Waiting for the Other Shoe to Drop

I live a life that is blessed. Not just in a One Thousand Gifts, let's find the good, the eucharisteo in the everyday. My life is blessed in very tangible ways. I have freedom that most would fight to experience. I have a home, food, clean water, and enough money to buy new shoes for the kids without worry. I am married to an amazing man. He truly is but he doens't like me to write about him so I won't tell you how amazing. Just know that he is so amazing that he puts up with my attempts to help him become even more amazing. My kids are healthy, bright, happy and full of life. I have great friends, no matter where I live.

I am blessed.

But every once in a while, especially after listing how great my life is, I start to think about the downhill that must be coming. I am trying to get over my obsession with waiting for the other shoe to drop. I am trying to not measure life by the what goes up must come down theories. But they are always there in the back of my mind.

It is a tough thing to try to figure out the whys of blessings and trials. Is economic turmoil a result of bad decision making or is Satan testing me? Is illness a result of bad genetics or keeping my cell phone in my back pocket all my life or do bad things just sometimes happen to good people? Is there a set of weights and measures so that every great moment must be counter balanced by a horrible circumstance?

I was brought up to believe that those who were closest to God, who were the most obedient would be tested the most, that Satan would be constantly trying to lead them astray. But this does not really fit into my theology anymore. I don't doubt that God's people are attacked for their faith and good works but I don't think it is mandatory.

I guess I am coming to the conclusion that life is unexplainable. Maybe the shoe will drop someday. Maybe it won't. Or maybe the shoe has dropped but because I am no longer at the mercy of my circumstances, I didn't really feel the weight of the fall.

I know there are dark days ahead in life, but I am also thinking that maybe the darkness is no longer so dark for me. Maybe I have found enough light, enough hope, enough grace to brighten the dark days.

I had this post written and then I read these paragraphs by Shauna Niequist in her book "Bittersweet."

Grace isn't about having a second chance; grace is having so many chances that you could use them through all eternity and never come up empty. It's when you finally realize that the other shoe isn't going to drop, ever. It's the moment you feel as precious and handmade as every star, when you feel, finally, at home for the very first time.
Grace is when you finally stop keeping score and when you realize that God never was, that his game is a different one entirely. Grace is when the silence is so complete that you can hear your own heartbeat, and right within your ribs, God's beating heart, too.

I love these words. God is not keeping score. Grace is knowing the other shoe is not going to drop. Not because hard things are not going to happen because they will. But knowing that those hard things will be full of grace. I am no longer at the mercy of life's circumstances. The noise of this world, the fear of life's counter balances, are slowly getting quieter and quieter. The silence of grace in my life is becoming louder.