“Don’t worry about what you will eat or what you will wear. Your heavenly father knows what you need. Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you, as well. Don’t worry about tomorrow. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” – Jesus, Matthew 6
I remember Matt saying back in July that I needed to prepare myself not to make it financially past December of 2011. We had several donors need to drop our monthly support, just days after we had signed a year lease on a house in a better {but more expensive} part of town for our family {You can read about that transition here.} We had moved to SE Asia with a business plan for a secondary stream of income, which, unfortunately, also hadn’t worked out, and car issues and unplanned expenses had depleted any shred of margin.
And, so, for the past 11 months, we’ve been sucking in and holding our breaths. Paying with change sometimes and freaking out a lot of the times.
But, we’re still here. Somehow. We did make it past December, all the way till nearly -June. And honestly, I’m not really sure how that happened. We haven’t launched a clever fundraising campaign, and we’ve actually been terribly inconsistent in our donor newsletters. We haven’t traveled home to raise our support, and try as I might, I just can’t figure out how to make this writing-gig pay much, either. But, by the grace of God and the hair of our chinny-chin-chins, we haven’t declared financial bankruptcy or had to leave SE Asia.
And it isn’t all about the money, either. I’ve also learned a lot about near-emotional-bankruptcy this year, too. I’ve tasted the close-breaking of hope and faith and joy because the supply in the account was woefully short of the bills due throughout the day–
The needs of the kids and my marriage. The spiritual weight that has constantly pressed down. The darkness of what people can do to each other. The depressive fog of finding purpose and schedule and community.
Realistically speaking, I haven’t had what it takes to make it much past December of last year, either.
But, somehow, I have, we have – survived, stumbled upon just enough. By grace, only. No, really, Only.
And I was writing in my journal this past week, I wrote God a list of what I needed for the day– financial help, a meeting for Matt, friends for the kids. I was feeling desperate– an emotion I’ve become well-acquainted with during the past two years. And over coffee and by a rice field later that morning, I was reading Jesus’s words about birds of the air and flowers in a field, about seeking first the Kingdom, and about how “the Heavenly Father knows what you need.”
And I was gently reminded– He’s got a list for me, too.
And his list of what I need, what I absolutely must have to survive the day ahead of me in terms of money and emotion and spirit, is probably quite different from the one I’m typically quick to write. His list might not include a best friend or a different car or living in America. And it might not have a date night or being close to family or that ministry “success” I feel like we need to see. His list is probably smaller. But it’s much truer, too. Because He. Knows. Me.
And while this God I’m following is sometimes a God of daily, daily manna, he’s also been known to never let a bird go hungry, a flower be naked,
Or a missionary starve.
“Oh, the differences that often are between, everything we want and what we really need.” – Gratitude, Nichole Nordeman
****************
LauraParkerBlog.com.
