Blizzards Aren't Beautiful

 

It occurred to me yesterday that blizzards are the only natural disaster that you can post pictures of on social media and get told that it's beautiful. (Think about it...would anyone say that if you posted pics of a hurricane or tornado or wildfire?)

Blizzards aren't beautiful. They are terrifying and suffocating and destabilizing and stressful and require a lot of physical labor for which one may or may not be prepared. 

As with all crises, the rich can pay their way out, while the middle class and poor must dig themselves out, with bare hands and breaking shovels.

We're at (what we're hoping is) the tail end of a blizzard here. A couple weeks ago, we had 99" of snow fall over seven days. We then had about a week off, and then another 18" or so fell this past week, and covered everything we'd already dug out, and then we've had freezing temps at night, so unlike the fluffy, powdery 99" of snow, this is all freezing into glaciers.

I was stressing again about cracks I'm seeing around the house this morning. I haven't been sleeping well and have had tumultuous dreams. I went out to shovel while listening to a Dave Gustavsen sermon, and he was talking about God providing a ram for Abraham, and how God never gives us more than He can handle, while I was trying to free the Outback from large ice-snow chunks, and trying to believe it.

I came to write this just to get some of this stuff out of my head, and before beginning, looked at some old posts (I had such dreams for this blog...sigh). Funny that my last post from 10 months ago began with hopefulness about writing more - ha! Also found another post where I was stressing about cracks in our house and listening to Dave Gustavsen. 

I hardly know what to make of this life. Is this a test, this last month of battling the elements, as Dave's sermon might suggest? And is it yet another way of God asking me to trust Him, having noted the very obvious cracks in my ability to do so? Will there be a day when I just trust and He doesn't have to give me something else to reveal the weak places?

I'm mostly just really tired. We're really tired. I'm tired of people, too, so deeply tired of people. Especially the people telling me that the blizzard is beautiful. 

Continuing to post on social media about my life is probably just a sign of my insanity. I keep posting hoping for empathy, and getting sympathy or sarcasm or finger wagging or politics. (There are empathetic responses...I wish I could remember to focus on those more than the others.) I keep thinking that if I keep serving my life events to the people I thought were my friends, they'll care and extend themselves to me. But they don't. And I keep getting people telling me that I chose this or that it's beautiful.

I keep wondering when we will find community that's community. Our failed attempt last year trying to connect still didn't completely snuff that flame for me...there's still a pilot light burning ironically. God loves these people. These people that disappoint and drive daggers into my back, into my heart. God loves them. I don't, but God does. 

I've finished two quarters of grad school now. I had hoped this blog might be a place to process some of what I've mused on and learned, but nope. Life hasn't allowed for that kind of reflection. It's been good and I have learned stuff. I just am too tired to give it all more words at this point.

I don't know what else to do; it's just a continual handing over...packing the donkey and chopping the firewood and taking all my hopes and dreams on the journey to sacrifice them all to God, even though nothing makes any sense. It doesn't make sense to kill what He promised you. From that post over a year ago, seeing those cracks, our house hasn't crumbled to the ground, but I'm still afraid of it today. So many things I have trembled with fear over have never come to pass, but I still tremble. Because some of them have, and that makes trust feel so foolish. Sometimes there's a ram, but sometimes the life does get sacrificed. Sometimes there's a windfall, but sometimes there's a bankruptcy. Sometimes there's an upholding, but sometimes there's a cave-in. 

These are the words Dave spoke today, that are about all I've got. They're my pilot light right now...the flickering belief that this is all for something.

"God's going to put you in situations that are so hard and you will be stretched beyond what you ever thought was possible and even when you're old like Abraham and you think "Haven't I paid my dues yet?" God's going to keep on testing you. He's going to call you to give up things, he's going to take things from you, he's going to test you because he loves you so much and he wants your faith to go to a whole new level and when that happens (not if but when that happens), never forget the God who tests is the God who provides.

You know, people say sometimes God will never ask of you more than you can handle...false. Here's the truth: God will never ask of you more than he can handle. That's a big difference. God wants to stretch you way beyond what you can handle, but never forget the God who tests is the God who provides. Jehovah Jireh is faithful to his people, so keep on trusting him, keep on moving forward in faith even in times of trial,

and when you do that, here's the promise, it's in verse 17 in the passage after Abraham had passed this test God says to Abraham, 'Surely I will bless you,' and he gives Abraham some specifics of what that blessing is going to look like in his life, but I really believe that that's for us this morning. That's for you to receive as a child of God, to hear these words, especially if you're at a time of testing right now. Close your eyes and hear these words from God: 'Surely I will bless you in ways that you cannot even imagine.'"