Care.
On 6 short months of life together with Tim.
We don’t really use the word ‘care’ so often. I think we prefer grander words like love or adore or cherish. Those sound attractive and big and emotive enough for us to get on board with! But as I reflect over the last 6 months of life together, I land always back on this one word: care.
I retrace the paths we’ve walked and it’s as if I see Jesus’s words written in the ground: “because He cares for you.” I see them in the thorny soil, I see them in the fertile ground, I see them glowing bright in the dark and hidden places and I see them rainbow-coloured in the after-rain skies.
God’s provision isn’t always so easy to notice because it’s so very consistent and it gives us what we need. Needs and wants are different things and we more often notice the things we want that we don’t have, than the things we need that we do have. The Bible says God knows what we need, and I often think about this wild fact: God has never failed to provide for those who have decided to trust in Him. I know there are nuances to that statement and many arguments could be made, probably some good ones at that, but I would dare to say that the nuances and arguments often have to do with our own desires, wills and expectations at odds with those of the One who knows us best. We are most often found wanting when we are on the thrones of our own lives.
Anyway, I’m getting distracted and talking myself in circles again. Back to care. So much has changed in the past few months and yet so much we expected to change has stayed the same. How do we reflect on all the disappointments and celebrations, laughs and shouts (oops!), hurts and forgivenesses, the dreams taken away and the new ones given? I chose to reflect by remembering how each of these moments have had the same thread in them always; the subtle and mysterious hand of God, sometimes so hidden it could almost be missed if you didn’t care to look.
The disappointments have brought us into discussions about what we want and why we want it, the celebrations have had us noticing the goodness of God in the fruition of a promise or just in the kindness of a grace-gift, the shouts have shown us our own sickly hearts and the forgivenesses have shown us the power of the grace of Jesus Christ in transforming us. The dreams taken away have us wrestling still and the realities given find us questioning a bit even now. But I think they find us questioning ourselves the most — which is what God wants a lot of the time. I think God wants us to examine our hearts, our motives, our ambitions and our loves. And isn’t that truest care? To attend to the mind, the heart and the soul?
I think we aim too low. Some days its felt like Tim and I are just trying to get to the bare minimum — eat, work, rush off to an evening commitment, come home, clean the house, fall into bed and repeat. We need someone to show us what it means to be cared for because I don’t think we’d know it if it hit us in the face (not that care really would, but you get the idea). And we have learnt and failed and tried to learn some more how to be taken care of and care for one another.
God cares for you. God cares for you. God cares for you. Isn’t that just the most comforting truth? There is someone who wants you to be provided for, to be made whole, to live without anxieties and burdens and open wounds — He wants it for you even more than you do. But to be cared for, I have realized in marriage, is to give up control. It is to surrender and admit weakness. It is to say “I need help” and decide not to go it alone. It’s not always easy to do those things, especially if we place our worth in all that we can do and what we can prove to people.
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters.
He restores my soul.
Psalm 23 doesn’t promise us ease or unspoilt happiness. But it does promise us care. God promises us care; goodness and mercy following close behind wherever we may go. That’s a pretty grand and extravagant idea…
