Lean

Lean

The LORD is my strength and shield. I trust him with all my heart.

MY DAD ALWAYS owned his own business. When I was a child, he was a farrier, traveling from farm to farm, putting in long days, coming home smelling like animals and outside and barnyards.

When I was in middle school we moved. Horseshoeing had become just too physically taxing for my dad to continue doing, so he needed a change. As he worked to grow his new business in another community, I distinctly remember how lean the first few years were financially. Not that my parents complained or worried in front of us kids, but we could sense that we needed to cut back on spending.

And so as my husband walked through a similar lean season in his own business over the past few years, I found myself mostly trusting but somewhat vacillating between trying to figure out what I could do to help, to security in trusting that God has it all under control.

We all experience lean seasons of insecurity in a variety of ways. Maybe for you it’s not financial but relational. Perhaps you and your spouse just aren’t communicating the way you’d like, or you have a child who’s angry with you. Maybe there are rifts with extended family members, and you wonder how they’ll ever be repaired. Or you could be experiencing leanness in your own work or in finding purpose for your life. I don’t know where life feels lean for you; I just know you are not alone.

There are two things I’ve held on to in a lean season. The first is that we are meant to live life in the community and support of others. And second, that God sees us, he knows us, and he loves us. These two things are always secure.

Because although we may not have answers to all our questions or know all the reasons why we are facing this lean situation, we can know and trust that God will show himself faithful. It may not be a way to escape our lean space, but it is enough to know that we have God and others to stay with us in the midst of life’s lean times.

Lord, thank you that we can trust you to be with us during the good times and the lean times of life. We are always secure in you. Amen.

-Kendra

One Good Step: What season of leanness are you experiencing today? Who can you ask to support you, even if only through prayer?