Thankful for a Thief

Hello, friends. I know – I’ve missed a few months. And there is a reason for that. This current season that I find myself in hasn’t lent itself to much time for writing. I’ve been discovering that the current ages and stages of my children are demanding more investment and involvement and that has meant that other things have had to take a back seat. God has also been leading in directions that I wasn’t expecting. In fact, so far this year has not unfolded at all the way that I envisioned it. And trust has taken on a whole new dimension.

Sometimes I feel like I’m watching all the hard work that I’ve poured into so many areas of my life over the past few years is simply slipping away and unraveling. Sometimes I get stuck in the “whys” and wondering at the timing of things. And sometimes – and this is the thought I battle the most frequently – I get frustrated at the fact that I can’t see beyond the next step that God has clearly directed me to take.

By nature, I am a planner and organizer. I like to know things well in advance, have things scheduled ahead of time, and be prepared for what comes next. But that is not how my life as a Christ follower has unfolded. If anything, the opposite is often true and I find myself off balance and wondering what on earth God is going to do next. But, God works in ways that are different than ours. I was reminded of this recently when I ran into a friend I hadn’t seen in a while and I suddenly realized – we would likely never have met if not for a strange turn of events that I would never have planned.

The summer after I had my first baby, I was drowning in sleepless nights, and trying to figure out how to juggle all the new and overwhelming demands of motherhood, without having my own mom to help me navigate it all. I was lonely, exhausted, and feeling very, very lost. Call it “mom brain”, or sleep deprivation, or whatever you want, but after shopping one afternoon, I put my wallet into the glove compartment in the car, instead of putting it back in the diaper bag where I normally kept it. And then promptly forgot about it.

At the time, the front passenger side door of our car had some faulty wiring and occasionally it didn’t lock. Though we’d had our car broken into a few times already, it was never much of an issue since we never left anything of value in there. That night, it so happened that the door didn’t lock and our car was rifled through again. Since I’d forgotten completely about my wallet, we thought nothing had been taken except for the cart loonie we kept in the console.

The following afternoon, our doorbell rang. I opened it to find a young woman and her little girl. She introduced herself as a neighbour from a few streets over and then she held up my driver’s license and said she’d found it in the field on the other side of the street from us as she was walking home. At first I was confused as to how it had ended up there, when I suddenly remembered my wallet! I thanked her profusely and then ran out to the car to check the glove box. Sure enough, my wallet was gone.

I was so upset and kept mentally beating myself up as I frantically called the bank and credit card company to cancel my cards when the doorbell rang again. This time a man and his teenage son were there, holding a bag containing my wallet, cards, and a few other papers and receipts. They told me they had just found them strewn in the alley not far from us and they’d gathered all the items they could find. I thanked them and after checking through it all found – to my surprise – that everything was there! Not even the small change was missing!

It was a learning experience for sure, and while I was grateful that everything had turned out alright in the end, I couldn’t help wondering why God had allowed it to happen in the first place. Why did our car have to be broken into that particular night? Couldn’t He have kept it from happening? Yes, it was a situation caused by my own carelessness, but couldn’t He see that I was overwhelmed? Why allow this added stress?

These questions might seem silly, since it wasn’t that big of a deal, but the bigger question I was wrestling with at the time was whether or not I could trust the goodness of God. This was just one event in a succession of others that had worked to shake my faith and trust in God. What I didn’t know was that God was moving behind the scenes, orchestrating things that I could not yet see, and guiding my steps in a direction that I would never have planned for myself.

He will lead, but I must follow.

A few days later, the woman who had found my driver’s license was ringing my doorbell again. She told me that she was a Christian and that she had felt a prompting to come and invite me to a mom’s group that was starting in a few weeks at her local church. I was incredibly nervous, but I agreed to come with her to check it out. That mom’s group changed my life. I met some amazing women, including the lovely friend that introduced us to foster care, and the community and support they offered filled a deep need and became the lifeline I needed over the course of the next 5 years.

Thinking back on this, I had to pause and consider that if not for a thief, I would probably not have found the life-giving community I needed to support me through those early years of motherhood, and might never have stepped into the world of foster care and adoption. Psalm 23:4 says that God leads us along right paths, bringing Glory to His Name. He leads. He has a plan to direct my steps. And He will lead, but I must follow. Down paths I might never have chosen, into relationships I wouldn’t have foreseen, up heights I never would have thought I could climb, through valleys I never would had dreamt I could traverse, over roadblocks I would have called insurmountable, and through detours that might not make sense. Step by step. And as we obediently take those steps, we bring Glory to His Name.

If God revealed our whole “life map” all at once, we would likely buckle under the enormity of everything ahead of us.

So, while I chafe and complain at times because of my inability to see and know everything that lies ahead, I have to acknowledge that God has a plan. And as much as we want to know the way ahead, God leads the way a step at a time for our own good. The truth is that if God revealed our whole “life map” all at once, we would likely buckle under the enormity of everything ahead of us. How many of us would choose a different route? A more direct, or easier one? One with less challenge or difficulty? But God leads us in paths that will be for our good and bring Him Glory. Paths that cause us to grow, give us opportunities to trust Him, to rely on Him, and to be continually transformed into the image of His Son. God’s way requires dependence on Him. It requires Trust.

I know I often like to think that I know best, but the truth is that my view is very narrow. Proverbs 3:5-6 tells us that we shouldn’t rely on our own understanding. Our understanding is limited. Faulty. Incomplete. Instead, we are called to trust in the Lord, and seek His will, and He will direct our paths. He is our navigator, but we have to choose to follow His directions. And even when we don’t understand why He is leading the direction that He is, or even know the destination, if we surrender and trust Him, we can rest assured that we will end up exactly where we need to be.

13 years ago, I was questioning and unsure whether or not I could trust that God was good. Today, I sit here thankful for a thief. Thankful that God allowed something that I didn’t anticipate or understand to completely change the trajectory of life as I had planned it. And as I reflect on that time, I take comfort in knowing that God is faithful still. So, regardless of the fact that I can only see the next step in front of me, or the reality that I honestly have no idea exactly where it leads, I will trust. And take the next step. And the one after that. Keeping my eyes on the One Who leads me in paths that are right, for my good and His Glory.