February 28, 2014, by Kristin Neva
I keep going back to the lessons I learned during the first year after Todd’s diagnosis. During that year, I struggled to understand why God wasn’t bringing a buyer for our house so we could move forward and build a handicap-accessible home. We kept praying and waiting. Finally, the house sold and, looking back, we can now see that it happened at just the right time.
Two years later, we are back to praying and waiting. The handicap van that was donated to us proved not to be road worthy, so we are on the lookout for a used all-wheel-drive handicap-accessible van with a raised roof. We passed on purchasing a front-wheel-drive minivan with a lowered floor thinking it would no good in the snow, considering that our current minivan barely scrapes over the snow berm the plow leaves at the end of our driveway. So we pray and we wait for a van we can afford that will be good in the snow.
Todd fell in the garage today.
The dog knocked him over. Todd wasn’t hurt and I was able to use the Hoyer lift to get him up.
“I thought I would be using a wheelchair by the time I was this unsteady on my feet,” he said.
We have a wheelchair, but no way to transport it.
In our book Heavy, I share a journal in which I contemplate the idea that God doesn’t give us what we want; He gives us what we need. I was mulling this over as it was a lesson that Todd and I were scheduled to teach the preschoolers in children’s church.
It was a timely lesson then as we waited for our house to sell. And it is a good lesson to remember now as we wait for a van to buy. Todd needs to be able to go places. Right? That’s what we need. And we need it now, because he is getting so unsteady on his feet.
My conclusion in Heavy, as I waited and wondered why God was not providing for my perceived need for him to sell our house immediately, is the same conclusion I make today as I wait for God to provide a van: Maybe our only real need is having God and His presence in our lives.
