…”Come unto me and rest;
lay down, thou weary one, lay down
thy head upon my breast.”
I came to Jesus as I was,
so weary, worn, and sad;
I found in him a resting place,
and he has made me glad.
This song began to run through my head tonight in response to the word “weary” being the most accurate description for how I’m doing at this very moment. I still have a couple more hours of work that I need to get done tonight. I may not be able to complete it, but I need to keep pushing towards getting it done until I’m no longer coherent. It’s only more complicated trying to do it during the day between homeschooling and taking care of other responsibilities that have to be done during the day.
So, I’m wishing I could literally lay down my head, but until I can, I’m spiritually responding to the invitation in this song, and once again, coming to Jesus (not that I have to go far 
) as I am~~weary, worn and sad.
Well, not sad so much tonight. But very weary and worn.
I think I might actually have some good news, or at least the possibility of good news about my housing situation. A Christian mortgage broker has taken on my housing situation very seriously and will be meeting with some underwriters with her company to discuss financing the house we are renting, which the owner has had to put up for sale. I was not very cooperative with this broker at the beginning. After four (or maybe it was five) failed attempts with other mortgage companies (my parents contacted a couple of them, I contacted a couple and the owners also contacted one or two on my behalf), I was very demoralized and did not want to tell my story to one more mortgage broker, confidently promising that she could arrange something, only to have it fall through.
My lifestyle is non-conventional and rather crazy. It doesn’t make any financial sense. God is providing for me? Well, that’s fine, but do you have receipts to show that? Can He write a letter to prove that He’ll keep providing? What, you’re a single Mom and you don’t have a “real” job? You work part time? You homeschool? You make how much each month? You’re self-employed? And you have skills that you could be working full time at a steady-paying job? Well, for Pete’s sake, why aren’t you working full time at that steady job?
The questions were never asked quite that bluntly, but after several attempts at that, I was discouraged and demoralized. I didn’t need the repeated reminders that trusting God looks crazy. Friends would say, “Oh, I know this mortgage broker that can really get creative financing.” But I just couldn’t face being told, yet again, that my lifestyle is so far beyond “creative” as to look financially irresponsible, even though I am not in debt and have a good credit rating. My parents have been highly involved in this process, totally willing to cosign, but my income is so non-verifiable that I didn’t even qualify as part of a co-signed agreement.
I knew that God had been providing so that I could still mainly be at home. And I have no guarantees how long that I will be able to do that. But each day at home, I take as a gift from Him. I also knew that, if I were able to purchase this home, the payments would be very comparable to what I’d be paying for rent for a smaller place in the same town. But, without a mortgage, it didn’t seem like it would be possible to purchase the home and stay here, unless it were through a private investor, and no one was coming out of the woodwork for that, either. What I came to realize was that, if the only way I could qualify for this house would be to get a full time, steady job (which I could probably do immediately as a clerk for the school board), that I would rather choose to be at home with my children, even if it meant another move, as much as I dread that.
Now, with all of that background, I am asking that you would be praying tomorrow specifically about this. Because this Christian* mortgage broker thinks she has an underwriter willing to agree to a mortgage that my parents and I cosign. She is going to be meeting with some of the underwriters with her company tomorrow and will be explaining to them in great detail my situation. I am still in a bit of shock that she is very serious–serious enough that she wants us to go ahead and write up a contract and get the house appraised. Once they have a contract in hand, they will do the final deciding. But, tomorrow’s meeting is a significant one in this process.
So, here I am, back to “Your will be done,” holding my hands out. Tired of the uncertainty and strain. Confident God could provide so that I can stay. Knowing I’ll have to trust Him to carry me through another move if He doesn’t provide in this way. Weary and worn, but still hearing the voice of Jesus and still trusting Him to provide a resting place, even in the most unlikely of places and least restful of scenarios.
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* I don’t say “Christian mortgage broker” implying that God can only do miracles through Christian people. It has just been reaffirming to be working with someone who understands and is encouraging about my situation, which can only make sense in the context of faith-living.
I really appreciated reading your post. Your trust in God at this difficult time is helpful to others, including me. May he give you the desires of your heart. Have you looked at any kind of low-income, HUD-type financing? The person who bought our previous home had that kind of a mortgage. I don’t think they could afford the mortgage on their own, but they qualified for some kind of low-income assistance.
Thanks for your encouragement. I was okay last night as I wrote the post and then collapsed again emotionally this a.m. (helped, certainly, by not enough sleep). It’s good to remember it’s not my trust that is wavering as much as it is my coping ability. I’m realizing that we often equate the two (or at least think that if we are trusting God, we will always succesfully cope). I’m not convinced that is true. I think the idea comes from a distortion of the verse, “No temptation has overtaken you….”
My trust is not something that manipulates God into guaranteeing that I will always be coping well. My trust doesn’t mean that I won’t get overwhelmed. My trust means that I believe God will continue to be faithful to me even when I am not coping well or even not at all. That I can trust Him to be sovereign, loving and just even if I become totally incapacitated, whether from physical distress (like cancer) or emotional distress. I’m not stating this as something I know without a doubt (I know a lot of people would argue about equating emotional/mental struggles with the physical, saying we are the ones that control the 2nd by right thinking or not, etc.). But these are things that I wrestle with, as I stretch the limits of what trusting God entails in ways I never had to before.
