Bittersweet Gifts
My attempt to read the minds of two women in Scripture...
Gifts that Miss the Mark
I am not the best gift-giver. Based on experience, my poor husband now just gives me a list, or worse, he orders his own gifts for me to wrap. I’ve also been the recipient of gifts that were weird or unusual. My grandmother once gave me a film canister filled with ashes from the erupted volcano, Mt. St. Helen, not exactly on my wish list as a teenager in the 1980s. I also once opened a gift from someone that I had given them a couple of years before. Awkward.
Whatever our “gifting” scenarios and shenanigans, sometimes the gifts we receive—like the lives we’ve been dealt—just don’t feel like what we asked or hoped for.
I see this quote from time to time:
“Remember the days you prayed for the things that you have now.”
But my response is not always so Pinterest-worthy. In fact, I usually think, Yeah, this is what I prayed for, but this is not how I thought it would go down.
My Mind-Reading Exercise from Luke 1
No, I haven’t gone new age on you. I just like to ponder what people in Scripture might have been thinking.
My husband and I are enjoying a season of life with more spontaneity, fun, and connection than we’ve ever had before—a gift, to be sure. But we also currently have a few adult kids who are struggling with some heavy things that accompany mental illness, addiction, and doubt. This is the family I prayed for decades ago and adore today. But there are moments where the plot twist catches me off guard and has me looking back at my self-authored, beautifully-crafted life-script with nostalgia.
This is where my current study of Luke finds me. I’ve recently fallen in love with Luke’s meticulous attention to detail and his dedication to researching eyewitness accounts that enrich his gospel narrative. And right off the bat in chapter one, we read the wildly spectacular stories of two women—one infertile and menopausal, the other young and inexperienced. Both are about to receive some life-changing news from an unexpected visitor.
First, there’s Elizabeth,
who is given a double dose of things to be thankful for. Not only is God about to miraculously open her womb, but this kid will be the first prophet to speak God’s words of life and hope to Israel in over 400 years.
Then there’s Mary,
a frightened teen who believes the angel’s bold declarations. The kid she’s conceiving will be:
great,
called the Son of the Most High,
given the throne of his father David,
will reign over the house of Jacob forever (Luke 1:32-33).
I wonder if these intoxicating words caused her to gloss over the less flattering prophecy from Simeon a few verses later—the ones promising his opposition, and worse, the sword that would pierce her own soul (v. 34-35).
If I were Mary, I’d be thinking what most of the disciples thought: This child is going to set us free from Rome’s iron rule! He will reign on an earthly throne and establish a physical kingdom! Let’s go!
But that’s not exactly what went down. In fact, some 30+ years later, both of their babies were rejected by many and died cruel, brutal deaths at the hands of their enemies.
And I have to wonder—cause they were as human as I am—if part of them cried out,
“God, this was not the way I saw this going down.”
And maybe part of them wondered, however secretively,
“God, this is not what you promised.”
The Myth of Blind Faith
God does not orchestrate sickness or brokenness. It’s not in his nature. But living east of Eden, there are things we are grieving. Limping along, thinking,
God, this was not part of the plan.
Why won’t you intervene?
Because we know that he can.
But chew on this with me, even as life’s charcutterie board becomes less appetizing with every deviation away from hope: We do not follow God blindly. I know Hebrews 11:1 says, “Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we cannot see.”
But God always gives us a reason to trust Him.
Charles Spurgeon once said,
“Faith is not a blind thing, for faith begins with knowledge. It’s not a speculative thing, for faith believes facts of which it is sure. It’s not an impractical, dreamy thing for faith, trusts, and stakes its destiny upon the truth of revelation.”
My faith is based on the person of God. And when I listen with spiritual ears, I hear him whisper,
“You know who I am.”
“You know how I roll.”
Even during my confusion about what He’s doing (or not doing), I can trust who He is and pray that he enables that to be enough.
My Mind-Reading Moment…
These women declared their hallelujahs ahead of time because they saw the story God was writing – even if things went differently than they imagined.
I wonder if Elizabeth’s cry of faith rings as true after John’s beheading as it did after his beginning.
And if Mary’s song of praise is no less real after the anguish of the cross as it was at the announcement of the gift.
If God included their stories at the start of Luke’s gospel, I tend to believe he kept on writing them, enabling these mamas to see their incredible, painful stories as merely the start of a bigger story.
One they caught a glimpse of at the resurrection.
Accepting the Bittersweet Gifts
I can become immune to the wonder of Jesus dying for my sins in my place and the fact that he is now living fully in me. I’ve known it for so long, it often reads with monotony rather than marvel. The gospel isn’t the starting gate; it’s the race itself. I want to run in faith that God is working in ways I may never know but can fully and completely trust. I want to live in the light of the gospel rather than in the shadows of disappointment, or unfulfilled dreams, or bittersweet gifts.
Gifts that come in the form of a front-row seat to my grown kids’ struggles, praying they discover the grace to rise from their brokenness.
The gift of a marriage that took 20+ years to morph into a more biblical form of a partnership/friendship (better late than never:).
The gift of a new season of life that has me—with fresh fears—wondering what I’ll be “when I grow up.”
So, I make a list.
Not of ways I can crush through each crisis or smile my way through struggle.
No, this list is a sampling of what I know to be true about God.
Ways he’s shown up for me in the past.
Beauty he’s created out of the ashes of my agony.
Mountains he’s made a way through and seas he’s separated so I could walk on dry ground.
And if my own life feels short on faith examples, I go to Scripture and borrow the faith of others.
I count on the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who made a promise that reached all the way to my realized redemption.
I count on the God of Hagar, who comforted a lonely slave girl in her shame-induced wilderness, causing her to believe, “God sees me.”
I count on the God of Naomi who renewed her life and sustained her in her old age.
And I count on the God of Mary, who enabled her to sing, “His mercy is from generation to generation on those who fear him.”
When the gift I’ve been given feels painful or off-track, I trust the heart of the Giver.
And I take another step in faith.
Un-blindly.
Cause I know how he rolls.
Bow on Wood Image by Bruno from Pixabay
Reading Image by einsichtsweise from Pixabay
Women Image by Bhakti Kulmala from Pixabay