The Tooth and Nothing but the Tooth

So I've been pretty busy this week. By night, catching up with friends on the phone, trying to raise the last 35% of my monthly support, and writing thank-yous for those wonderful souls who make up the first 65%. By day--a dental assistant. No, you read that right--a dental assistant.


i did this all by myself!


I am now a semi-certified, x-ray-developing, instrument-sterilizing, patient-room-cleaning, coffee-making, trash-taking-out-ing dental assistant. And let me tell you, I am exhausted. Teaching piano doesn't really fall into your 8-5 work schedule. It is 10:17 pm as I type this, and I wanted to be in bed two hours ago. My dental hygienist roommate Amy's boss (d'ya get all that?) hired me for this week plus a couple days. It's pretty perfect timing really. But that's how this whole week has been--perfect timing.

At some point last week, I had reached the breaking point. August 5 was my goal-date for being in Germany, and, well, I'm still in Wichita. "God, I am unemployed and not at full support--how am I going to do this? Is this really what you have called me to do? Am I really with you? Am I just making this up?" And the tears welled up. It was the first time I had cried out of frustration and fear. All tears up to that moment on my couch had been about saying goodbye to dear friends, family, or places--these were out of doubt. I had reached the end of me.

Within an hour, my friend Austin walked into the same restaurant where my friends and I were eating lunch. "Hey, I think we can help you out on that support thing." The next night at the movie theater we ran into Amy's friend Amber. "Well, send me information on supporting you." Before walking into a pizza place the following day, I heard "Suzanne!" Natalie wanted me to send her family more information on supporting me. My support jumped from 41% to 65% in one week.

It only takes a little thing like money for me to begin to doubt his ability to be God. He turns Jupiter and Mars in their orbits, and yet I doubt his power to move the hearts of those I ask. The wealth of the nations is his, and I can't trust his ability to provide next week's groceries. He loved me first, and I cannot begin to fathom it.

"My people have committed two sins:
They have forsaken me,
the spring of living water,
and have dug their own cisterns,
broken cisterns that cannot hold water."
--Jeremiah 2:13

Muddy water. I've sacrificed the moisture in my hands for sanitization processes and latex gloves this week, and yet I'm still not willing to give up my muddy water. These cisterns, these wells of mine--they're not deep, they're just familiar. There's too much me in this picture. Trust really does require abandon--and until now, I've been trusting my online bank account.

God, lead me to your cisterns. Help me to recognize them. Give me courage to drink deeply.