Sacred Mundane: The Blog

Has John Piper ever NOT hit a homerun with any book he’s written?  I tell you, the guy amazes me.  If ever I need the truth, the real stuff, the perspective that takes me away from the fluff of our cultural Christianity and back to the truth of God’s Word, it’s him (and the Bible, of course!).

You’d think I’d turned into Jeff for all the dabbling I’m doing in different books–that is not my character. I’m a serial monogamous reader, Jeff is a polygamous reader.  (I stick with one book to the end then move to another, Jeff reads about 10 at a time…all stacked on the nightstand by our bed).  At any rate, I opened up a book of Piper’s called The Hidden Smile of God, a book about the fruit of affliction in the lives of John Bunyan, William Cowper, and David Brainerd.  Bunyard and Brainard I was somewhat familiar with, but I hadn’t even heard of Cowper.  But listen to this hymn, perhaps you know it, written by a man whose life was filled with grief and sorrow.

Deep in unfathomable mines

of never failing skill,

He treasures up His bright designs

and works His sovereign will.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,

but trust Him for His grace;

behind a frowning providence

He hides a smiling face.

His purposes will ripen fast,

unfolding every hour;

the bud may have a bitter taste

but sweet will be the flower.

Blind unbelief is sure to err,

and scan His work in vain:

God is His own interpreter,

and He will make it plain. 

Behind a frowning providence, He hides a smiling face.  Be encouraged today by the hidden smile of God. 

If you’re just now joining this blog family, it may seem a little silly, but to those of you who have followed this journey over the past year, I think you understand why I’m truly celebrating.  Today marks one year of blogging at karipatterson.com.  So why is this so significant?

The Journey

About 13 months ago, my husband, son and I left our wonderful home, friends, and job to move in with my parents so that we could finish seminary.  It had become impossible for Jeff to work full-time, go to school, commute 1.5 hours each way to class, and then even begin to think about being a husband and father.  I knew there was no way I could finish my last full-time semester of classes without lots of childcare, and the idea of driving 1.5 hours to my parents’ house, dropping Dutch off, then driving another hour to school, take classes all day, then retrace the 2.5 hour drive again was just crazy.  So, we decided to take a leap of faith and rent out our house, sell 3/4 of everything we owned, saving only very special or sentimental furniture and belongings, and moved into my parents’ house.  We would then just live on our savings, with little part-time jobs as TAs and tutors to help with tuituion costs, and pray that down the road God would open up another door to walk through when the time came.  At that time we figured Jeff had 2 years left, but we only had enough savings to live on for one year…so we decided to go for it for a year, and then pray that God would open up a door for him to work, hopefully in a ministry setting, and finish school, since by then I would be done (except for one class) and we wouldn’t have the same time stressers. 

The Challenge

A month into this new situation, Jeff realized that without having a home, I would soon go crazy. As a wife and mom, my home is my outlet, my identity, it’s how I express my heart and love and creativity.  I loved being a stay-at-home mom (and student) and thrived on having people over, opening up our home, and practicing hospitality.  I loved finding creative and inexpensive ways to decorate, organize, and beautify our home.  I was passionate about creating a calm, serene haven for Jeff, where we could hide away from the world and be a family.  I knew this was risky, letting go of all this, knowing that it was probably a pretty big part of my mental health, but I really felt like this was what God had for us.  So Jeff, in his loving wisdom, spent $13 and bought me karipatterson.com, insisting that I take all my creative energies that I used to pour into home, and channel them into writing, which was my first creative passion anyway.  I knew nothing about blogging (and still don’t), but it quickly became an amazing way for me to articulate my heart, share my thoughts, struggles, insights, failures, and victories, and forced me to be thinking creatively. 

