Rubber, This Is Road; Road, Rubber

Last February I spoke at a retreat about especially helpful things I'd learned over the previous ten years. Part of the talk was about striving to give generously to God -- to tithe, to offer back Sundays as a day of rest and worship, to be generous in the service of life.

[Interruption: I feel a burning need to clarify the tone here. It was not about me sailing from victory to victory, with nary a doubt or a moment's foot-dragging. It was me saying, "I don't want to; I'm scared to; I can't," followed by God saying, "How about if you try it first?" It was years of God saying, "Trust me, Jamie, with your money and your time and your body," and me saying, "Careful! Are you being very careful there? I'm not sure you're being careful enough!" Afterward I found myself saying, "...Who'd'a' thunk it? I feel...rested? and provided for? and blessed? Who knew?" This was about Jamie as Slow Learner, not Jamie as any kind of Uber-Disciple.]

--anyway, I told them earnestly, "No one ever says, 'Look at that, I have an extra day in my week and an extra 10% in my budget! I think I'll rest on Sundays and tithe!'" I believe that the decision comes first and then the pieces can fall into place around it. It is a truism that you cannot out-give God, but I was still astonished to see the fruits of those choices.

Right at this moment, though, I am feeling the pinch. I told my advisor that I would have a complete draft of my dissertation to her by Friday. Whoa, I just got a little woozy typing that. Friday. The prospect of taking off to a coffee shop tomorrow afternoon and working away in the quiet is very tempting. Is it necessary work? Probably not. Will I feel better on Monday if I take tomorrow off? I am certain I will.

My littlest blessing is snoring in my lap right now. If I could have picked the week when she would get so sick, it sure wouldn't have been this one. But you know, if I could have picked the year when she would arrive in our family, it wouldn't have been 2008. Now I am so glad she came along when she did. So I am trying to roll with it, and give her and my dissertation what they need at the same time. (Elwood took that picture after I'd been kneeling in front of the couch crunching numbers one-handed for ... I don't know, 20 minutes? The baby didn't want to be put down even after she fell asleep, and I was determined to finish a particular section of chapter 3 before nightfall. She complained when I sat down, so I knelt instead. Please ignore the festive stripes of ibuprofen and amoxicillin on my shirt where she spewed them in protest.)

It's also pinch season financially -- I got behind on giving during the last quarter of '09, and caught up in the last week of the year. Those credit card bills are coming due and I am juggling figures in my head, trying to keep us on track. Everything taken together, right at this moment, makes me want to say "Generous schmenerous!"

This post is me taking myself by the shoulders and saying, "Let's not go back to remedial class. We know better than that." I believe God is faithful through lean seasons and sicknesses and weeks when I just don't know how it's all going to get done. So. The decision is made and I'm going to trust that the pieces will fall into place. (But if I'm scarce this week, you'll know what I'm up to.)

Comments

[Rob]

While I was getting ready for my defense last spring everyone else in my house was nursing a lousy cold. Around suppertime Sunday a nurse-by-phone told us that the 15-month-old was breathing too rapidly and needed to come into the ER. I sent my advisor an email:

We are taking Will to the hospital. Call me if I haven't updated you by eight am.

My defense was scheduled for ten.

Will had pneumonia and was admitted. Ellen stayed with him. The three-year-old and I came home and went to bed together, where her fever spiked. I sat next to her in the bed, her clothes open, cold cloth on her face, listening to her murmur her fevered murmurs and trying to remember what temperature meant I should take her back to the ER herself. Is it 106, 105, 104? Which way is this thermometer wrong since it reads in her ear rather than in her butt? Which is the mistake I would rather make: a second trip to the ER, exorbitant and unfounded; or the consequences of too high a temperature, whatever that is? Finally she cooled off and we fell asleep. She woke up murmuring and too hot again a few hours later and I went through the whole exercise with even less lucidity.

In the morning she was okay. I went to the university and did a dreadful job at my defense, but passed anyway.

If someone had come to me and asked me to schedule a week where my whole family was sick, followed by a week with the youngest in the hospital, I would not have said "hey, I'll submit my dissertation in the middle!" But the pieces fell into place. Who knows what else I can do?

[Erin]

Thank you again, for sharing your struggles.