No Eye Has Seen

Over the weekend, I had a conversation with a young woman as we huddled beneath blankets at our sons’ windy football game.

“It just seems that my life isn’t turning out at all like I’d planned,” she confessed while she blinked away tears welling in her eyes. “I want to pick my sacrifices,” she confessed. “But God’s choosing them instead.”

My heart ached for the honest woman beside me in the football bleachers. I understand her struggle. I, too, want to script my own life story and then look for God to show up and bless my tale. When His story veers from mine, I can quickly feel frustrated and discouraged. I’ve studied His Word long enough to know that I love His story’s end. But there have been many times that I’m not so sure I like the middle.   In fact, a few years ago, I told Him that! I thought maybe He’d change His storyline to compensate for my disappointment. Instead, He changed my heart.

“I’m not leaving until you SPEAK,” I cried out to the Lord as I settled into my “quiet time” chair and huddled under my favorite blanket. It was a dangerous thing to say, I realize that now. After all, who was I, the clay, to demand a response from the Potter? The One who created the world with a mere command was certainly not obligated to speak at my demand. Nor was He obliged to listen to my rage. But on that particular morning, by grace, He did.


“I’m sick of being a doctor’s wife,” I moaned to the One who had numbered my days. “I’m weary of parenting four kids alone. I’m tired  our family’s life being consumed by the urgent. Babies to be delivered, test results to analyze, hurting hearts, hurting bodies, hospital rounds, paperwork, the pager that knows no boundaries- it’s too much, God. Isn’t it? Would you really ask my husband to sacrifice so much time with his own family? Would you really call me into a marriage that hinges on hit and miss moments together?”

The questions continued. Ten years of the medical journey had taken their toll. I had always pictured myself as a strong woman; a capable wife. When Rob first announced his desire to be a physician, I was my husband’s number one fan. After all, God had spoken to Rob one night in the velvet stillness of the Rocky Mountains, and Rob had known then, at the age of twenty-one, that God had already set the plan in motion. Rob’s call was to be the hands and feet of Christ to a sick and hurting world. My man surrendered and God took it from there. Who was I to interfere? Truth be told, I liked the idea of ministry with a paycheck. Surely I could “retire” from teaching and stay home with my children once Rob made it through med school. It appeared that Rob’s dream would compliment mine rather nicely.


Of course appearances can be deceiving. Seven years of medical training stretched us in every sense of the word. However, as my husband worked long hours for minimal pay and attempted to consume volumes of information that would one day save lives, I clung to the hope that the elusive balance we craved was just around the corner.


I assured myself that someday my husband’s job would grant us the life we’d always dreamed of. When someday finally arrived,  Rob graduated from his residency program and we headed to rural Iowa where God would grow Rob’s first practice. There, in the midst of small town joys and sorrows, I began living the reality of what it meant to be a doctor’s wife. I had been granted my dream of staying home with our children, but with each month that passed, my hope of enjoying the journey with my husband began to wane. The months turned to years. I saw my husband less and less. Now and then I caught word of him from women I didn’t know who stopped me in the grocery store to fill me in on his daily life. “Your husband just delivered my baby… Your husband just diagnosed my husband’s diabetes… Your husband….” We had prayed that God would bless Rob’s practice, but the blessing had turned into a bittersweet cup. While the Lord continued to provide my husband with patients who needed the love of Christ, my patience wore thin. I knew that God had called my man into medicine, but I wondered if God REALLY meant for us to sacrifice so much for the sake of the call. True, the sick and the lonely needed the hands and feet of Christ, but so did the four young children beneath our roof (And their mom, too!).


Rob poured himself out for our family when he was home. He played baseball in the backyard with our aspiring major leaguer, listened to our daughter as she learned to read out of her first grade primer, drank imaginary tea with our preschooler and chased our one-year-old around the house in noisy games of catch-me-if -you-can. He was a top-ten father and a considerate husband, but his time was in a constant game of tug-of-war. And I felt like we were losing. As I watched neighborhood men arrive home by 6:00 each evening, I grew jealous of the families who sat down together at the dinner table on a regular basis. When I took our kids to a park on sunny Saturday afternoons, I envied the moms who sat serenely on a park bench as Dad delivered underdogs to the kids on the swings. As I stumbled into church late as usual, still trying to give spit-baths to the four children in tow, I longed to be one of the women whose husband was waltzing into worship at her side. (Or at least LOOK like the woman who had combed her hair and applied her make up in seamless lines before she arrived. Invariably, I assumed that she MUST have had her husband home keeping the toddler out of the dog food as she leisurely got dressed for church.)


