The Holiness Gap

I am excited for the day when my first response is faith, not panic.

We are not rich people.  I am a full-time teacher married to a full-time student and part-time worship leader.  We do our best to save, spend only what we need, and be good stewards of our resources.  And with nearly three months unpaid leave due to the premature birth of our daughter, we were on the short side to start.

In the last month, we have incurred the following unexpected expenses:

Again, all unexpected.  We thought my insurance coverage had taken care of Lucy's deductible.  Charlie broke his glasses and his prescription is so high that to get them in the scratch-resistant (which we absolutely MUST do unless we want to replace them every other week), we had to pay an arm and a leg.  My car wouldn't start yesterday.  And Charlie had a RIDICULOUS allergic reaction and needs an eye drop that costs $120 AFTER insurance.  Yikes.

As you might imagine, I am beyond stressed, trying to figure out how to move money around to cover these expenses after we just got our financial feet back under us from the last onslaught.  I called my mom whose first response was "How exciting."  No sarcasm, no jokes.  She means it.

This may seem a strange response, but I fully expected it.  My mom is excited because it's an opportunity to see God work.  I don't have an easy earthly solution to this problem, but God does, and since He promises to never leave or forsake us (Deuteronomy 31:6), I can trust that He is going to work this out.

I know this.  I believe it in my head, but there are fifteen inches between my head and my heart.  My dad calls this "the holiness gap" - the gap between what I know to be true and what I "faith" to be true.  I have struggled with conquering the holiness gap my entire life.  But my mom?  She's got it down.  In fact, not only does she have faith, she anticipates situations like this with excitement because she knows she's about to see God work.

Oh to have faith like this.  You'd think that 25 years of following Jesus would produce it, but I am still ridden with fear and anxiety when situations like this crop up.

Me of little faith.

If I were trying to teach my students a lesson like this, I would create opportunity after opportunity until they finally learned to put the skill into practice.  I suppose that's what God is doing, too.

So here's to shrinking the holiness gap.  I'm sure I won't get it down this time, or the next time, or maybe even the time after that.  But I'm going to give it my best shot.

*Note: As you might imagine, my parents are amazing people from which to learn life.  I am beyond blessed to have been able to witness their examples in faith, family, love, service - all of it.  I want to be just like them.