As I traveled the hour back home my phone rang. It was my daughter. "Mama! I don't want to do this anymore. I'm begging you and Dad to please let me come home!" My heart sank. "Where are you?" I was in bumper to bumper traffic. My husband had just called to let me know severe weather was headed my way. The sky was black. I explained to my daughter that I couldn't talk. "Mama! I can not do this any longer. Please! I'm begging you! I want to come home!" There was no rationalizing with her so I hung up the phone.
Honestly, in that moment as Hillsong sang in the background, alI I wanted to do was curl up in a ball and become invisible. One day to just forget this part of our life. "Isn't that how satan does though?" I thought to myself. I was spiritually full. My cup runneth over. I had spent the day with fellow sisters in Christ. Listened to testimony steeped in Christ's victory. Beautiful weather. And there he pounced. Black skies. A perfect metaphor for my quickly changing mood.
The interesting thing about recovery is that you tend to forget the ugly. What got you there in the first place. Because typically life rolls on normally for 75% of the time. Then out of no where the bottom drops out. The 25% of "bad" usually trumps the 75% good. You don't expect it. You don't see it coming. You think everything is wonderful again. Or you want to believe that. And much of the time that is very true. But then "Boom" out of no where satan roars his ugly head. You get through it. Then you roll forward into normalcy again.
She's made it seven months. The hard part, in hindsight, was not the surrendering. The hard part is starting over. This weekend she should be moving into the sorority house. Reconnecting with friends. The problem is that life no longer is her reality. God closes doors for a reason. She can't reopen them right now. The suffering is great. The victory is in seeing something better awaits you. I think Elisabeth Elliot said it perfectly:
"Our vision is so limited we can hardly imagine a love that does not show itself in protection from suffering. The love of God did not protect His own Son.... He will not necessarily protect us - not from anything it takes to make us like His Son. A lot of hammering and chiseling and purifying by fire will have to go into the process."
I pulled in the driveway and my phone vibrated. "I'm really homesick Mama". I truly am not equipped to handle these mini melt downs. I'm impatient by nature. The reality is that my words mean nothing. Actually, in the heat of the moment my words can sometimes hurt. His words mean everything. So I paused before I texted back. "Okay, Lord, do your thing--speak to her. Give me the words you wish me to speak". Nothing. Great. Patience is not my virtue.
Ten minutes later my phone vibrated again "I want to come home". And then He spoke:
"I know you do. YOU CAN DO THIS! He is chiseling away and purifying and you are not yielding to His plan for your life. It's a new life. It will be better than you can have ever dreamed of on your own. I PROMISE YOU THAT but you must fight with all your might use your resources: TALK TO HIM! PRAY, go to church, talk to your sponsor. Ask Him to show you because you can't envision it. He will get you through...don't quit!!"
"I know you do. YOU CAN DO THIS! He is chiseling away and purifying and you are not yielding to His plan for your life. It's a new life. It will be better than you can have ever dreamed of on your own. I PROMISE YOU THAT but you must fight with all your might use your resources: TALK TO HIM! PRAY, go to church, talk to your sponsor. Ask Him to show you because you can't envision it. He will get you through...don't quit!!"
Some days I wish I had a magic wand. A wand I could wave to fix everything and everyone that I think needs fixing. Amen? The fact is that through my daughter He is fixing me. I'm learning how to have humility, patience, perseverance, and hope.
Where I once turned my nose up at people "with problems" or "problem kids"? I'm learning that "those families" are the strongest families you will ever meet. "Those families" are strong because they recognize that in their weaknesses He makes them extraordinarily compassionate. They recognize that, as a family, they have nothing without His strength. They understand that their only hope is in Him.
"Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to us later."-Romans 8:18
