on treasures and darkness

I will give you the treasures of darkness, riches stored in secret places, so that you may know that I am the Lord, the God of Israel, who summons you by name. Isaiah 45:3

My pastor's family has eleven children. Have I mentioned this before? Maybe not, because I wouldn't want to give the impression that our church is as cult-like as eleven children sounds. That's a personal preference, not any sort of mandate, in case you were concerned. But my pastor's wife, as mother to eleven children, is a wealth of maternal wisdom. She has told me more than once that the best thing that could have happened to her first child was the birth of her second child. "I had too much love to give, and I was going to smother that poor girl to death if she'd stayed my only one." The phrase has stayed with me - too much love to give.

Also, lately Brian and I have been talking about cars. Both of our cars have passed 200,000 miles, and neither will fit our entire family - including the pup, stroller, and two pack and plays, not too mention guitars and the pile of what-not that is a permanent fixture in any car we own - once Silas gets here, so we're going to need another car.

Which has us talking about what exactly we need from a car, and how long we need it to last. Our conclusion: this is the wrong time to buy a good car. By good, I mean, a car that we could own and drive for several years. We don't need a car that will last that long, because we don't know what kind of car we are going to need long-term. This is the time in our lives when our needs are changing, and what's the point of spending more money than is strictly necessary on something that depreciates (for pete's sake), that may be insufficient in a few years anyway? So we're going to buy another car, but it will be our interim car. Our rebound car, if you will, to get us through. Just what we need.

Tonight I sat in the darkness, rocking Asher, breathing in his little curls, and thought about all of these phrases. Treasures of darkness. Short term cars for changing needs. Too much love to give. I thought about the blogs I read earlier - one written by a woman who knows that she will bury her baby next week, another by a friend from church who has been celebrating the anniversaries of her adoptions. And I thought about the verse above, given to me just before the miscarriage last summer. Everyone who has lived through darkness - which is to say everyone, given enough time - knows that kind of treasure isn't monetary. The fruit of suffering is good, but it cannot be rushed. It will happen in time, but all that comes in between cannot be diminished in an effort to find the silver lining. I have a sense that I am holding pieces in my hand that will someday fit together, but not yet. I don't think about my own darkness very often anymore, but it still feels incomplete to me. We have moved on, but I am still waiting to see the value of our experience. I am still waiting for the treasures of darkness. I don't know what that will be, for me or for anyone else. I don't yet know what good came from it, but I do know good will come. One of the great blessings in trusting God is letting that be enough - hope for the future and a belief in the goodness of God mean that I don't need to understand everything.

For now, I enjoy what I have - a toddling, talking, screaming, growing, thriving little person in front of me, and a healthy, squirmy one on the way. Future cars and future treasures remain in God's hands.