I was no longer my husband’s biggest fan. Somewhere along the way I’d grown weary of the cheering. Truth be told, I didn’t want to regain my place as cheerleader, I wanted something new to cheer about! I wanted OUT.


“What are you going to do, Lord?” I demanded as I rehearsed my litany of complaints to my unseen Friend.


When I finally quieted long enough to listen, the All-Wise One responded, “I’m already doing it.”


“Doing what?” I asked.


“Walking with you.”


“I know. But I want a new road to journey. How about a sharp left turn, Lord? ”


“That would take you off the path I’ve planned.”


“But this road isn’t working. What about quality time as a family, numbering our days aright and making the most of this life you’ve given us? What about my husband and his CRAZY job? Do you really expect us to keep living like this? IT’S TOO MUCH.”


“My daughter,” the Lord replied. “I know about sacrifice. Was Calvary TOO MUCH?”


Silence. “But, God…”


“I’m well aware of your circumstances, dear one.”


“Then you could just change them, Lord. I know Rob would give up all of this if you’d just call him away.”


“But I’ve placed him here for a reason.”


”We could go to Africa and minister to the poor.” (Surely something so spiritual sounding would be more rewarding).


“I’ve called you to this small town to minister to the poor in health.”


“But Rob could teach and train the next generation of doctors (and work more reasonable hours and stop carrying a pager).”


“Then I couldn’t continue to teach YOU what you need to know.”


“And what is that?”


”I AM ENOUGH.”


“But what about the kids?” I begged. “They don’t get as much time with their father as I dreamed they would.”


”I AM BIGGER than the holes in their lives.”


“But what about my marriage?”


”I AM THE AUTHOR of ETERNITY. Give your marriage to me. I can multiply your moments together and add peace to your moments apart.”


“Couldn’t you just give my husband more time to be with us? Less demands at work? A new job?”


“Your husband’s job is more than a tool in My hands to reach the hurting. It is also a tool in my hands to design you into the woman I long for you to be.”


“But, Lord, this isn’t the life I’d planned.”


”Indeed it’s not. After all, no eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what I have planned for those who love me.”


Tears rolled down my cheeks. Those were words of hope that I’d memorized as a child in Vacation Bible School. I could still picture my gray-haired teacher sweeping her hand across the air and declaring, “Life with Jesus is better than our biggest dreams, children!” I nodded in agreement and made a mental list of all the dreams that would surely come true as I followed my Savior through this world.


Now, God whispered again the promise. “No eye has seen…” But this time the promise wasn’t tied to little girl dreams; it was bound to a road with thorns. A picture of my Savior plodding up Calvary’s hill flashed through my mind. In my reverie, I saw Him glance over His shoulder and motion me to His side.

No more words. No more promises, Just peace. And the strangest feeling to follow… WONDER. Wonder that the Creator of the mountain peaks and the star-studded universe would bother to CREATE in me. Wonder that the Author of life would stoop low to write the story of my life. Wonder that He would use whatever tools it takes to shape me into the woman He’s dreamed me to be- a purple-hued sunset on a quiet evening, a mini-van filled with crying, giggling, screaming children, a Word from the scriptures, or my husband’s demanding job. And nothing- not my discontent, nor my doubt, nor the Enemy’s sneering snicker-will cause Him to give up on His dreams. The path my Savior has already trod is proof of that. Wonderful Love. Wonder-filled life.

It’s been a few years since that momentous morning. I’m still a small town doctor’s wife and I’m still a mom in the trenches (with five children, now). My husband still lives by the pulse of a pager and my best laid plans continue to be frequently thwarted by the unexpected. But on most days, the story I’m living is “immeasurably more” than I dreamed it might be as a little girl sitting in a baby-bear chair in a Vacation Bible School classroom.That’s just how the tale goes when we surrender our storyline to the Author of Life.

The Overflow: In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps. Proverbs 16:9