It’s More About What God HASN’T Done

The milk frother screamed behind me as it heated liquid to foam, and the cash register drawer rolled open. Conversations wove between the soft pop music.

I sat at a vintage table across from a new friend, brainstorming a piece of her writing. Clutching my chai in its tall green mug, I stared at the creamy pattern in the top of the drink.

“So how’s that going anyway?”

Such a simple question. Why was it so hard to answer? And how did those baristas manipulate liquid to their will and pretty foam?

I mulled over my possible answers: ignore the question, shrug it off, make up a safe answer, deflect the question with a question?

 

 

The truth isn’t so glamorous.

How could I say that nothing is as I expected? How could I say that life has been full of disappointments and confusions? How could I admit to stumbling around a bit lot?

GAH.

I don’t remember how I answered my friend, but I remember what popped into my head as I struggled to come up with an acceptable answer.

“It’s less about what God’s done and more about what He HASN’T done.”

When those words sprang up, I wanted to shrink teeny tiny and cannonball through that pretty pattern in my chai foam…explode away the pretty to reveal the depth and darkness below.

How could I think that? How. Could. I?

 

 

But it’s the ugly beautiful…spectacular in its honesty.

I look at my life and see the gaping holes.

And with the high-pitched voice that you want to slap right out of a whiner, I say, “God, do you see that? Why haven’t you done something about it? If you loved me, you’d do what I want and give me what I want.”

Eeeeeshhhhh. Are you repulsed? I am. So repulsed that I’m sitting here cringing.

When did it become more about what God hasn’t done? When did I stop seeing what He HAS done for me?

 

 

Ugh. I am ashamed to write that out. But, I wonder, if I’ve seen this in me…maybe I’m not the only one. Maybe there are others?

Originally, these gaps were trusting points, but now they’ve morphed into points of contention.

Do you list the holes in your life? Filling them up with weight and piling them high as a wall between you and God?

 

 

We’re told to dream and explore the world. The world is our oyster. It’s been given to us to be fruitful and multiply. Ask and it will be given.

But I’ve been asking…and asking…and asking some more.

When you ask over and over with no acknowledgment, is anyone actually listening? Caring?

 

 

And then, there’s loss.

You’ve faced it in the light of the day and in the dark of night. Death. Broken Hearts. Miscarriages. Hopes dashed. Dreams shuddering their last breath in your lap.

So when life grinds your face into the gravel and treads your dreams, not even noticing what crunches under its step, what then? Is that when you began keeping your list of have-nots?

I have-not a grandmother anymore. I have-not a child. I have-not a dream…

 

 

So that’s the true question:

How do I live in hope without getting my hopes crushed?

It’s safer give up on hoping. It’s safer to be cynical. It’s safer to hide your heart and bury it deep where nothing can touch it. Because we’re all the have-nots, even the most privileged ones watch dreams die.

So how do I live hope?

 

***

 

A hammer, screws, and an assortment of other tools scanned into the cash register by two big hands. Tattoos snaked the wrists and hair sprouted from the artwork, but it was there first, I think. A green-inked letter stood on each knuckle, but I couldn’t read it. An H? A?

“What do your hands say?” I squeaked.

“Have-nots.” The man was gruff, but he wasn’t unkind. Maybe he was used to the question from children.

“Why?” I could be just as blunt.

“It’s to remind me where I come from.”

 

***

 

A list has two purposes: it can either guide your time for better productivity or it can be your accuser, stretching long and impossible.

To be challenged or to be choked.

Should any list have the power to frame my view of the world? Of me? Of God?

 

 

“Part of the reason that circumstances throw us into a frenzied state

is because we simply cannot fathom

how God will provide.

We feel trapped in misery with no exit.

Yet, so much of provision

is a matter of seeing.

If we could but see.”

//a beautiful disaster by marlena graves//

 

 

So, my friend, what are you choosing to see? Are you like me? Seeing only what I have-not rather than what I have?

“It’s less about what God’s done and more about what He HASN’T done.”

Is that how you want to live?

No…no, me neither.

 

 

To the God of the Have-Nots (and the Haves),

Give me the eyes to see what you HAVE given me. And will you forgive me for my whiny voice and my demands when I get caught up in what I have-not?

I don’t like me when I’m like that. 

Remind me where I’ve come from, but help me not to stay there. Remind me of who you are and how you’ve already provided for me.

I praise you for every have and have-not. Thy will be done with my life.

 

 

 

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