I will say that thinking along these lines has helped me to release God and myself from a demand to have to cope at any cost. That might sound strange. I can’t articulate all that that means very clearly at this point, but I’m certainly thinking about it. In a way, lessening the pressure to “have” to cope or else be proven a failure, gives me more energy to cope. And not setting my coping as a watershed issue that proves either the sufficiency of my trust or God’s faithfulness has freed me to trust no matter how I’m doing at any phase in my life.
I suppose some could see that as a mind game I play with myself. But, for me these are very serious issues as I look at others in extreme situations and ask, “How is God’s faithfulness relevant and visible in this person’s life?”, whether the person I’m thinking of is homeless, persecuted, dying, raging with mental illness, etc. That’s a very broad range of situations, I know. And I’m not trying to connect them in ways that they aren’t. BUT, if I’m accepting God’s faithfulness to me apart from any external demands of how that has to look, I can’t help but think about how that is also true in other situations.
Well, I guess that doesn’t really tie into what you were saying, but it is the direction my mind went down as I received your acknowledgement of my trust in God. I was reminded that last night I sounded like I was trusting God, and today, with my lowered resistance and coping, if you talked to me in person, my intense emotions would sound to many people like I wasn’t confidently trusting. But for me, the trust is the same in both situations. My outward questionings of God come out of the context of trusting God deeply, just as much as my outward expressions of confidence in God more obviously come out of trusting God deeply.
Thanks for the suggestion about HUD.
I,KNOW WHAT YOUR GOING THRU, MY SITUATION IS ALMOST LIKE YOURS. MY EXBOYFRIEND IS SUING ME FOR BACK CHILD SUPPORT, AND ARREARAGE, WHICH ARE TWO SEPARATE THINGS. HE HIRED A HIGH POWER ATTORNEY. MY EX-BO. HAS 68,000.00 DOLLARS IN THE BANK, HE HAS STOCKS AND BONDS, NEW TRUCK, NEW CAR, A NICE HOUSE,I HAVE A MORTGAGE PAYMENT, AN OLD CAR. HIS ATTORNEY SENT ME A LETTER THAT THEY ARE GOING TO FORCE ME TO AUCTION OUT MY HOUSE TO PAY OFF THE CHILD SUPPORT DEBT. I WAS PAYING SOMETHING ON MY SUPPORT, MAKING LOW INCOME WAGES. MY SON WHO IS 14 , DOES NOT APPROVE OF WHAT HIS FATHER IS DOING. I OWE, 27,000.00, ROUGH ESTIMATE. I KEEP THINKING OF THAT JAMAICAN SONG, DON’T WORRY BE HAPPY. IS THAT A DUMB THING IN MY HEAD OR WHAT. ATTORNEYS TO ME ARE A NIGHTMARE, MY EX-BO HAS KEPT ME IN THE COURT ARENA FOR MANY YEARS NOW, HE ENJOYS PUSHING ME AROUND THIS WAY. I WANT TO REFINANCE MY HOUSE TO PAY WHAT I OWE, BUT I DON’T MAKE ENOUGH INCOME, BANKS DON’T WANT TO LEND OUT, BECAUSE THE ECONOMY IS SO BAD RIGHT NOW, THE HOUSE MARKET IS FALLING DOWN A CLIFF. SO WITH THAT SAID, IM IN A PICKLE JAR. SEE YA.
Lela,
)
I’m sorry you are under such a load yourself. I wish I had answers to the specifics of your situation (but hey, if I could fix all of those kinds of problems, obviously I wouldn’t have written the above post
I hope you do not receive it as trite for me to say I am praying for you today. As to the funny song running through your head–well, I continue to worry at times about the specifics I’m in, but God has still granted peace and joy (and sometimes even happiness
) as I keep crying out those worries to him. They don’t go away, I know. But, I do pray that you know his peace in the middle of it all–that you are able to go to Jesus in your weariness and sadness. I guess I’m saying, it’s not a dumb song, if in the middle of it all, you can be and are trusting somebody bigger than you and can rest in him, no matter how any specific thing turns out.
Sorry to hear about your housing struggles a couple of years ago. Hope everything worked out for you. (My wife and I have gone through housing issues a few times in the past 40 years!)
Thanks for posting a stanza of Horatius Bonar’s beautiful hymn, “I Heard the voice of Jesus say. You can check out the entire hymn here: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/i/h/iheardtv.htm
It is worth a look. Based on Matthew 11:28, it reminds us of the soul comfort and nourishment found in the Lord Jesus.
A couple of interesting notes: Today, as I write this, is the 120th anniversary of the death of Horatius Bonar. And there is a sad peculiarity about the 600+ hymns he wrote. To find out what it is, check out my blog for today at…
http://www.wordwisehymns.wordpress.com
God bless.
Thanks rcottrill, I enjoyed reading your post. The Lord has been faithful in regards to my housing, and I’m really thankful that I’ve been able to continue staying in the house I was in back when I wrote this post, though I still was unable to purchase it through conventional means. It continues to be a house of peace for me, and I’m thankful to the Lord for His provisions.