Faithful and not Finished

Right now my youngest child is three years old and there are two older siblings.

When we came home with Boohoo my oldest child was three and a half and there are two younger siblings.

I know that six months is a big age difference in a kid’s life, but really. Let’s just stop and say “WOW!” together. That’s a lot o’ little kids. And I believe that in another year I’m going to look back to now and say the same thing again, and then in another five years even more so, and then in a decade or two I’m going to look back and remember what it was like to have three little little little kids simultaneously and I’m just going to pass out and be rushed to the hospital spa for the fluids and rest that I’m still short on!

Right now at three, I look at Pickle and I think how little he is, but then….

Peanut was (nearly) 3.5 years old. Boohoo was two years old. Pickle was not yet a year and a half. I was on the brink of moderate episode of depression. Boohoo cried constantly, hated Andrew, and tolerated me. Peanut reverted to needing to sleep in my bed with me every night. Pickle was essentially still a baby. Andrew had a hugely demanding job. Everyone had giardia. And that was just the beginning.

I look back now and I feel exhausted for myself. I really don’t remember a ton of specifics of that time. Frankly, that’s for the best and I’d like to forget some of what’s left from it! But we made it through and it’s a lot easier now than it was then. Looking back at that scares me.

I know how we got through it though…at least on the big picture (since I don’t remember the details). God was faithful to us. In that bleak, terrifying, desperate period where my soul was filled with the howling of raw emotion (if not mine then echoes from the kids!) He was there.

“But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.”

So God, if you’re reading this blog this is my shout out to say “Thanks!” I know that he was faithful to us then. It had nothing to do with us. And I know that he’s faithful to us now. We are certainly not “arrived” and we are no less in need of his protection, help, and grace now than we were then. Not at all.

Now, I’m just seeing more clearly. Now I know we are still hard-pressed, but I know we will not be crushed, I feel perplexed (about every .5 seconds), but I know that I don’t have to despair. I hear the tantrums persecution, but I don’t feel abandoned except by Andrew who gets/has to go to work all day. I do feel struck down (many times), but I know that I will not be destroyed.

Because my God is faithful.

And because my God is faithful I know that He is not finished yet.

“…being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”