Tomorrow, I am missing out on an event I had been looking forward to attending for MONTHS.
My mom’s non-profit, Wellspring, is hosting an intimate one day retreat led by Eugene Peterson.
Eugene Peterson is a favorite author – one whose writing has resonated with me and has been an integral part of various stages of my spiritual journey.

I no longer live in the area of this event, so it would require an air flight and a caregiver to hang out with my kiddos while I am gone and my husband is at work.
I just cannot swing it.
And I am pretty heartbroken.

How do you deal with disappointment?
How do you deal with the risk of becoming disappointed?

The structure of my daily life – my role as a mom – often disallows me from participating in life the way I long to be able to participate. As a mother of a medically fragile kiddo, I have to often “play it by ear”
and
“see what happens”.

I’ve become that completely unreliable, flakey friend.
You know the one I am talking about?

Right now, for example, I am “stuck” at home with a daughter who isn’t feeling well, on the one day of the week in which I get to relinquish my “Homeschool Mom” hat to a classroom and a teacher, thus allowing me just under three hours to nourish and care for me.

It’s interesting.
I find that I can get into a mental state where I throw in the towel,
raise the white flag,
and give in without a fight.

My very own, personal default setting.

This is a dangerous state of being.

I believe in a God who fights for me.
Daily.

In fact, when Moses was leading God’s people through the desert and God was about to part the Red Sea and all of the Israelites were confused and scared and complaining,
and verbally doubting,
and completely immersed in their own very limited perspective –
and could not for the life of them understand what God, via Moses, was doing –
well,
in the beautiful words of Exodus 14:14 as translated by our very own Eugene Peterson in the Message,
God
says
this::

God will fight the battle for you.
And you?
You keep your mouth(s) shut!”

Ouch, right?

I get Moses.
I get the daily internal (and sometimes external) dialogue with God where I try to convince God of my unworthiness
thus encouraging a desire to just default
because I am just too dang tired to fight.

I get the inability to see the forest through the trees and
the sense that perhaps
it is just safer
to just admit I am not perfect
and remain in my tent,
swaddled in a blanket of my own ineptitude.

I get the fear of failure.
I get the fear of being let down.
I get the fear of the small, daily risks that can often feel much more overwhelming than those big ones.

And God’s response?
I will fight FOR YOU, Carrie.
Can you, for once, just keep your mouth (and internal stubborn doubt) shut!?!?

These are not words of frustration or disgust, but instead the words of
The Giver of All Things –
a Global Father –
who understands profoundly that I am my own worst enemy and
that I am the one who keeps myself from experiencing all that God intends for me and for the life I have the good fortune of living.

There are many voices out there that would like to lead us to believe that we are the Israelites in the desert indefinitely.
There are many voices out there that would like us to adopt a posture of default, giving in to fear and despair.

It’s time to tell those mouths to shut.
It is time to disallow those voices our ears.
it’s time to actually believe that the Giver of All Things is active –
He is fighting for us.

He is fighting for His voice to be the one that takes center stage,
leading us out of the wilderness,
and into a life filled with
LIVING.