“Follow the pattern of the sound words you have heard from me, in the father and love that are in Christ Jesus. By the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, guard the good deposit entrusted to you.”
2 Timothy 1:13-14
“Now what?” For the past year, it is the question that has ricocheted through my mind over and over again since I walked to my car late on a Friday night in June 2015. Our second mediation had ended as successfully as mediation can – neither of us were 100% happy with the concessions made, but we’d signed agreements that would at last set us in the direction of finalizing an agonizing divorce process that was over 18 months in the making. My ultimate objective of protecting my children and providing what I felt was the most stable environment for them was achieved – at least in writing. Regardless of how I felt on the other issues, I was relieved to feel that the children where in the best position possible – or at least as best they can be when being raised between two households.
Almost 15-years of marriage, 13 of which were under the same roof, came (legally) to an end in the following months just as the children started the new school year. And I’ve spent the entire school year – and also half of summer break – rolling that question over and over in my mind. For 19-months I felt stuck and longed for nothing more than to be released. It came, and it has taken me almost a year to realize the forward momentum I’d longed for isn’t a given. Now the larger task lies ahead – over a decade of navigating child rearing as a single parent. The “now what” often leaves me feeling like I’m on the floor of the valley – certainly not at the peak of the mountaintop I’d anticipated feeling when proceedings where completed. The “now what” looms before me and can seem daunting, exhausting, scary, and hopeless.
In the passage above, Paul wrote to encourage Timothy during challenges he faced leading the church of Ephesus. I started a new 3-week devotional this morning and this passage is today’s reading. The devotion author notes that at that this point, Timothy was feeling the “now what” moment as well. When I read the passage above, it struck me like a bullet. The words of God have stuck with me throughout this entire ordeal and lay forth the pattern, or a path, forward into the “now what” that is ahead. Timothy was entrusted with the church at Ephesus. My “good deposit entrusted to me” are two beautiful children. The thought (and language) that they have been entrusted to me and that they are a good deposit is striking. They are a good, important responsibility. It isn’t going to be easy, but it is a good path. The good work of life. And God would not entrust such an important task to me, and have honored that by literally delivering their custody to my care, if he was going to abandon me.
What a wonderful reminder not to fear the road that is ahead.
