Crumbling Mountains

I was listening to a young man teach about God's faithfulness.  And he said many good, true things. 
"God keeps His promises.  God provides.  God is always with us."
Particularly poignant was the correlation drawn between Moses' question to God and Jesus' answer to Peter.  Two men were doubting and overwhelmed.  Moses, afraid of what the people were going to think of him, asked by what authority he should lead.  "Who shall I say sent me?"  The twelve year old girl next to me blurted out, "I AM!" and I looked over at her confidently nodding face.  The recorded words of God are, "I AM that I AM.  Tell them I AM has sent you."  Moses, faced with a bush that was burning but not consumed still needed more convincing before he stood before the Israelites and told them to follow him.
And the disciples, trapped in a boat on the lake in the middle of a storm they did not foresee were panicked as they recoiled from the dim, approaching figure. 
"Take heart.  It is I," was the reply to them from the Son of God who intimately walked, talked and dined with them.

It was teaching intended to strengthen and encourage.  But even as I assented, I struggled with these words from someone so young.  He recounted God's provision through tuition expenses and medical bills and early days of married life -- just enough at just the right time.  Rightly, he reviewed God's daily mercies as an act of praise.  And he urged his listeners to notice and record these times in each of our lives.  Because our stories prove God's faithfulness.

But what if they don't?
What if there isn't enough money to pay the bills to keep the house or car or electricity?  What if healing doesn't occur, or is incomplete?  What if it doesn't all work out in just the right way at just the right time?

I have been devastated by these questions.  They represent a chasm I can still fall into at almost any moment.  The only comfort for my doubt and fear and grief and pain and loss and emptiness and loneliness is to bow before God -- the great I AM. 
Regardless of the outcome, God is still God.  He is "...infinite, eternal and unchangeable in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth."  I might lose everything, but His faithfulness continues -- through generations.  Whether I see it or not.

Recounting times of blessing is work that strengthens me, because I am an Israelite who needs an awful lot of convincing before I follow God's call out of slavery.  In my frailty I am prone to respond to Christ's presence in a storm as if there were an evil spirit approaching.  His words are, "Take heart.  It is I."  It was good to be reminded.
And sometimes He causes the winds to cease; He is able.

But He might not.

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way,
though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea,
though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling.

Nine Patch

In lieu of writing I have been quilting. 
Sunday afternoons, which used to seem packed with all the right things, gape at me with bleak absence, so I use that time to cogitate and scribble -- or something along those lines.  But the approaching arrival of babies to people I love has sent me off on different afternoon endeavors.

I know women who are Quilters; I'm not.  But I enjoy the search for the right melding of complex pattern and fabric.  I draw up a model and color it to scale.  I visit at least two different stores, at least two times each -- carrying with me a bag of the pieces I've already bought -- adding, taking away, sometimes starting all over...until I find the combination that fits together in all the right ways.
Although I enjoy the design phase the best, all my graph paper renderings and glued swatches do not a quilt make.  I can visualize it, I can describe it, but it isn't actually there until I measure and cut and sew and iron and sew and trim and sew...for as many blocks as I planned. 

It feels like faith.
Sometimes I retain the vision and am feverishly snipping and whirring and pressing. 
Other times I have to remove three blocks to rework a row.  I've probably taken out as many seams as I've put in, using it as break to sit down and put my feet up while I spend quality time undoing the work I thought I'd completed.
When I'm overwhelmed at the immensity of the project, I lay whatever is finished on the peninsula counter and walk all around it.  Eventually, the piecework soothes and encourages me until my circling becomes admiration and I have to remind myself that there are thirty-nine more blocks that won't get done unless I start working again.
It is a common condition in this broken world to be stuck in the place of waiting for God to do the work of healing that only He can do.  Meanwhile, we continue: picking up small cut squares, matching up the edges as closely as possible, running a straight seam and pressing it open to take a look. 
Some days it feels like bewildering insanity to believe that He is real, and is at work...accomplishing beauty no matter how devastating it all appears to be.  Other days the pattern is emerging, and the colors are aligning to create balance.

Standing at my kitchen counter, good things are happening beyond that amazingly stunning, cunningly-fitted treasure that will communicate love for a new human being and her parents (if it all turns out according to my modest plans). 
I'm laying aside the urgency and hurry.  I'm learning to settle into the joy of the process.  I'm less angered by the broken needles, empty bobbins and awkward seams.
It feels like faith.