“Did I Cry Too Much On the Stand?”
There were many times when I wished I could be more like my daughter. She didn’t fret over the details, even the ones that would have made me crazy. Such as, wearing a thin “church sock” on one foot and a thick athletic sock on the other for an entire day at school. Or if her shirt was accidentally inside-out and backwards, so be it. I have longed for that gift, and it has served my daughter well through the years when she couldn’t afford to let distracting inconsistencies take her eyes off the big picture.
My over-attention to detail and order sometimes feels like a curse. Having had a restaurant of my own in the past, I cannot walk into one without immediately counting the number of burned-out lightbulbs or straw wrappers on the floor, how many times the phone rings before someone finally answers it, and if there is a misspelled word on the menu, it jumps right off the page and screams at me.
The grocery store often falls short of my expectations. There have been a few unforgivable moments in the checkout line recently, ones that have been difficult to unsee. For instance, there was the clerk who made the mistake of grabbing too many produce items at one time and somehow thought it made sense to sling my green onions under her armpit until she could get to them. Needless to say, the green onions went into the trash on my way out the door.
So, considering the standard I try to set and maintain at Blue Monarch, one might imagine it would be hard for me to live with the natural clunkiness, chaos, and millions of moving parts that come with serving lots of women and children. I will admit, it is challenging. There is an element of surrender I must exercise every single unpredictable day, which begins with a deep breath and a prayer. I can do this. Big picture, big picture.
Nevertheless, even though some details may occasionally fall through the cracks and the day rarely goes as planned, I have discovered this one thing: God acts on his own time and the miracle often happens in spite of us – in a way we never expect.
Take this incredible mother for instance. Jessie waited, and waited, and waited to be reunited with her daughter – a separation that only got more painful with each passing day, not easier. She woke up every morning to a tremendous loss – another day in her child’s life she would never get back. No doubt, she must have asked herself a million times, “Should I have worn another outfit to court?”, “Did I cry too much on the stand?
She probably exhausted herself, wondering what she should have done differently to get her daughter back. What detail did she overlook?
And as an organization backing her throughout this process, we poured into her circumstances and made multiple out-of-state trips, consulted with professionals, sought the best advice, submitted all the required documents, supplied letters of recommendation, presented all Jessie’s accomplishments, educated the court on our history of restoring families. We checked all the boxes, but her situation continued to drag on with little hope. There were days when this custody case seemed to take one step forward and two steps back as if there was an invisible force working against us. With a bit of weariness, we began to question what we might have overlooked or what we should have done better.
It’s times like this when we are tempted to ask ourselves, “Did I not pray enough or use the right words?”, “Should I have fasted more?”, “Did I not get the God formula right?”
As we have often seen, one day with absolutely no warning, God made Jessie’s situation come together by speaking to the heart of someone who could change the tide, someone we least expected. In the blink of an eye, this mother and her little girl were back together again.
Did we pay too much attention to the details? I don’t think so because it’s our duty to perform our jobs with excellence. That is the standard we uphold at Blue Monarch in everything we do, which honors God and the ones we serve.
But I suspect when God was good and ready to restore this family, it wouldn’t have mattered if our socks were matching or not. He finds perfection in our imperfection anyway. Besides, you can’t tell me this picture isn’t already perfect in every way. Yep, I don’t think I would change a thing.
Lord, please teach us to find peace in expectancy of your faithfulness. Amen.
Susan Binkley, Founder and President, Blue Monarch – www.bluemonarch.org
