Trusting Who?

It's been longer than usual since my last post.  I've kind of been waiting for something worth writing about to happen. I went to Peru for three days with a few of my favorite students/really good friends.  We returned to a veterinary conference we'd visited a couple years ago. This time instead of being mesmerized with the simultaneous translation from the North American speakers into Spanish, I was greatly relieved that not much has changed in these past three years where I've been doing little vet work, reassuring me that jumping back into practice, if I ever decide to do so, will require some review, but not be completely impossible.     
                                                                          
We had a great time, we learned some things about animals, and shared some experiences about God, but nothing that merited a story.  Which was disappointing, because I've had this post brewing in my head for a few days, and I was hoping something easier would come along and take its place. I don't know about you, but I sometimes wish parenting didn't relate so well to my relationship with God. Couldn't it relate more to eating cupcakes or playing with puppies, does it have to instead bring me face to face with my own shortcomings so often??  (Plus, let's be honest, I just caught up with the rest of the world and started reading the Hunger Games, so you can pretty much count me out for the next three days, since I'm only half way through the trilogy.)                         

So before the "Hunger Games" started me endlessly comparing Jon to Peeta, I had thoughts like these running through my head, let's see if I can quell the images of the star-crossed lovers long enough to make sense of my own ideas:

I consider all sin to be a lack of trusting God. You may not agree, and I may not be right, but the way I see it is if we step out of God’s will for our lives (we’d all agree that’s “sin” right?) then it's just a matter of not trusting Him.  Everytime we do something selfish, or evil, or grumpy, or fail to do the right things (also sin) then we’re unconsciously saying, “God, I don’t really believe you love me enough,” or “God, you don’t really know what you’re doing.”

When I boil it down so simply it seems like it’d be easy for my conscious who does trust God’s unfathomable love for me, to tell my subconscious “Of course, we’re gonna trust that God knew what He was doing when He asked us not to do that." But more times than not it seems that if I can't see the immediate consequences the action would bring, I convince myself they don't exist.  And if I don't know what reward directly awaits me after doing something good, it's hard to get motivated. That's where parenthood reminded me of how much of a child I am with God. As a mother, I really don't like to live bouncing from one reward to the next, nor the alternative; threatening one punishment after another, so I sometimes find myself begging Angie to try to be good just for goodness' sake.  Well, maybe I don't directly quote the Christmas carol, but I am sometimes floored by her lack of incentive to do anything sweet or helpful, or just not flat out mean and selfish, without a prize or a penalty hanging over her head.

Ruby flew home a couple weeks ago to make it through Miami before the summer heat makes it impossible for her to get in. When I saw some of her canine friends searching behind me for her in distress on my next run, I realized Ruby never got to say goodbye to anyone, she didn't even know she was leaving, for all I know she's still unaware that she'll probably never see Bolivia again. As sad as that makes me, I kind of wonder if that would have been the way to go with Angie as well.  Instead, she has started to get nervous about the move and act out in her anxiety more than a month before anything happens.

Last Saturday, she started out by forcing me to cancel our plans to go play basketball and volleyball because it was going to involve English speakers and she's pretty much swearing off voluntary English now, an interesting transitional move into life in the U.S. A little bit later in the afternoon I wanted to go pick up the package with the MP3 players Mom had sent down to us after ours had been stolen when the car was broken into, but I didn't want to tell Angie about the prize, because I wanted her to trust me.  But she just couldn't do it.  Being dragged out of her already-in-progress-lazy-day, which she got used to when we were both sick and I let us use one Saturday as a sick-day that she mistook as the new normal, she could not do something sweetly if she didn't know how it would benefit her.  So she broke down in the car, hence I didn't show her what was in the box for a long time. 

I feel like I'm taking advantage of Ange's lack of English comprehension to write about her, but I think the parallel that connects us all to this little fighter clinging to every bit of control she can get her hands on while she feels her world is quickly spinning out of her control in the bigger scheme of things, excuses her behavior as merely childish and puts the greater blame on us; the adults who should by now know better.  How can I watch Angie refuse to trust that I have her best interests at heart, when clearly my interests are very often confused and flawed, and not feel convicted for not trusting our Heavenly Father's perfect flawless love and plan.

We could sure use your prayers over these next few months they're shaping up to be some of our most tumultuous, and we've weathered some storms...