New Thing

“Honey, have you seen my keys?”

I honestly hadn’t. I had not seen my husband’s keys for nearly a week. In the mean time, I got the laundry caught up, nursed one sick child back to health, shopped for groceries, prepared a children’s church lesson, washed numerous dishes, and cleaned out the microwave and the kitchen counters. You know, the normal housemom things that are expected, but traditionally unnoticed.

But this was serious. My husband is a pastor, and his keyring holds every key to the church. We had been surviving on my one church key that only opens the front doors, but it was a necessity that we find his plethora of keys. All of that aside, my overwhelming week was starting to wear on me. I was tired–exhausted actually. My immune system was being pulled in the wrong direction, and my body was being compromised by a visiting cold virus. I began to feel weak and achey.

On top of that, I received news that a dear friend was in the hospital in a life or death situation. Shortly after, we got news that my husband’s grandmother had been life-flighted to the hospital, and that news was just settling in when I learned that we had been rejected for a position about which we were extremely excited—something we believed was God-directed and felt we were a perfect fit, and all of this came only days after we learned that my husband’s vertigo was inspired by a bacterial infection.  (Warning: In order to read the next sentence correctly, please insert sarcasm here.)  It was awesome!

It all worked together to form an all-around sinkhole, and I suddenly felt unstable. I began to sink into this hole, one of which I didn’t know how to find my way back up to the surface. It was like our world was falling apart, and my praise to God became more like begging for His help.

One morning, I went for a walk to just get away and talk with God. I shared with Him all of my failures and asked Him why He wanted me when I’ve failed more than I have succeed at anything. Tears flushed my face, and I walked and begged God not to give up on me.

Sometimes, it’s good to just clear the air between yourself and God. You see, God already knows our hearts, so to not confess what’s in them is like trying to play hide-and-seek with the air.

Just then, God saw my brokenness. He reminded me of the words of a friend. “Some people count success by numbers and statistics, but God counts success by faithfulness. It doesn’t matter what the outcome looks like to us. Success to God is when we faithfully follow Him, even when it doesn’t make sense to our eyes.”

The words overwhelmed my heart, and I dropped down onto my porch and just glanced around. I saw a beautiful red bird popping about in the grass, and although our two cats were sitting beside me on the front porch, he didn’t stress about it at all. He wasn’t worried about a single thing. He just hopped about looking for his meal, just like God created him to do.

I smiled. “Okay, God, I get it. Don’t worry about the daily things that are a yes, a no, or a hospital trip. Just stay faithful, and let you handle the rest.”

I walked through the front door. I walked to the kitchen for a glass of water, and there on the counter—my husband’s keys. “Honey, why didn’t you tell me you found your keys?” I called to him in the next room.

“I haven’t found them.”

“Then where did these come from?”

His eyebrows furrowed as I walked into the room swinging the keyring. “I have no idea,” he responded in shock.

That’s when it dawned on me. All the time—through all the trials, through all the disappointments, all during my week—I kept telling God that I was a “nothing,” and all the while He was whispering back to me, “No, you misunderstood me. I said, ‘I’m doing a new thing.’”

“I got it, God.” I glanced down at the keys just before I tossed them to Joe. “Our keys to success.”

Trusting in God and following Him—that is our key to success. It doesn’t matter what the world thinks of us or what we look like to them. It only matters that we remain faithful to the One that created it all and allow Him to shoulder the weight. When we give the entire burden to Him, it clears our path, and then our eyes can finally see that He’s prepared “a new thing” for us.

Isaiah 43:18-19

Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old.

Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.