Small was the plan. I grew up in a small home, and rather than finding it restrictive, I found it cozy and comfortable. Keeping a rapidly expanding family in mind during the design phase, I attempted to squeeze everything we would need into the smallest possible space without compromising on comfort. It was like an elaborate jigsaw puzzle without one solution. I had to play with the pieces until they fit us best. It was a puzzle I thought that I have cleverly completed. Until the hole, that is. The tiny, tiny house-shaped hole. . . Yesterday, for the first time, I was overcome with sharp-edged pangs of uncertainty and doubt about our home.
Lured by a week's-worth of Aidan's animated reports about the progress of the house, we carved out time for a visit late afternoon. Pulling in, I could see very quickly that the site had been completely transformed since my last visit. There sat the garage--naked, but waiting patiently to be dressed. And there, to the right of it, where only a week ago there was nothing but dirt, rose up the basement walls of our house. The posts were in for the porch, providing my mind's-eye with just enough base material from which to create a clear mental picture of what will be.
It wasn't until Aidan suggested I climb onto the "porch" and take a look at the basement that the elaborate image I had been cradling in my mind began to waver and lose shape. I peered over the edge of the poured concrete. A voice in my head was telling me I should just step back and look another day-- That if I looked now, I would see something I didn't want to. Something that would make me second-guess everything I had planned and hoped for. But I looked anyways. And what I saw was an impossibly tiny space.
I frantically began mentally mapping out the floorplan. It just wouldn't add up. I tried to reconcile the rooms that were in my head with the space that was visible before me. I tried in vain. And the panic began to set in: Did I go terribly wrong somewhere? Was I completely off with the measurements? I don't know the first thing about planning out a house. What made me think I did? What if it is a complete fiasco and nothing fits anywhere? How sad it will be to have laboured over a house that doesn't make any sense. And how shameful to be the one responsible for the conception of something ridiculous.
At times like this, when my thoughts are darkly introspective and feverishly frenzied, I have no choice but to abruptly cut them off, or they will gnaw away at any semblance of peace I have within me. Were it to stop there, I would perhaps keep myself in a holding pattern of self-torment for a while. But when a mother is taken over by acid-laced stress and anxiety, her little ones are not immune. Her husband is not immune. And so I found myself retreating to a very familiar place.
I am a God-talker. Anyone with me? I rarely formulate graceful prayers. The mental resources just aren't there these days. All I can do is talk. Rain out thoughts from an over-saturated mind and trust that He can make sense of them. And as I become more aware of God's sovereignty, my anxieties become more benign. They aren't necessary completely irradicated, but they do me and mine less and less harm. As of yet, I am still experiencing waves of unease. Waning, yet still rolling through. But believing in a big God means that concerns over things being too small are quickly washed away.