The Result

I wish I could say I’ve come through this past year with flying colors.  Honestly, I’ve more limped through it–failure interspersed with occasional victories.  It’s been a rough year.  And I wish I could say I’m writing from the other side now, looking back, but I’m not. I’m still in it.  We’re praying God provides a job now so we can move out and prepare for the birth of our second child.  I am still struggling with being here. I feel like I die a thousand little deaths each day, of pride, of control, of identity.  But I feel like significant things have been birthed through this blog–insights I’ll carry with me forever, stories I even hope to revise and put into book form to share with our children, raw journal entries that expose the desperate states we travel through on this journey of sanctification. 

And I’ve met so many of you.  I know this blog is still small beans, but my goal is not numbers–my goal is that through writing my own life, and prayerfully a few other lives, would be changed for His glory.  I started out averaging 2 readers per day (myself and Jeff!)…today we’re averaging 60. I share that because that makes me praise my Father for His goodness and grace, for Him providing a bridge for me, with others, while I’m stranded out here with no car, in the boonies. 🙂

And what I really want to say today is THANK YOU.  Thank you for reading, for cheering me on, for adding comments, disagreements, challenges, confirmations.  Thanks for joining me along the journey, for not throwing up your hands in disgust when I stumble, but for chugging along with me on the road.  I pray that this year is filled with God’s supernatural abundant grace on our lives–that we’d be changed into His likeness, from strength to strength.  Thanks for reading. 

A fun little article from goingtoseminary.com for anyone trying to balance everything at once…

I’m really excited to have another opportunity to speak at a Women’s Retreat, in about a month, this time for my beloved church where Jeff and I each attended for 5-7 years before and after we were married.   It’s been four years now that we’ve been gone and often I reminisce of our sweet days there.  It’ll be a treat and I’m so thankful for this opportunity. 

I don’t want to give away all that I’m talking about (just in case you might be there!), but something I have been chewing on lately, that’s related, is the idea of trusting God for something.  I hear this a lot, along with believing God for something.  I’m trusting God for and then name a thing that we’re basically just really wanting.  I’ve caught myself doing this a lot–right now I’m trusting God for a job, for a place to live, for money to cover the cost of our baby, etc.  And I think that is really fine, I mean those are the things that I’m concerned about and we’re supposed to lay our cares before the Lord and trust Him with those things.  But I think there might be a subtle difference between trusting God with something and trusting God for something.

For example, if I’m trusting God with our living and job situation, it means that I’m trusting that whatever the outcome, His grace is sufficient and His character demands my faith and trust.  If I’m trusting God for a job, a house, etc. then I’m placing my own expectations on what I think God should do. It’s like I’m subtly twisting God’s arm saying, “Ok God, here’s my faith, now do what I want you to do.”  I’m afraid that I do this way more often that I even realize.

In Scripture, I think we have a few examples that can give us clarity.  First, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego.  They were about to be thrown into the fiery furnace and they trust God with their heated circumstances: “Our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from your hand, O king.  But if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we do not serve your gods.”  Basically, they’re saying, We’re not only trusting God for deliverance out of the fiery furnace, we trust God with our situation and He is God and can do whatever He pleases. 

Of course there are plenty of situations in Scripture where God speaks a promise and then His people believe Him for that thing.  Abraham believed God (sorta) for a son.  But even he faltered because again, when he started only focusing on believing God for something instead of trusting God with His circumstances, he started to build up expectations, which then led to the son of the flesh, Ishmael. 

Maybe some would say that my faith is faltering these days.  Perhaps. But I think it’s more that I’m finally starting to realize that believing God for something is really nothing more than making a wish list, then slapping a holy-sounding word like “belief” or “trust” on it to make my dreams come true.  The sad part is that I think this is the cause of so much of our disappointment with God.  I for one feel a little worn out, I feel like I’ve had one too many disappointments this year and I’m a little tired of it altogther. But I think it’s because of this, trusting God for something instead of trusting God with something.  I won’t lie, I still despearately want a job for us and a place to live and some semblance of normalcy.  But as best as I can, I’m setting my heart to not just trust God for the fulfillment of my own desires but to just trust God. Period.