Advocacy without Anxiety

Have you ever had a problem that puzzled around in your brain for years, and you kind of knew the pieces to the answer but they were fuzzy and hard to fit together, and then someone states the answer in such a clear and helpful way?  That happened for me this week!

Here's the problem:  How do you reconcile working really hard to solve a problem - doing ongoing research, being the squeaky wheel, leaving no stone unturned, pushing for solutions - with resting in the sovereignty of God?  How can you do both at the same time?  I've blogged about this before here.  In the disability world, it's hard to strike the right balance where you provide rigorous advocacy for your child, but at the same time balance that with a calm spirit that can trust God and let things rest rather than falling into a huge anxiety sinkhole.   This is where my anxiety v. problem solving rubber meets the road, but the question can apply to a wide variety of situations.

And here's the helpful idea I heard from my friend:  Look at the example of Moses' family in the beginning of Exodus.  When Moses was born, the Egyptians were killing all Hebrew baby boys.  Moses' mom hid him for 3 months, then sent him down the river in a basket towards the Egyptians.  Moses' sister Miriam follows the basket.  Pharaoh's daughter (ie the daughter of the king who ordered the mass slaughter) finds the basket and takes pity on the infant.  Miriam is standing by, and offers to take the baby back to a Hebrew nurse (his mom) until he's older, and Pharaoh's daughter takes her up on this offer.  So Moses is spared, raised by his own biological family during his early years, raised in the royal house during his later childhood, and then goes on to be a great leader of God's people.  

In this story, you can see that God is clearly in control, and that Moses wouldn't have been spared and wouldn't have had his exact life path without God providentially guiding events the entire way.  But you can also see that Moses' mom and Moses' sister take every practical step they can to try to save the life of Moses, and that God uses these efforts to further His good plan.  

The practical application I get from this story is this:  God is in control throughout the moment to moment events of our life.  BUT, it's not a lack of faith to take all practical steps possible to advocate for the people in your life who you are charged with helping.  This is exactly what we are supposed to do.  And once we've done that, we can rest in the fact that God is in control, He is good, and we can't mess up what He has already planned.  You do everything you can; then rest in God - both, ongoing, at the same time. (This is a lot like my understanding of how prayer works)

I found this example so helpful, so wanted to share in case it could be helpful to anyone else.