A Box

I’ve heard it a hundred times in every recent publication, and I’m sure you have too: 2015 is over and a new year has begun. I wish I could sit and write about everything that happened the past year, but I’m not that disciplined or that good a writer. I wouldn’t do it justice. So I just stare at my journal, then at my keyboard and can only produce a little list:

1. Lili moved in and taught me that love means doing all the little things that sometimes seem easy but are so difficult to faithfully do with a good heart everyday.

She showed me the picture of resiliency everyday.

2. I began training caregivers and house parents what it means to be a healing presence in the life of a child, while everything I said during the day was constantly tested at home at night.

3. Years of my writing were erased due to a computer malfunction, and I learned that sometimes we only are left with the lessons we learned from our experiences. I might forget the colors of things, and the places, but I remember what he etched in my heart.

4. Magali moved into our home and taught me that different people need different things and that in the end honesty is always better. She made me grateful that miracles still happen, and even right in front of our eyes like in Bible times.

5. Friends make everything better. They can make you laugh at stressful situations, make a random trip to a market a life event, and even open their door at midnight when you don't know what to do with your teenager.

6. Change is always coming. I will always be challenged to change. A living thing cannot stay the same. So when I think I got this, I don’t really got anything. My past experiences will not determine my success. Jesus always needs to change my heart.

Scanning over the experiences of the year past, I try to guess what will happen next in my life, my home and with my girls. What challenge will make me want to relent? What will make me hurt or angry? What will cause me to cry right before bed? What will make me sing in the shower? I slowly try to figure God out…and after this journey I realize my year has never turned out the way I thought it would.

The more I try to put God in a box, the more I realized there’s not a box bog enough, square enough, or perfect enough for him. He never seems to fit my preconceived notions of what it is he is doing or should do. My brain can never reason with him, figure him our or even predict what he will do next, no matter how many quiet times I have. So as I try to walk the balance beam of life I can only trust that when I take my next step there will be a wide enough beam to step on. Through every tip-toe and doubt, the one thing that doesn’t change is his walking right beside me. He keeps telling me that’s all I need.