I scribbled their names onto a box in my calendar for August 6th. They came to serve me with kindness and skill and in a few short hours, the house was looking like home.
After they left, I sat at my antique farm table and stared out through the big front window. The amazing reality of giving my children their own space again and moving into my own bedroom for the first time in 20 months was settling in. I breathed deeply with the realization that we are truly on our own, and sat in the serenity for about 3.6 seconds before anxiety tried to barrel in with guns blazing.
Nothing about my life makes sense on paper right now. Financially, my life is a mystery. I do the best each month with what I have, I do the work I'm given to do, and somehow, by some incredible miracle, each month everything is taken care of that we truly need. I have yet to get to the end of my resources and I haven't yet had to ask for help. We've been without my ex-husband now for 22 months. Some months have brought surprise money in the mail from friends who felt like sending me a bit extra. Other times, I've received food, or gift cards, hand me down clothing, or toys. Several times, I have even opened the mail box to find a care package filled with treats and surprises for me to encourage my weary heart. Somehow, God takes the little I have and stretches it in such a way that there haven't been any cracks. But our minds can be a scary place to linger, and in that moment after the guys had left, and my kids had scattered to their own spaces, I began to rehearse how utterly ridiculous I must be to think that I could do this alone. The joy of being in my own space was robbed by the anxiety that lurked, ready to pounce into massive disastrous thinking. In the span of a few seconds, the track record God has in my life of providing for us was smashed under the weight of the fear I let descend upon my heart.
I talked with a dear friend later in the day. She has been a single mother for several years now after a 25 year marriage dissolved when he chose to walk out. She has been an example to me of learning to do with less than she ever dreamed and yet seeing her needs be met as she goes. I told her that the fear of knowing tomorrow could hold complete financial disaster was a heavy burden to bear. But as I spoke the words aloud, I finished the thought by saying, the reality is all of us are one moment away from disaster or destruction. None of us are immune to difficulty or struggle, it is just that living the lives that we have, we are more acutely aware of it on a daily basis. We live in the tension of the now. We don't have the luxury of planning for much, or banking the excess for future calamity. We have the responsibility of weighing this day's choices and needs against the near future that we know will bring more want. Just today I was faced with the decision of whether or not to buy the epipen I now need to carry as this year has revealed a bee allergy. It was hundreds of dollars, and I've put off picking it up because the amount made me anxious. Today I had the money. So today I chose to get it. I know that in one month I might wish for the money I spent today, but knowing the power in that life saving medication, and having the money for this day, I made the best choice I could make for today. I'm slowly learning the lesson of doing the best I can with what I have and trusting that I will get enough grace, enough mercy, enough provision for the next day, and the next, and the next.
My Dad sent me this quote today, and it's an eloquent statement about living in the now, in that tension of living as we go:
"The heart of spirituality isn't safety and security. Instead, it is what Dorothy Day called 'precarity.' In the mind of most, precarity (or precariousness) is a bleak state of uncertainty and danger. The word connotes instability, poverty, marginalization, and the absence of a safety net....It also suggests radical dependence: the Latin 'precarious' is the state of being dependent on another's will, being upheld or sustained by another's force. So a spirituality centered on precarity acknowledges the radical uncertainty or contingency of human existence and our utter dependence on God." — Kerry Walters in Jacob's Hip: Finding God in an Anxious Age
The beauty of living in precarity is that I am faced with a simple choice. Either I trust that God is who He says He is, and He will provide for me and my family, or I fight it and try to conjure up miracles for myself. I don't have a good track record of creating something out of nothing. I haven't yet figured out how to open doors for work and influence when there seems to be no knob on the door. I do have almost 2 years and a notebook filled with line after line where I've documented the incredible ways my family has been seen, cared for, loved, and provided for. I still don't know how this will work. My rent is up now in this house, and I'm truly on my own. But each day brings what I need for that day. Each job I'm offered, each bit of mana I'm showered with has been enough. My Mother's heart longs to race ourselves out of this place of precarity, and yet the beautiful, miraculous story that is being written is one I would never have experienced otherwise. I'm learning to sit in that tension of precarity, and choosing daily to fling my hope and faith on the one who has seen me.
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