bigger than me

So I've been angry at God. I've been really angry because I feel like my needs have not been taken care of. I have asked God every night for months to please PLEASE give me a good night's rest. And I trusted every night that even though He hadn't come through thus far, He would that night. But He didn't.

When I think about it, this isn't a new struggle. I struggled for a long time to understand why, when I felt God telling me to be patient and stick by Ryan for such a long time, I was left alone in the end. I may have heard Him wrong, but I was so sure that I was in the right place. For a long time after Ryan broke up with me for the fourth time (yes, seriously), I was angry at God and didn't want to talk to Him anymore. I didn't understand. But now, I see. From the moment TJ and I started dating, I finally felt what it was like to be pursued, desired, loved. And now we have the most beautiful son I could ever have imagined. No, I couldn't even have imagined him. I never knew I could love someone so much as I love my husband and my son. God had to break my heart so that things would get better! And He knew all along that He had something better for my life. I just didn't trust it.

Anyway, back to this sleep issue, I've been angry at God. I haven't wanted to go to church. But then recently, I had a change of heart. It all started with one Saturday night when I told TJ how I was feeling. He told me, "You should read your bible. You should pray." And that just made me more angry. But when we went to church the next morning, the sermon was all about the bigger picture. Not that our problems don't matter, but there is a bigger picture, and the big picture is all about God's glory.

Since then, I'm still chronically exhausted. BUT God has been involving me in things that show more of the bigger picture. One example is IR4, an organization that connections a runner with a child with physical and/or mental disabilities. The runner dedicates their exercise to the child as a form of encouragement. I'm not paired up with a child yet, but seeing these children with so much joy written on their faces reminds me that there are others who have bigger problems than I do. And yet, they have joy.

So my child doesn't sleep well, and it sucks. But my child is healthy and has the gift of mobility (presumably) and that is reason enough to praise God continually. I'm guessing maybe years from now, I'll have some kind of answer as to why I had to go through this type of struggle (I'm really a 9 hours of sleep a night kind of person...) but even if I don't, I'll have forgotten this because I'll have a sweet boy running around, saying all sorts of strange things like toddlers do. I don't necessarily have an answer to why I had to struggle years ago with my relationship with Ryan. But it doesn't matter anymore because I have something so much more beautiful than that could ever have been.

There is a much bigger picture than this struggle. The bigger picture isn't that others are struggling more than me. That isn't the point. The point is that God is weaving all of our lives together in a tapestry that depicts His glory. My life is a part of that, and it's important. But it's only a part, it isn't the whole picture or the whole story. And if you focus only on your part of the tapestry, it's easy to get lost in your own woes. It's easy to think that God doesn't love you because He isn't giving you sleep. But God sustains me every day, and that is all to His glory!

To end, I want to mention my mother in law. Mom Rieger could not walk for years. She was in pain all the time, but she never complained about it. She called herself blessed, and she was full of joy. Was she happy all the time? No. It wasn't easy to be in her shoes. BUT she never used her circumstances as a reason to be ungrateful to God and to be unkind to others. And because of that example, I CANNOT be unkind to my husband because I'm tired. And I absolutely CANNOT be ungrateful for what God has given me because I'm not sleeping as much as I want to be.