"Mommy, are you tall?"

It all started on a walk in Costco when my daughter asked me if I was tall.

I laughed and told her no because of course in my family of 5'9"-6'2" people I stand well below at 5'4"; still, from her perspective, I stand at an unachievable height though she grows out of all her clothes as often as possible.

Then she asked me who made me that tall and when I said I wasn't sure she said "but mommy, it was God wasn't it?"

Psalm 139 popped in my head and I thought "you formed my inward parts... in my mother's womb you knit me" but then I also thought of the slight curve in my spine and the flat feet that affected my stature and received treatment in my late teens... what about their affect? Did God ordain those negative things in my life or did He allow them to have an influence? Or, as with my daughter, is my perspective so skewed I can't even begin to calculate the variables and should settle with "God is in control" which, though glibly said by many, still rings true?

Where IS the line between God ordained and God allowed?

Last night I was again contemplating it as I have one child with an ear infection, one with a fever for unknown reasons, and one with a hungry belly only Mommy can satisfy. (Being that as it is forgive me if this is disjointed, grammatically incorrect, and irrational... I am, after all, sleep deprived and a woman so... double jeopardy.)

I thought, at first, 'God made the night for illness and debauchery' but I was just as quickly struck with the blasphemous nature of that thought; God made night to be good, He said so when He made it and He does not lie, but sin has defiled night and God allowed that (for a time).

Then as I nursed feverish brows and fed the baby I thought of a friend whose daughter died this past year from illness and I wondered- if the illness of my babies leads to death would it be because of something I did or didn't do or is death God ordained (as we know it says in Revelation Jesus holds the keys to death)? And when someone was murdered did God allow that sin, did He give the responsibility to the murderer and step back for a time, or from their mother's wombs did He ordain they would be murdered? God is in control in all three, perhaps I should not wonder why or what my role is in the matter... but I've been entrusted with three little lives... what is my role in their survival? How much should I strive against evil and how much do I rest in His Will??

Are we, really, just striving against the wind?

In the book of John the word for the Spirit is the same word used for wind.

But then if we rest in Him we still need to work, faith without works is dead; also, children without mothers working are dead but it does not follow that dead children are a mother's failure. Am I to rest in no man's land? To walk in the grey fog of unknown and hope God covers my failures and that this (whenever it may be) is not one of those times He allows evil?
If there is a scripture that covers mother's and their responsibility to their children in this life I do not know it so I have no comfort.

Yet He works all things together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose... what does that really mean? I feel, reading Romans, that all these arguments are already made but their answer is beyond my scope of understanding.

And then, reading Psalm 139, I think of Nicodemus and how he could not understand what Jesus was saying because he was not born of the Spirit; Psalm 139 is all about the Spirit.

In the end I think rest in Him daily; nay, hourly. We need the Spirit to know our place and our calling; we need His word for comfort and instruction; we need Praise to remember God and our place... at His feet. I may not know where the line is between rest and responsibility or God ordained and God allowed (perhaps I won't even know in the moment that I am tested) but God has given His Spirit from whom nothing is hidden and who intercedes for me.

Furthermore, my friend whose child died has a blog she and her husband write and one thought stuck in my head (I cannot quote it word for word)- when you do not know what to do fall back on what God has called you to do: love Him with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself.

Cheers.