Look Up!

The Tuesday evening after Thanksgiving I attended a women’s Advent prayer service at my church. This annual event is always led by the same woman who each year picks an Advent-related theme as the foundation of her talk and subsequent season-long emailed daily devotionals. This year the theme is “Look up!”

In a social media post on cultivating gratitude right before Thanksgiving I used this same “Look up” phrase. I don’t believe this was a coincidence.

Now I really don’t. God was preparing me for the need to keep my eyes looking up.

Fast-forward another week. Multiple leaks in our slab foundation have been detected. But to locate the leak, sheetrock was cut in four places including a powder bath wall with the wallpaper I love. A section of our floor is being jackhammered up tomorrow and our hardwood floors throughout the living room, a hallway and kitchen are buckling. They will need to be ripped up and everything dried out before repairs can even begin. And of course, it’s Christmas. Our three children and son-in-law will be here in another week, and we will need to temporarily move out.

• When? Where to? For six people, a dog and a cat? For how long?
• Can we get the same hardwoods? What about my wallpaper?
• Will we surpass the damage amount that will waive our deductible?
• What about our work schedules with all these repair people coming?
• How will I find time to prep for my upcoming speaking engagements with all this going on?
• When can they get started? How long will this take?
• Will we be back in the house in time for my Oklahoma friends coming to visit in January?

These swirling questions overwhelmed me. The financial piece. The inconvenience. The timing. Everything outside of my control.

Frustrated on the one day last week I had nothing on my schedule and could easily be home for the plumbers, insurance adjuster, and general contractor that no forward action seemed like it would happen, I noticed still on my counter the “Look up!” cup from the Advent service. Look up, Kristen! Look up!

Seeing those words in that moment was enough to move me to pray.

This doesn’t always happen this way, and I would be lying if I said all these unknown questions don’t still nag at me, but God met me in my despair and is helping me hold loosely all that I want to control.

Circumstantially nothing has changed. In fact, the pipes are not yet fixed and we are currently without water. I have showered this week at the YMCA, done laundry at a friend’s, and feel like a pioneer in my own home with bowls of water in each sink and pitchers of water in the frig.

But God.

“I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.” Psalm 121:1-4

“My soul looks to the Lord more than watchmen look for the morning.” Psalm 130:6

“You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts you.” Isaiah 26:3

There is nothing I can do to change or speed up anything. By God’s grace as things unfold I pray we will take it in stride. Day by day, his mercies are new.

Lord, grant it! Keep our eyes fixed on you.