Always more to the story

I look at everyone different now than I have before. What seems to be the perfect family is most likely a facade. I started this realization during my worst days when people would tell me how great I looked, and I would just stop and think to myself, they have NO idea. (they were probably just being nice, regardless it got me thinking) Almost always you just can't see the whole story.  

I see a man walking on the way to school everyday, and I want to know where he's going and why. Maybe he needs a ride, it's so cold. 

I see the mom in the grocery store check out, is she there for someone else like the hundreds of selfless friends who shopped for me. Is she like me, barely making it some days but so thankful to be able to go to the grocery store. 

The young girl at Joann's who talked my ear off about quilting while my 9 year old supervised my children in the store. Did she need someone to talk to? What else does she need? She probably wants to come to church....

You see I want to know the whole story because there is always a story. All the times that I think about the story I also think about how it is not always our connection to know, but to trust in the one that does know. And to love the regardless of the whole story. I am trying so hard to do that. All the sudden I see pain and feel it like I never have, I want to fix it, carry that burden, but it's impossible. There is just too much need. 

Jesus was the best listener, he asked questions, he inquired. He was quiet and allowed others to let him in. I want to be more like Jesus. 

Janet Dunn gives this truth, "One of the best ways to learn to listen is to study the life of Jesus. Read through the gospels and watch this masterful teacher affirm people, draw them out, and accurately speak to their real needs. Jesus motivates us to listen better."

Here is a story where God shows up. I have to share this.... About when someone opens their book and shares part of their story. And I believe with my whole heart that we all have something to learn when someone opens up and shares from their book...  

"Let the wise hear and increase in learning" Prov. 1:5

So I see a post on a moms group that I'm in. Someone has extra needles from all their infertility and doesn't want them to go to waste. "Does anyone have any use for this," she asks. 

Of course I reply that I will take any and all the help I can get. So I go to MOPS and I'm finally going to meet this woman who reached out to me because she has an abundance of needles and syringes and that is all the sudden a need for me. The amount of women who have or has used injections for numerous fertility treatments is astounding in a group of 200 MOPS mommas. I have met some beautiful women who have stories of overcoming what seemed to be a hopeless situation and turned into God working in amazing ways. We all have a story that can lift another up. 

So she opens up the bag and it's everything that I need exactly. It's already what I'm using it's the smaller needles it's the bigger needles it's the syringes it's everything except for for the medicine which is awesome. She even has alcohol pads. As she gives it to me and I try to say thank you for a huge bag of needles, who wants this package right?  I'm not exactly sure how to thank someone for something you wish you didn't have to have anything to do with!  She starts to tear up and she hands me the bag... then I realize there is more to this story that a bag of unused syringes and needles... because friends there is ALWAYS more to every story. 

She started sharing. 

She prayed over the bag the morning before she brought it. After looking at some of the syringes in the plastic she wondered why often she kept these needles after her miracle adoption that finally came after over 7 years of infertility treatment but that this morning it became so clear to her that she kept them all these years. Because I would need them. Because God has a purpose in everything, even needles. "For what was once trying to start a life in me, will sustain life in you." Beautiful right? To see God working and on the move in another life and how it weaves into your story, it's beautiful. Throwing away a bag like that, I can't imagine, there is deep emotion there, I saw it, but passing them on to further life, now that makes things easier. We both broke down teary-eyed and looked at each other and then I realized I really could say thank you for the needles that she had given me. Because its' never just a bag of needles, it's never just what it appears to be on the outside. 

He is weaving threads in the stories in the lives of people way before our time and way before our needs are going to be met. He knows what we're going to need way before we're going to need it at this time we're going to need it and how he's going to deliver it all through using his people and his love and it's an awesome story of who he is in my life every day and I looked at her and I just said to her and her mom standing there how can you not see God's hand in your life. These events make it so clear. 

So that's my story for today and there will be more tomorrow and the next day and the next.

“For some strange reason, human beings . . . tolerate stress and pressure much more easily if at least one other person knows they are enduring it.” If we learn to ask perceptive questions and then wait for answers, we can be that “one other person” someone needs to share the burdens of his life." James Dobson

God shows up the next day and I can only encourage you to look and see God's hand in and what he's weaving into our lives every moment. To see past the cover and the outside and look at what matters more. I pray that God will open doors to show me part of the whole story so that through others I can learn more about him. I also pray people would trust me through the sharing of my story enough that they too feel they can share. 

My prayer list is not short, the the burden I carry is not light, but God carries me...because he knows how to carry...