What I Need

Needs come in all shapes and sizes at the Snead Casa.  There are the emergency needs that usually sound like:

“Mom, I need foam core presentation board for a project that’s due tomorrow”. And it happens to be 7:00 pm. And we live somewhat out in the country. And I was just at Wal-Mart that morning.

 

There are specific needs –where only one solution will do – no skimping on the generic. Like our need for a family fish that was COMPLETELY UN-KILLABLE. I knew my kids.

Your run-of-the-mill goldfish wasn’t going to last 3 seconds.

We should have named the beta fish after the wise pet shop employee who referred him to us. One particular week this fish survived a trip down the disposal (accidentally by my 9 yr old) and a terrorist attack with rubber cement (intentionally by my 4 year old).

 

There have been many financial needs like the summer we found ourselves trying to make a quick move from Nashville to Asheville.  Art had to move on to North Carolina to start his new job as the Director or Ridgecrest, leaving me back in Tennessee to sell the house…with four kids in it. Four, active, messy creative kids, to be exact. I decided to clean the house and move in with my mom for the rest of the summer in Florida. It would be free for showings without our messing it up daily, and the kids would have a blast with their Nana. Win-Win!

 

Well, mostly win-win. In the first 4 days we were at Nana’s, we broke one set of blinds, knocked out the bottom of the front screen door and poked two holes in the exterior wall in the front of her house (don’t ask). We are expensive house guests. But eventually the need was met, our house sold, and we were together in NC as a family.

 

But today finds me reflecting on a time in my life where I was drowning, sinking, pretty much losing it. I needed relief. I needed help. I needed supernatural intervention. And it just didn’t seem to be forthcoming. (I wrote a little about this time in my post, “Homeschooling the Herdmans”).

 

I kept reading things in the Word like “My God will supply ALL your needs according to His riches in Christ Jesus”, and “His divine power has given us everything we need to live a life of godliness”. And I would smirk smile a little at God and say, “I hear ya. I’m waiting. Bring on the supply. I’m ready. I believe.”

 

But the sinking continued. Circumstances in our family at the time were way beyond our control, out of our comfort zone, oblivious to our skill sets and pushing every single button of our flesh in the response department.

 

So I found myself at my weekly Bible study singing the hymn “Great Is Thy Faithfulness”. As the lyrics “all I have needed Thy hand hath provided,” escaped my lips, I could contain my frustration no longer. I looked up at the sky smirking smiling again at God as if to say, “I GET IT GOD, OKAY!?! I KNOW THIS IN MY HEAD AND HEART! I’VE KNOWN IT SINCE I WAS 5 YEARS OLD! YOU PROVIDE FOR MY NEEDS! But here’s the deal, Lord, YOU’RE NOT DOING IT RIGHT NOW.”

 

And I’ll never forget the still, small voice that whispered quite audibly to my spirit that night:

 

“What if this trial is the exact thing you need?”

 

Mind blown. My circumstances didn’t change that night. My heart was still overwhelmed and my plate too full of situations I had no idea how we were going to handle. But my soul had heard the voice of God Almighty. And that was enough.

 

We’re still on the same journey in many ways that we were on that stirring night when an old hymn got a new meaning and the God of the universe spoke to this beautifully-broken knucklehead.

 

I’m just trying to keep the questions aimed at the only one who has truly promised to provide, and trust that His provisions may look more like puzzles than finished products. Reminding myself that His presence is enough. HE is enough. Not easy. But, apparently, neither is raising a Beta Fish.