More Bending, Less Swimming

We live in a Korean high-rise perched at the top of a hill. Our street at the bottom of the hill is smaller, connecting two parallel major streets on either side. Vacant taxis rarely come down our street.

Due to this personal bane, on any given day I can be heard on our hill praying repeatedly, “Please send us a taxi,” especially when I have kids in tow. Intentionally, we don’t have a ton of mid-week places to regularly be during the day. There’s behavioral therapy, women’s Bible study, groceries, and on this day a brand new one: swimming lessons. Affordable. Swimming. Lessons. In English!

I’ve taken special precautions. I’ve made sure everyone is up and fed, first of all, me. We’re walking out the door early, because I don’t know for sure how long it will take to get where we are going. And my 8-year-old, he’s excited for this new activity which is perhaps the best of all! I’ve accepted many things in my heart and mind; we will walk no faster than a three-year-old pace, the high today will be zero (C), and we’re not even going to bother with our street but will walk to the major street. There are always taxis there. It will be fine.

The wind is the worst part of this cold. Once we get down to the street it will die a little but there’s no protection from it on the hill.

“We just have to keep moving. It will be worse if we stop. We are all cold.” These are the types of things I say to encourage the kids, but it is hard to talk and hard to hear anything. The three-year-old gives out and I’ll have to carry her. Expected. And it’s at about this point that my eight-year-old gives me whiplash because I’m spinning and straining to hear him mumbling at his shoes, praying in the way that he knows: “You’re in charge of every taxi.” And, “Please. Please.”

We do make it to the major street. I knew we would. Traffic is heavy and that can be a good or bad sign. We still have plenty of time. After 15 minutes I am uncomfortable but unworried. After 30 minutes the four-year-old girl is crying. It’s too cold. I’m holding the three-year-old again. Once we’ve waited almost 45 minutes we decide to cross the street to try to get a taxi from the other side. This always does the trick. I’m putting on a brave face for the kids, but I’m starting to worry and really pray. Swim lessons start in less than 15 minutes. The swim instructor eventually sends me a Facebook message asking if we’re still coming. She has another lesson starting right after ours. I ask the eight-year-old what he wants to do. He doesn’t want to give up yet. He really wants to swim.

So I gather everyone together, and I use the words of the eight-year-old boy. I tell God that we know He is in charge of every taxi, that we are cold, and we are late, and we need help and if it’s His will, please send us a taxi. We wait 10 more minutes, and then in tears I explain the math of why it doesn’t make sense for us to go anymore. 

He is sad and angry.

I am furious.

I did everything I could to get us there, a million tiny practical things that had to come together this morning. I am equipped with snacks in my backpack, and I so rarely am armed with that. There was a great deal of work and research beforehand too. This boy has needs and struggles that make these opportunities for activities like this difficult and hard to come by and he really wanted to do it! It is so cold! And that’s just the little stuff. I am purposefully and strategically saving my biggest gun for last, my trump card.

He prayed.

He is not one of my children who prays. He hates God, “and church.” He’s told me before. Yet there it went, one of perhaps two times I have heard this boy ever pray voluntarily in his little life. And I just keep thinking, God knows that. He knows that. He looks up at me and asks the same words that my heart is currently thundering at God.

 “But we prayed…”

I quote some memorized lines that I am not really feeling, that God works all things together for the good of those who love Him, that He does everything for His glory. The boy asks and so we talk about how I do still believe that He heard us, and somehow, somewhere, I am feeling that. It’s not enough in the moment. Probably because it is still just as cold, and we still must walk pathetically back home.

But I’m thinking it is enough now.

From where I sit it is easily said, I know.

The temperature will climb up to 80 (F) today. The window next to my computer is open. In another tab is my Costco order, and once my cart is filled with undoubtedly more than I need, with a click it will come hand delivered to my door within the afternoon. Swimming lessons as it turned out were for many reasons not a good fit for us anyways. We still live on the same taxi(less) street, but for today we have nowhere to be. And it all makes my tantrum from January feel embarrassing and small.

So all that’s really left is my hope for the next time when His answer is “no” and/or we find ourselves out in the cold. Because I do still believe that he heard us that day. May the more sanctified version of you and I find that that is enough.

I’m deciding it’s a massive deal after all. Big enough to make a difference in our dismay. What a grace that He would bend down and hear us. The owner of the cattle on a thousand hills. The One in charge of every taxi.