Perhaps he knew the fear and uncertainty better than most, being called from the winepress to the battle field in a matter of minutes. That would shake your life up a bit, I'd imagine. The command is clear, "Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian's hand." [Judges 6:14] Yet he asks for a sign: the offering consumed on the altar. And he asks again: the dew on the fleece. Still again, he asks: the ground covered in dew. He's the lowest in his family, and from the weakest clan. He does not have the assurance of a seasoned warrior, but a mind filled with doubt. Did I hear You right? His question hangs, suspending in mid-air, "Am I not sending you?"
As I read it, I can't help but shake my head in exasperation. With an attitude of, "Really Gideon?" He knocks me off my high horse.
How many times have I done the same thing?
The past 5 weeks have me feel more inadequate than ever before. I have the time to process everything that has happened in the last month, and it's hit like a ton of bricks. I feel like I'm a bit of a basket case, succumbing to tears over the littlest of things. Most days, I often fear I have not heard him right. Rather in fact, I fear I've heard Him entirely wrong.
Bonnie and Ray came back on Tuesday. The kids were an excited mess of crazy-- cleaning up the yard and the orphanage, making posters and paper-chains, and wearing their smart clothes. Their presence back here has been a blessing in a number of ways, a sense of sweet relief. To know someone is here again for the bandaid moments and the spelling words and the singing time and the grit of every-day life. To have their company back and fellowship and conversations, even if it's only for a few more days, is sweeter than chocolate-covered-almonds. To not have the weight of nap time and temper tantrums piled upon the already-existing stack of schoolbooks and spelling words is a relief. In a way, it's absolutely wonderful. And in another way, it's been incredibly hard. Because it means I am finally Hannah again. Not mama-Hannah, mommy, or Bonnie-Anna as the kids have taken to calling me since April. Just Hannah. And through her eyes I can see all the ways she's come up short in the last month.
I'm clawing for more time, exhausted but desperate to relive the past month again as myself. To fix all the moments I have made a mess of, all the situations where I haven't been enough. I'm soaking in the moments, the school days and the witty comments and the hugs. But their faces and their voices haunt me, reminding me of all I haven't been in the last 5 weeks. I get caught in the what-if and the if-only of it all. And there's nothing he loves more than to ensnare me with a sense of regret. "If you had given up an hour of sleep for better lesson plans… If you had tried to talk to him more, instead of sending him away in frustration… If you had stopped by the pac 'n' play on your way to the depot…"
It's why we love the clean slates, the New Year's resolutions, the crisp pages of a fresh journal, the start of the school year, the way the sunlight dances across their faces. We want to know we still have a chance. That, despite it all, there's still time to leave a mark.
He tells me it's too late. Smugly he sneers, "How could you have been so naive?" What will sleepovers and burned pancakes and conversations on the basketball court and Michael-hammock time mount to in the end? What good am I, when he withers in pain for 3 hours and I can do nothing but sit there and watch it all unfold? How beneficial is it to get children attached to someone who comes and goes with the wind, boarding a plane every few months. It's what keeps me awake into the late hours of the night, the notion that maybe I've actually done more harm than good.
He tells me run. He tells me flee. He says why even bother. He says give up now, it'll save some heartache.
I question whether I've heard Him right on a daily basis. I feel as inadequate for this life as the wheat-threshing Gideon probably felt for the battle field. I think of people better equipped to do what I have done for the last 2 months, how so many others could've done it so much better. And He pierces to the heart of my fear, "Did I not send you?"
I trust in His sovereignty. I have full confidence in the depths of His unspeakable wisdom. I say His ways are higher and are better. It's not the One who has spoken all these things that I question, it's the ears that have heard Him. I am much like Gideon after all it seems, wanting one more time to just be certain I've heard it right.
The days are dwindling down. I have 3 full days left here, 2 plane rides, and a suitcase to store away. It's hard to explain it all really, because just as badly as I ache to go to Chicago, I want just as much to remain right where I am. A love and a heart for this place has grown that is so unspeakably God, it brings me to my knees. As much as I didn't want to pack my suitcase to leave Chicago, so now I don't want to pack things here. Forever torn and forever longing. The feeling accompanies me everywhere I go, following me closer than my own shadow. It integrates my soul, becoming part of my very self and the story I tell.
Life here will continue on, just as life back home has continued on. And I guess I'm scared. How much will have changed in that little Chicago neighborhood since February? How much will change here, between May and July? Thursday night I had a sleepover in the orphanage with the two Haitian teachers and the older teens and I was struck by the beauty of it as we sat in the dark and talked and the music blared loud: friendships have formed here in the last 2 months. On the other end of the spectrum, I ache to do the things with my sister that I've done with people here for the last however-many-weeks: movie nights, popcorn, talking, reveling in paint schemes and curtain colors, laughing loudly. I'm terrified to lose that, both in Haiti and in Chicago.
"And Gideon came to the Jordan and crossed over, he and the 300 men who were with him, exhausted yet pursuing." [Judges 8:4] I cannot imagine the weariness after a day of combat, but I love the imagine of this wheat-threshing-turned-warrior continuing on in his endeavor despite his fatigue simply because the story cannot end like this. "Go in the strength you have…" and where you are not enough, I will be. "Go in the strength you have…" and when you fall short, I will carry you. "Go in the strength you have…" and know My grace covers every moment.
Go, love. Will I not always be with you?
