Oh, So That's Why

Several years ago, I went to a women's conference by myself. In a time where women's conferences abound, featuring dozens of published authors and gifted 40-somethings tell jokes and dissect the word of God for the masses, I needed something different. I wasn't interested in hearing from someone in my stage of life. I needed to hear from someone who had lived an entire life of service to God and survived it! I wanted to hear the words of someone whose kids had kids. And all I could think of was Jill Briscoe. If you don't know Jill Briscoe, I'm sorry. Because she is British and lovely and everything she says sounds like something you should write down and remember. She and her husband Stuart have decades of ministry under their belts. They are filled with wisdom. So when I drove to Dallas to attend a women's conference all by myself, I went with expectancy. I was not disappointed. I was so blessed, sitting in the balcony on a row all by myself, listening to the speakers. When it was Jill's turn to speak, I had my pen ready. The other speakers had been vibrant and animated, pacing the stage and waving their arms as they told stories and taught. Jill was still and steady. She didn't raise her voice. But she began to quietly share wisdom she had learned through her years as a follower of Christ. She was brilliant. One of her first suggestions to the group was that each of us should purchase a journal or notebook in which to write about our hardships and struggles. She said we should write about the unfair things of life, the things we didn't understand. On the front of the notebook, she suggested to write the words "Oh, So That's Why" so that we could also record when God was gracious enough to reveal the purpose in our past troubles. I loved that idea.

I never bought the journal. I probably have a dozen blank journals I could use for this purpose. I just never started it. But today marks 6 years from one of those troubling times in my life, and since I'm right in the middle of a weird time, I thought it would be a good time to confess that though I didn't see a purpose in it then, I see it now.

Six years ago today Jake and I announced that we were moving from East Tennessee to Delaware.

I didn't want to go.

I had a 3-month-old baby.

I wasn't sleeping much.

I didn't know it then, but I was suffering from postpartum anxiety.

We had only been in Tennessee ten months.

We had moved so, so much.

To be honest, Jake and I had been fighting about moving. And the reasons behind why he felt like we needed to move weren't ours to share, so we couldn't talk to anyone about it. Our move felt like a punch in the gut, to us and to the people in our church. They didn't know why we were leaving, and we couldn't tell them. But we packed up our stuff, and we left behind our sweet little house on Cherry Street in Greeneville, Tennessee and we moved north.

Delaware was a mess. Not the state. The situation. I worked full-time in a day-care, and I taught three year olds while baby Jude was down the hallway being cared for by someone else. It felt so unfair. Our church plant was small, but we were excited about that part. It was fun to be part of the very beginning of something. But then there was some conflict. It had nothing to do with us, but it affected us. And even though there were some really lovely people we met along the way, we were neither surprised nor incredibly sad when it all fell apart just 2.5 months into our time there. Just like that we were moving back to Texas. We had no idea where we would live or what we would do. The only thing we could think of doing was for Jake to go back to school. Fort Worth had a seminary. So we moved to Fort Worth.

The first four months we were back in Texas, I taught part-time at a school in Fort Worth, and I served as a children's minister at my dad's church. From September to December, three days a week, baby Jude and I would load up and drive to Grand Prairie and hang out in the church office with Jude's Nana and Papa. Even on his hard days, my dad would light up when he would see Jude crawl into his office. Since we had lived so far away since his birth, this was really the first time Jude was able to spend time with his extended family.

The next February, we were devastated by an accident that left my dad with a traumatic brain injury. For eight long months he was in a coma. It was one of the worst seasons of my life. But you know what would have been worse than my dad in a coma? My dad being in a coma in Texas with me living in Delaware. Or even East Tennessee. But no. I was in Fort Worth. So I drove 2-3 times a week to whichever hospital or skilled nursing he was in. I spent so much time with my dad in the last year of his life. Between working together at the church and those quiet days of his coma, I received a gift I didn't know I needed. Time. Through his months in a coma, I would read scripture to him or play my guitar, singing back to him the songs I had heard him sing all of my life. I took advantage of the time I had to say the things I needed to say. And when he finally passed away, there were no regrets.

On those bedside visits with my dad, I often read Romans 8. It was comforting to me, and I needed comfort. And the most familiar verse of that chapter is verse 28, promising that all things work together for our good. And man, looking back, I can see it. I can see how the weirdness and the moving and the strange circumstances that brought us back to Texas were all for good in the end. I loved those months with my dad. But man, it was hard to see it before. When I was walking the cobblestone streets of historic New Castle, Delaware, the morning of our move, thinking about all of the things we hadn't seen and done in that part of the country, wondering why on earth God would move us there JUST to move us again, I couldn't see it. But on this side, it's pretty clear. So if this story never makes it to the journal, here it is. Written down to remind me that in the middle of things that are hard and confusing, God already has planned out how he will use this to bless me. And maybe here to remind you, too.