She stares at me pensively, awaiting the glorious nanosecond in which she presumes my fingers will lurch from my lap to the Ziploc bag of tasty chocolates beside my elbow.
I can see her thoughts, as if they are displayed in a cumulus bubble atop her dirty blonde hair:
"I. Want. Those. M&Ms."
When I don't obey Harlow's 2-year-old telepathic command, the corners of her little pink mouth turn, and her brows collect in bewilderment above her nose.
Then, as a light bulb seems to brighten in her toddler logic, a faint smile scrawls across her lips.
She leans in for a loud kiss on my nose, pulls back, and reaches her hand out for her reward.
Assuming she has done what she needs for her prize, she is puzzled when I keep my hands perched on my lap.
I appreciated the kiss. Really, I did.
But I also recognize that she only did it to get something in return. (Hey, she's two. I'll take what I can get.)
For whatever reason I can't give her what she wants, she takes the lack of expected reward as an expression of my disdain for her (nope) and promptly retreats in a pout and overly dramatic fake cry, complete with crocodile tears.
Eight months ago, I sat before the Lord, and I began to ask Him any way I could think of for what I wanted.
I spent countless hours reading material on how to save my marriage by myself using various methods. I sought in-depth counseling. I fell on my face each night beseeching God for some way into his heart. I prayed intricately over his feelings of self-worth, faithfulness, and obedience to God. I reached into every corner of my soul and allowed God to painfully reveal every morsel of my own character that required change.
I did everything I could think of.
But the reward I sought--a restored marriage that glorified God--remained at His elbow.
I could see it. I could taste it. I waited anxiously for God to move.
And He didn't. Not how I had hoped, at least.
Tomorrow, it ends. Tomorrow, I will sign my marriage over. The married name I doodled endlessly on my school notebooks, aching for it to be my own...
will be scribbled in ink across a dotted line.
I will be divorced. A single mom. The statistic that I always feared.
Bitterly, I've cried to God, telling Him that I've lost. The Enemy sought to destroy my marriage, and he won.
But really, did he?
A few weeks ago, the Lord spoke to my heart. I knew the end was drawing near.
And I was terrified.
Because if God doesn't come through, I wondered, what does that mean for my faith?
Will I still love Him tomorrow when the ink is dry?
And that's when it hit me. Sure, God was hopefully pleased that I had sought to change so much these last several months for the better, but had I done it all for the wrong reason?
Was my eye focused on a restored marriage?
Or the Lord Himself?
I've been tried and tested more ways than I can count since October, but it dawned on me...
...here at the end...
...when nothing has moved in my favor...
...is my greatest test.
What do I want more? Where is my devotion planted?
Who do I love more?
And I hated to let it go. Because I had never worked so hard for anything in my life.
But there, in the floor of my closet, where I'd prayed with every ounce of my strength,
I released what I wanted and asked for the Lord Himself.
Will it hurt tomorrow?
A hundred thousand times yes. A family is ending. One flesh is ripping. God is weeping with me.
But will I still love Him tomorrow?
A hundred. Thousand. Times. Yes.
The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the Name of Yahweh.
