Do You Hear Me?

About a year and a half ago, my husband had a stroke, leaving him much less able to work, and initially his short term memory made him a little dangerous in the kitchen, and he is unable to drive. Previously, he had most of the cooking and all of the shopping, while I worked a little bit, homeschooled our son, and took care of the outside chores. So all of a sudden I was left with a very heavy burden, not only doing all I had been doing before, which I had found exhausting, but now also having to add shopping (which I very much dislike) and cooking to my burden, as well as doubling my work load to try to keep our income up until we could get disability for my husband (a year later).

One day, when I was feeling completely exhausted, overwhelmed, and completely inadequate, the Lord gave me this scripture. Matthew 6. ²⁵ “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? ²⁶ Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? ²⁷ Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? ²⁸And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. ²⁹ Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. ³⁰ If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? ³¹ So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ ³² For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. ³³ But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. ³⁴ Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

And miraculously, throughout that year, though in the midst of it all I was losing my vision, the Lord DID provide, over and over again.

I had a rough day last week. I was given epinephrine as part of a block for laser surgery and an injection into my eye and I reacted very badly. So I spent several days careening between hypereuphoria and exhaustion and depression. So I wasn't dealing with the stresses that I normally have been handling just fine, and a little inkling of worry started to creep in. We have been told that our jobs may end this fall, and it's a scary proposition under normal circumstances, but when you can't see well, or if you have had a stroke and have limited abilities, the prospect of getting a job seems almost unsurmountable. And yet, I know God has a plan for us. He has just not shared it with us yet.

So Wednesday night, I was starting to let worry creep in just a bit. But after services a man handed me a napkin and said to me, "Jesus wants you to have this." Folded up inside the napkin was some cash. And I took it to mean that God was reassuring me that He has a plan for our future, that He knows our needs.
But of course, in the process of my ups and downs and lack of sleep and exhaustion I started to doubt what I thought I had heard. "It was just a coincidence." You know how that goes. But the next morning, out of the blue, my doctor's nurse calls and says to me, "Someone left some Levemir on my desk, and I wondered if you might want it?" Levemir is a type of insulin I take, and one of my worries about not having a job, is not being able to afford insulin. I had not called and asked; she just remembered me. It was as if God was saying. "Yes, you heard me correctly!" But of course, the thoughts persist. Perhaps she "happened" to think of me was because I had had surgery the day before and the chart note about it appeared on her desk at the same time. Just another coincidence.

I hate it when my mind does these things to me. Why can't I just KNOW?

So Sunday, at church, we have a guest speaker. Guess what scripture she picked for her sermon? Yup, Matthew 6:24-33. Well, just in case I was wondering. Yes, He said it a third time. "Do not worry. I know your needs."