times like that as I slogged through years defined by being a divorced single mom. More recently there have been days like that as I have bruised my shins running up against the realities of building a blended family from the pieces of two broken homes.
The only thing that gets me out of bed in the morning on such days is duty. I get up. I do my job. I try to hide the fact that my heart is in excruciating pain. I go home. I hide in the bathroom while I cry and pray. Eventually the day ends. Finally, gratefully, I sleep for a few hours. I get up, get slammed by the sorrow, and do it all again. Sometimes I do this for months.
Nehemiah was a good faker, but not quite as good as he thought he needed to be. He had hidden his distress for four months. Unfortunately, one day, his boss, a very powerful man, in fact the most powerful man in the world at that time, noticed that he did not look good. The king perceived that the problem was emotional and not physical. Nehemiah's immediate reaction was fear. He hadn't meant for things to go this way. He hadn't meant for his distress to interfere with his work. Kings, and this one was no exception, weren't generally known for their patience and understanding with depressed servants. Nehemiah swallowed hard, and shaking in his boots, he told the truth. This was a very dicey thing since the king ruled the empire, that conquered the empire, that was responsible for the destruction of Jerusalem in the first place.
The best things sometimes happen that way. They enter your life disguised as disasters. The very thing you have been trying with all of your might to avoid, happens, and you just have to go with it.
A few months ago I was struggling with the role of stepmother. I have spent my entire adult life working with kids. I love kids, and almost without exception kids love me. I say, almost without exception.
The notable exception happened after I disrupted already messy little lives by marrying these particular kids' father. A few months ago my stepkids had been sending me not-so-subtle messages that they didn't really want me in their lives, and I was hurting. One morning, the hurt spilled out. It overflowed in a rush. I couldn't stop it in time. My anger and hurt erupted with force all over the place. No expert giving advice about building bonds between stepmom and stepkids ever recommends this approach. I thought I had ruined any chance I was ever going to have of being accepted by these guys.
Nehemiah spilled his guts to the king. Surprisingly the king did not do as Nehemiah expected and summon the executioner. Instead the king asked how he could help, and the opportunity Nehemiah had been praying for appeared out of the blue.
My explosion prompted a discussion with the kids. We talked for hours. It was the turning point I had been praying for.
Sometimes when opportunity knocks, he does it in disguise.
No comments:
Post a Comment