For Today

I haven't talked about my previous job a lot, but for a little over two years i worked as a caseworker for families with children in foster care.  This was not a career i had dreamt of doing while in college, but the opportunity came up as i was graduating and not really knowing WHAT i wanted to do with my life i grabbed at the opportunity for a grown up job with a grown up salary.  Getting to help people was actually a bonus :)

I in no way regret the time that i spent doing this work.  In fact, though it was probably the hardest two years of my life, i appreciate so much everything that i learned from being forced into situations that were totally uncomfortable for me.  From the overwhelming amount of work to be done in an absurdly small amount of time to loving families that i never would have met outside of this position, every experience i had there grew me in a way that i never would have grown otherwise. 

I remember the very first time i had to testify in court. Me...a completely naive girl raised in what i soon learned was a completely protected bubble...fresh out of college without even an ounce of experience in this profession...and i had to testify in court against a bipolar prostitute who seriously wanted to injure me.

I was completely, out of my mind, scared to death.

I eventually got a little more comfortable in the courtroom and actually got pretty decent at testifying in court while somebody was across the room leering at me and shouting lies my way.  Sound made up?  Not even a little...

A few months in to this new job i started to discover new levels of stress that i had never even imagined existed.  For the first 6 months to a year of this job i would wake up almost nightly having a panic attack.  I was a mess.  One of my mentor's at my job talked to me about having boundaries and "leaving work at work"...but this made no sense to me.  How do you just shut off caring about someone and trying to figure out how to fix their situation at 5:00 everyday?  I just couldn't figure out how to do that.

I was almost completely at the end of my rope when i finally was able to look up to God long enough to receive his help.  I was doing a Beth Moore study at the time about the Old Testament Temple and everything that entailed the worship of God at that time.  I remember sitting on my bed late one night, knowing that i needed to go to sleep so that i could function at work the next day...but being desperate to receive something, anything from God that would sustain me.

I was reading through Exodus and the Israelites journey through the desert to the Promised Land.  This was something that i'd read and heard told for almost all of my life, but as i was doing my study Beth made me slow down and really look at what i was reading.  I was reading about how God provided manna for his children everyday as they were traveling.  I had never thought twice about this, but when i slowed down and really thought about it, it seemed to leap off the page at me.  

God provided for them.  Not in a small way...not in a big way.  In exactly the way that they needed for the day.  He provided enough for them to survive that exact day.  Any leftovers they had would be rotted the next day, so they were forced to receive from him only what they needed to make it through that very day.

I thought about what this meant in my life.  Sometimes i get caught in extremes.  I'll either come to God with enormous things that need from him...and then sometimes i just don't come to him at all with things.  I'm very "all or nothing" with a lot of areas of my life.  And i thought about each day.  Each day how much energy i needed to make it through all of my appointments and paperwork.  Each day how much grace i needed to extend to the families i was working with.  Each day how much love i needed to pour out on the people that were hurting and needy.  Each day how much patience i needed so that i didn't blow up on somebody.

Was i able to believe him for enough just for one day?  Sure i was.  

I began writing the word "manna" across my wrist each day as a reminder to believe that he is faithful to provide exactly how much i need for that day.  At moments when i was overcome with the amount of work i had to do, or angry at a client for cussing me out, or annoyed with a child that had just run away from their foster home for the fifth time...at those moments i would glance down at my wrist and see His reminder.  That he had given me enough for that day.  That his grace is bigger than any situation i had gotten myself into.

Slowly, the panic attacks began to cease.  The times i would have to hide in my car and have an emotional breakdown became less and less.  And the more i was able to extend grace to people that tested my limits each day.

God's reminder of his manna is what helped me last the 27 months that i worked there. But once i quit i didn't really think about it much anymore  But the other day i started to have a mini freak out with HIm...Me reminding him that it looks like i'm moving backwards in life...that i'm nowhere near where i always thought i would be at this point in my life.  When i heard him whisper that word again...manna.

And he reminded me...that i don't have to have next month figured out...or next week.  Or even tomorrow.  I just have to know that i am exactly where He wants me to be today.  That i have followed him and he has led me here.  For some reasons i know, and for some reasons i'm sure i don't.  But i asked Him to lead me, and he led me here...so for today i know that i am where i should be.  For today i know that he will provide for my every need.  For today i know that he has not forgotten me.  For today he is still leading me towards tomorrow.