Hi/Lo Thursday on Friday.

This post is part of "Hi/Lo Thursday" on the Riggs Family Blog. Check our their blog to read everyone else's "Hi/Lo" posts.

I am well aware, I think, that it is Friday… but I really wanted to take part in this again this week, and after homework, swim meet, putting the kiddos to bed, getting ready for Leah to bring her friends here tonight for her birthday party… I didn’t have it in me to get this done yesterday… I went to bed.

Sigh… this is interesting when I start to think about highs and lows from this week.  Quite honestly, I don’t feel like we have had too many lows… at least not when I stop and consider what The Riggs Family are walking out… or if I read how Linn @ A Place Called Simplicity is sifting through the remains of their home destroyed by fire… and I join others in hoping and praying that they will receive a new home one way or another.  How hard.  Then yesterday morning I hear from my friend, Jodi that her cousin’s baby girl died in her arms yesterday… My brain doesn’t even want to go to the places that imagine any of these things happening.

Then I think, I don’t think anyone’s brain wants to go to the place where they imagine what we are walking through either.  And then I realize, that the Mighty God who has walked through each and every step of these past years of trial with us, is walking with all of them.  I remember that  I can’t imagine the grace it takes to walk in their shoes, because I have not walked in their shoes.  I’ve only walked in these.  And walking in these shoes has changed everything for me.

As I consider lows for the week… it hasn’t been one of my easiest weeks.  But, in comparison to the weeks I was walking out one, two, or three years ago.  It’s been a cake walk.  It was hard to realize that yet another wedding anniversary date has passed… It was hard to help James deal with a break up in his own life, when my own memories are so very real and vivid.  It was also hard have Leah tell me that she received an e-mail from her dad.  Read it, and be face to face with the reality of his thinking.  Again. Or to find out that James car is going to need some big repairs done on it.

The lows are, that this week we have dealt with some tough life stuff.  We’ve dealt with the reality that those around us hurt us.  But, I have a hard time calling them lows when God is so close and provides so amazingly for us in each circumstance.  How could that be a low when we are walking so closely with HIM?  Isn’t that incredible?  My mind is blown by Him today.

Highs…

James and I had a chance to communicate more this week.  He took my advice and is finding out that I actually knew what I was talking about, and is on speaking terms, at least, with his friend, Alisen.  That is good.  He is happy, laughing, singing, being silly, and not grouchy.  I am so thankful.  Thanks for your prayers for him this week.

I took James car in for an oil change and to find out why the “check engine” light is going off and on.  We found out that it is going to need some pretty major repairs.  Many of you may wonder how we get by financially.  It is a hard one for me to talk about sometimes, I don’t quite know how to express it.  These were some major repairs that actually will cost more than the car is really worth. That is always a tough call to make.  Thankfully one I didn’t have to make.  God has placed us in an incredible community, with incredible people.  People who are really walking out the gospel of Jesus, and being His hands, feet, arms, legs… pocketbook.  I was told to go ahead and fix the car up right, and the bill would be taken care of.  I sit here shaking my head, how do I wrap my little brain around that?  I can’t.

When Leah told me her dad had e-mailed, my heart was racing.  He hasn’t tried to contact us since Christmas.  I confess I was, oh, Livid, for about an hour after I read what he said.  I am thankful she wasn’t around until later, after I’d processed it and decided how to handle it.

I had this fear in the back of my head every since I wrote more about standing.  It was a fear based on the words of the enemy that said, you are only so bold in your stand because you haven’t had to deal with him in so long… once you deal with him again you won’t be so bold.  You’ll cave under the circumstances just like you always do. 

And I confess, for an hour or so, I did.  It took me a little while, and venting to a friend, to realize that this was the same ole-same-ole, and that the enemy’s lie was what was getting to me more than anything… this e-mail contact was not changing a thing… frustrating as it is to realize that even though I pray and pray, once again, he still sits in his pit of selfishness, seemingly from human eyes unchanged, and digging his pit of despair deeper.

So, I take it as an opportunity to teach my daughter about life.  About people. About not being a victim of other people’s attempts to take their mistakes and make them your responsibility.  Not something that you fantasize teaching your 12 year old daughter, but something very real in this world we live in.  I just hate it that it happens to be her dad that is the subject of our life lesson.

And I resolve myself to continue to stand and pray.  And I have amazing peace.

It’s been God who has brought us through another week.  It has been His grace that has helped us through these minor lows, the same way He has gotten us, and will get all the families mentioned earlier, through major ones.  He is there.  Good. Bad.  Sad. Mad.  Always available with the grace to walk out each and every day.  And not only that, giving us the ability to actually find and experience beauty out of ashes.

It’s always a joy to see these two being silly… yah know, because it did reach 40 yesterday, and the sun was awfully bright!  My sunglasses were the cure!  Good thing they are such good sharers… ahem…

Be Blessed!

“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen!”

Ephesians 3:20-21

Pam