Given enough

"Dani, do you think we'd have worked out if you would have come in under normal circumstances?" my sweet new roommate asked as she stirred a can of chicken breast with a cracker.

"I was just thinking that the other day. No, I'm not sure we would have. You would have thought I was insane. But we need each other to survive right now," I laughed as I flipped over an empty box to use as a table.

"We have no power, but it's okay because this is what the Lord has given us."

I smiled. "No problem. It's like hurricane season all over again - just in the wrong state." I immediately began rummaging through boxes, pulling out enough extension cords to reach to the community laundry room and finding emergency candles my sweet auntie had left with me after a Yosemite camping trip.

"I have been living by candlelight. But it's kind of nice, you know? It's like we're Amish. It's just us and the Lord."

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This was a few nights ago as my new roommate and I began to get to know each other. We had just met a few mornings ago, me crying, overwhelmed by the stress of my ten hour notice to move out of the home I was living in.

Then my car refused to start. The next morning I got a stomach virus. I had to miss my first week at my new job. Then I resigned from my two previous jobs. Then I agreed to move with her to another apartment complex, as she had originally intended before campus housing placed me with her.

Yes. This is what the Lord has given us. It is enough.


It wasn't your typical roommate scenario.
It wasn't your typical week.
It wasn't your typical reaction to a completely overwhelming situation.

But we made the best of it, dancing between half-packed boxes, seeking help from neighbors, mismatching different foods to create a "meal", overdosing me on nausea medication, and telling stories by late night candlelight.

<><><>

My father nearly gave himself whiplash when I told him I had been living with a stranger for five days without electricity or adequate food.

"Yes, Dad, but it is more important to me that you don't blame the Church, the global Church, and one day accept Christ than it is for me to have electricity. The vast majority of the world lives with less than what I have right now. I am fine, I am well. God is good and I am happy."

My father, for the second time in a week, tried to convince me that I could be capable of earning six figures and having nice, shiny things if I sought a different path for my life. I, for the second time in a week, tried to convince him that there is so much more to this life that I want than Olive Garden and a Lexus.

My father, for the first time in my life, approved and gave his blessing, telling me he would support me in whatever makes me happy. Finally, after years of seeking and searching, I had made my father proud. I had gained his approval only after I stopped trying to be the person he wanted and started becoming the person God created.

We began to discuss spiritual things. My father wanted proof in a living God. I wanted explanation for being able to survive without a living God.

Then the phone died (of course).

I got to call him back later. He hung up the phone after our hour and a half conversation and wired me money for food. For the first time since I boarded that Southwest plane bound for LAX nearly a year ago, my father supported me.

He got a job today. A career, actually. One with a salary and a nice office and benefits. It's his first time being employed by somebody else, and I couldn't be more proud. After my cries and my pleas and my prayers, (and a few from him too, I think), my father has a job that may pull him out of poverty.

<><><>

I worship a God who sees my unsettled heart and says "Sleep tonight, my child, for I have already solved your troubles."

He is a God who sees my deepest pains and says "I have felt the same hurts and prayed the same prayers. Take heart - for I have overcome them all... for you."

He sees my confusion and frustrations and deepest hungers and says "Follow my commands. No matter how strange. No matter how much they don't make sense. Just follow them. I promise they will all lead you to me and my richness."

My roommate and I cried in our frustration and we prayed in our hope and we read in our desperation and we sang in our joy and we reminded each other of all that He has done.

Then I came home tonight after a long (yet successful) day at my new job to find a box. In that box was a selection of nonperishable food and drink, a check telling me to pay for my utilities, and a envelope of cash telling me to restock our newly functioning fridge.

Never doubt that the Lord will provide.

Show us the Father and that will be good enough for us (John 14:8).