Counting to Three

I seem to spend a great deal of my time counting. And it seems that I hardly ever get beyond three. I suppose a lot of this comes from having three kids. I find myself counting kids as they walk out the door for school, performing a mental checklist, making sure they are all properly clothed and accounted for.

“One.” She didn’t change her socks this morning.

“Two.” He forgot to brush his teeth again and his hair is sticking up like a rooster. Oh well.

“Three. Ethan you may not wear your spider man PJ’s to school! Go back and change.”

I also count kids when we are out in public. Not because I’m afraid of strangers walking off with my kids, but rather because I’m afraid of my kids wandering off. Ok, I’m only really afraid of one kid wandering off: Ethan. I think if Christians can believe in re-incarnation, I believe that he is the re-birth of Christopher Columbus or Magellan or Amerigo Vespucci or somebody like that! He has explorer genes, and he certainly didn’t get them from me! He has been lost more times than I care to discuss, and I have learned to keep him always in my peripheral vision. When we travel to the US, I deliberately dress Ethan in fluorescent colors and make sure he has his name printed clearly somewhere on his person: safety precautions.

Counting to three is also a tool I use to, shall we say, “motivate” my kids. It usually works like this:

“Eli turn off the TV and wash your hands for dinner.”

Silence.

“Eli, please, turn off the TV and wash your hands.”

Continued silence.

“Elijah Webb Maxson, turn off the TV and wash your hands. ONE”

A grubby hand very slowly raises the remote, but he still remains glued to the TV.

“Elijah, TWO.”

As if suddenly stirred by the most amazing sense of purpose, he springs from his stuffed dog chair, turning off the TV as he races for the bathroom, sliding on the tile floor in his dirty socks.

I very rarely get to “three”, at least with my older two kids anyway. With Ethan life is a much different story. Counting to him is a challenge. I can see his little three-year-old mind weighing the consequences of pain versus pleasure. More often than not, the discipline that inevitably follows “three” was worth the few extra minutes of sinful pleasure. He’s a tough nut. But the parallel between our desire to sin and God’s gentle wooing isn’t what I’m going for here. Besides I can’t imagine God impatiently tapping his foot between “two” and “three” like I do!

Here lately, I find myself counting to three in a much different context. A year and a half ago my husband’s company asked him if he would be willing to work in France on a three year assignment. After much praying and deliberation (not so much on my part though, I was much more excited about it than my husband was) he accepted the position. The company packed us up and shipped all of us to the south of France. I admit I came with stars in my eyes envisioning the great things we would see and the amazing experiences we would have. I think if I had to do it all again I would certainly put a little more effort into my deliberation.

Life here has been….difficult. There have been amazing times: Getting to stand in the rain in the middle of a deserted 13th century castle and sing Christmas carols with my kids, watching the sunset in Provence bathe the olive groves in golden light. But mostly, life here has been hard. Everyday poses new, and often humiliating, challenges. My soul, I think, has grown weary of this constant stretching. I am realizing that I have been counting down our time here. I keep catching myself thinking things like:

“only two more Christmases until we’re done”

“only one more school year”

“only a year and a half to go”

“hang in there, it’s been almost two years now”

I think God whispered something to me this morning, “I have numbered all your days.” It was just a feeling really, but it was profound nonetheless. It was like a mini-revelation, right there in the shower. It had been a rough morning and I was feeling particularly stupid and frustrated after accidentally putting conditioner on my shower-spongy-thing, and getting shampoo in my eyes (of course I never did stupid things like that in the US) and just generally feeling overwhelmed with my French life.

At first it felt a little intimidating. It’s not generally a good thing to be told your days are numbered. It sounds like something an unshaven Clint Eastwood would say in a husky voice right before pulling a trigger. But as it soaked in a little it started to feel softer and a little more promising. I remembered Psalm 139:16 “…All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” Before, when I read that I had always imagined God up there on his throne with his celestial Blackberry ticking off the days I have left before I get the infinite pleasure of standing before His judgment.

But after my “whisper” this morning I realized that that verse wasn’t about God’s anxiousness to get a hold of me and show me all the mistakes I’ve made. It’s about God waiting, wanting each day of my life to be an opportunity to know His love. He’s not up there tapping his foot while counting down to the inevitable punishment. He’s up there, leaning forward on the edge of his throne, watching, waiting to see if maybe, just maybe, today will be the day I see the myriad of ways in which He is trying to show His love and grace to me. It’s me who is slowly ticking off the time, hoping for it to all be over soon. It’s God who is trying desperately to get me to look up and see how much He loves me.

The fact that my days are numbered is actually encouraging. To me it means that God knew about these dark days here in France and in His grace and love provided for them before the dawn of time. He knew that there would be exactly 1095 days of this French life (I hope not too much more than that!) and He knew exactly how they would feel for me. He isn’t ticking them off so He can judge my frustration and anxiety. He knows before I do the times I will need His love to carry me through. The times I will need to call on Him when I have been stretched too far. The times I will need to run and curl up in His love and just rest. He’s ready and waiting because He knows what comes next.

That passage in the Message reads: “all the stages of my life were spread out before you, The days of my life all prepared before I'd even lived one day.” It has been such an encouragement to know that God has prepared these French days for me. It isn’t a shock to him when I come running to Him in tears because I’ve managed to humiliate myself again. He knows just exactly what I will need with the challenges of every day. With grace and compassion He is ready for each day’s ups and downs. Knowing that my days are numbered means that I don’t walk through them alone, He knows about every single one and is ready to lead me through them, step, by sometimes wearying step.