Delight yourself

This is going to be a long one, so just ready yourself. Or skip it altogether!

I decided a while ago that I wanted an iPhone. Totally stupid and silly. I don't even know why I wanted one. It just looked like fun! My sister has one, and it took one time of my playing with hers, and I was hooked. So I researched them, did some price checking, and realized that it really wasn't something I needed. Allen and I joked about it, but he *was* really against my getting one, for a variety of good reasons.


I didn't press the issue, and was happy with a really cool phone from my friend Jackie. End of story.


So not long after we found a lost neighborhood dog, and returned it to the rightful owner, I told Allen the kids and I wanted a small dog for inside, but he said no. I mean, it was a very emphatic NO. It was a bit of a surprise to me, since he doesn't often say no to things, but I guess I don't ask a lot of him either. ;) He explained his very good reasons, and I said okay. I mean it was a very okay okay. I was fine with it. Disappointed a bit, but really fine. And actually grateful that I had the opportunity to exercise what I had learned about submission. *gasp* that word. That dirty little word! Eh, I'm fine with submitting. It's God's plan, and since He's SO much smarter than me, I'm trying, every so hard, to learn to do things HIS way.



So, Mother's Day approached, and Allen asked me what I wanted. I told him that I really couldn't think of anything I needed or wanted. That was the truth!


So Mother's Day weekend was a busy one, and that Saturday we had a crazy day full of family stuff. Allen wasn't with us, and it was a taxing day. That's being nice. It was a horrific day, full of the neglect and the abuse that I experienced so early and through much of my life. As I drove home, I was in an unusually dark place. My soul felt seared, and I really took it to God in a bad way. I was angry. My why's were vehement. I allowed my self to wallow in self pity, which isn't a pretty place to be. I was undone.

So we all get home, and I just wanted to collapse into a pile and cry. I needed to hold it together long enough to get the kids fed and in the bed.

As I walked into the kitchen, I saw something weird on the stove. I walked over and just lost it. My precious husband had bought me an iPhone. He had gone to a gig and so I couldn't call him, so I did the next best thing. I called my best friend and just lost it with her. I felt guilty and sad that he had spent that money on me. I was thinking about the kids in the world, heck in my county, that didn't have food to eat. I was thinking of how far I had gotten from the little shack I wanted to live in while I was being a missionary. It was just too much.



And you know what we came to? That sweet, patient friend of mine? In a super bizarre, really weird way, God showed his tangible love to me through a silly phone. Really, he did. I am blessed so much with a God who cares about my needs. But he also cares about my wants. And he gave me a husband that cares for me so well and wants me to be happy, even in the silly ways.

I wouldn't touch the phone for 5 days, while trying to decide whether or not to keep it. Really. It was a hard decision. This overthinker kicked into overdrive. Brutal.

That next week, my mom asked me to keep her Bishon, Bella, for a week while she did some work around her house that wasn't conducive for dogs being around. I knew that Mom was having a hard time keeping Bella, and she really wanted me to have her. I told her I couldn't keep her, but I would let her stay for a week while she got her work done. She asked me again to keep her, and I told her very emphatically that Allen didn't want us to have a dog. Mom said okay, that us keeping Bella just for a week would really help her.

So we brought Bella to the house that night of the lightning fiasco, and it was definitely a crazy time to come to our house for a visit! We had fun with her that weekend, in spite of the chaos, and Sunday night, Bella, Allen and I were sitting in the living room floor, and Allen was just looking at her. I asked him why he was looking at her that way. He laughed and said, "She's really cute."


I agreed, and he said, "She's a good dog too." I agreed again.

He looked at me and said, "Let's keep her."



My heart just soared! The kids had been asking if we were keeping her, and I had kept saying, "No.." I couldn't wait to tell them she was ours!

You know, 10 years ago in our marriage, I'm not too proud to say that I would have badgered, manipulated, begged and cried to get my way. God, in his blessed grace and mercy, has done such a work in me. I honestly submitted to everything Allen said and wanted in both these situations, and the outcome was so surprising to me. So very surprising.

I'm not saying that submitting is a way to get what you want. In fact, to ME, submitting is being okay with NOT getting what you want. And I really was. Okay, I mean.

Something else hit me one morning as I was walking and having some deep communion with God over all this. I was really struggling still with the phone, and just where I am in my life. God said to me, so sweetly and clearly, "You know, you have really been seeking me. With your whole heart. And I'm blessing you with the desires of your heart."

I was like, I KNOW THAT VERSE!!! I laughed out loud, right there in the middle of the street! "God, that's not really what that verse means!" I reminded him. And hearing the smile in his voice, he said, "It means that in this case."


(and please hear me say that I am not advocating twisting verses to mean certain things, or that the Spirit that spoke in my heart was twisting Scripture. Please hear that.)

Psalm 37:4 - Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart.




I really have just become so content with my Lord over these last few years. Things of this world started to feel so foreign to me. I lost my lust and love for a lot of things that I had loved all my life. God has done, and is doing, such a gentle yet very firm work in me. I think Jonathan Edwards kind of sums it up:

So should we desire heaven more than the comforts and enjoyments of this life. . . . Our hearts ought to be loose to these things, as that of a man on a journey, that we may as cheerfully part with them whenever God calls.


I would so gratefully and happily give up all this stuff. I even had to get to a place where I could say, "Okay, God, even if you take my husband and my kids, I will be okay with that, because you and you alone are my portion." I'm not saying I want that to happen, and I'm saying it would be the hardest thing I'd ever done to lose one of them, but that's where God and I are now. He's really all I need.

But for the now, and the silly, I have a dog with an iPhone collar. And they are both white, which is even a more clear sign that God just pampered my socks off. Such a tangible feeling of God's love, and from a God who can, at times, feel not tangible. I'm so thankful for his blessing me, and honestly I look at that phone, or my sweet new best doggy friend, and I feel his love. That's such a sweet, precious gift. Truly.