When you're not looking

or listening very hard, that's when God tells or shows you something. It has happened to me so many times in my life, you'd think I'd get it by now. Stop freakin' out and the answer (whether the one I want or not) will catch up to me, instead of me needing to chase it down.

Yesterday in church I was moved (appropriately, given it was Stewardship Sunday) to really look at my life and to be more greatful. Hence, my new daily Joy Break. But I was also hit over the top of my head by Our Father. As in, hey kid--wake up, HEAR ME, and stop fighting it. We sung a hymn I have sung a thousand times. I have heard it in times of gladness, at funerals, just on a random Sunday. Yesterday, it was meant for me.

Let me back up.

It has felt like I'm walking on a tightrope the past couple months. I have been wound so very tight; sometimes my one foot is off the rope, sometimes I'm wobbling forward or back. And the ground, it is so very far down--I feel the fear in my chest, the ache in my head. It has taken all my concentration to stay on that rope. In work, at home, in my heart. The peace I felt when we moved forward with our adoption plan seems to be nowhere, at least that I can find it. But see, I am looking down.

All of my anxiety about this adoption process, all of my fears about motherhood and whether it will ever find me, all of my sadness about not being able to have a baby of my own body--these things have been gripping me and nearly squeezing the life out of me. Yet, I keep holding on to them despite also wanting to let them go. My faith has taken a beating because I have been hanging on and hanging on, desparately. For all the hanging on, I'm worse off now than 3 months ago. I have been looking out, trying to see the future. Trying to see when and how this is all going to end.

Back to church...

When we sang "What A Friend We Have in Jesus" during service yesterday, it was at that moment a single line jumped out of the hymnal at me: Oh, what peace we often forfeit, Oh, what needless pain we bear, and I knew the next line without having to even look: All because we do not carry Everything to God in prayer! It couldn't have been clearer--I can have peace; I do not need to fear or for my heart to be in pain.

So today, I look up. And tomorrow. And the next day. I am going to try hard to keep looking up, because I don't want to go this road alone and I know I don't have to.