Long, High, Wide, Deep

So, this has been something of a rough week.  On Wednesday, I found out that I had an offer on my house that was, in my opinion, insanely too low.  The same day, I also found out that the prayer request I mentioned in a previous post was not answered the way I wanted it to be.  As house negotiations dragged on throughout the day on Wednesday, I found myself drained of energy and discouraged.  Not to mention the fact that I kept feeling waves of sadness that the other prayer received a “no” – at least for now.  I do know God’s plans are better than ours, and I’m confident that he has something better for my friend for whom I was praying, but my heart couldn’t help feeling sad for myself (as I would have also been blessed by a “yes”)!  I went to bed EXHAUSTED on Wednesday.  With a heavy heart and no resolution on the house negotiations, I quickly found myself bursting into tears.  I have to say that my husband is so sweet and did his best to comfort me, but as it was already an hour past his usual bedtime, I decided to go into the living room in effort to help him sleep and give myself time to pull it together, and I didn’t end up in bed until after midnight.

Yesterday brought another day of stress as we continued to work on house negotiations.  I will say that we have HOPEFULLY reached an agreement – though currently, there are still some details that need ironing out and agreeing upon.  For some reason, though, I’ve had a hard time praising God fully for this sale and finding joy in the fact that we are almost over this part of our move.  I think the biggest reason I’ve struggled is because to me, the house is invaluable – no matter what was offered, it wouldn’t have felt good enough.  It was the first house I ever bought, and it was new construction, so I picked every detail – from the carpets to the counters to the cabinets.  I know that material things shouldn’t matter, but I LOVE this sweet house, and I’m teary now as I write this blog and think that tomorrow will be my last day stepping foot in it.

I’m also one of those people that once I let myself get sad about something that is bothering me, I am sad about everything else that is bothering me all at once.  I’m will start crying and half incoherently list about ten things that I’m crying about.  Sometimes I even laugh as I do this because I know it is ridiculous, but I can’t stop!  With that background information, let me describe my night last night –

First of all, by the time Andy got home, I was emotionally and mentally drained.  All day I had gone back and forth with my realtor, and since this weekend is our last chance to get the remaining furniture out of the house, I also spent a fair amount of the day calling various people and trying to figure out the logistics of what to do with what I have left in the house.  I hate these kind of logistical plans, but I’m not someone who can relax unless they are done, so I was basically in the process of making myself crazy.  I was also determined to do a morning cardio workout and afternoon yoga hoping that exercise would take my mind off my stress, so by 7:00, I was also physically tired!  At 8:00, Andy and I got back on the phone with my realtor and went through the contract details and signed our portion, still not knowing if the buyers would agree to all the terms.  When we finished, I looked at him, and I could tell that he was just as tired as I was, but rather than let the poor guy go to sleep, I collapsed into tears again.  And of course, all of my sadness came out – I missed my friends like crazy; I wanted to see just one of them desperately today, but they all live too far away; I was so worried about my new job that involved me working off a cart and traveling across a large campus for every class; I didn’t know the curriculum I was expected to teach; I had spoken to several coworkers this week from FCHS, and I was missing them tremendously; I couldn’t believe I was selling my wonderful house.  The list goes on and on.  And once again, we went to bed, and I tossed and turned and had terrible dreams and kept Andy and myself awake half the night as a result.

We both woke up this morning feeling like we’d been hit by a truck rather than refreshed, and it didn’t make us feel any better to know that tonight we are driving five hours to Greenville in my dad’s truck while pulling a trailer for my furniture.  I came to God with my coffee, Bible, and The Circle Maker desperate for some comfort and the ability to find joy in my house negotiations – which are an answer to prayer.  Before I started my quiet time, however, I pulled up my email, and you know what was waiting?  A message from my department chair at my new high school telling me I received a classroom for the school year!  A classroom!!  Not a trailer – which is what I was originally promised before I ended up getting a cart instead – but a real room.  Not only is it a real room, it is in the English building, and it has three walls of windows and faces the quad.  I almost started crying.  This was something about which I could allow myself real, complete joy.  Traveling across campus made up about 80% of my stress related to my new job, and honestly, it is nothing short of an absolute miracle that I got a classroom.  I can’t wait to hear the actual details behind that news.

After reading the email, I opened my Bible to the portion in Ephesians I was scheduled to read, and here is what it says: “I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge – that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.  Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever!” (Ephesians 3:17-21) At that verse, I just had to lift my hands in praise.  It reminded me that God’s love is so wide and long and high and deep that today he gave me something about which I could easily be truly joyful.  This, unlike the bittersweet sale of my house, is truly immeasurably more than I could have imagined.  I know to others it might seem like such a small thing, but to me, it is the power of God.  And I love how he gave it to me.  I love that he doesn’t punish me for being a little sad when he has clearly, clearly blessed me with a job at a school that has one of the best reputations in Charlotte, a cute house close to work, a city where I have already met new potential friends, and an offer on my Winterville house.  Instead, he understands that I struggle with change, and I sometimes sharply feel the “bitter” in “bittersweet.”   He understands that, and he gave me this wonderful, happy, fully good news this morning.  It feels like such a fantastic gift, and I just can’t help but praise the God who has such deep, long, wide, high love.