Doing The Right Thing

This situation is a little discouraging.My marriage has failed.It feels I have failed.Perhaps I have.Perhaps I didn't do the things which Brenda would find exciting. Perhaps I didn't fulfill her needs. Perhaps I made poor choices.But I've done some things right.A couple of posts ago I wrote how I was going to step out in faith, tithe 10% of my check.Tithing update: Today I got an anonymous card in the mail. In it were a $50 bill with a Post-it saying "for gas" and a gift card for a local grocer for $60.It could be argued someone knows my situation and stepped in to help me in a tight spot. It could be argued someone read my blog and stepped in specifically to help with this tithing challenge.Whether or not that is the case, it does not change certain truths.First, I trusted it would be OK, I felt something, heard some whisper, telling me to tithe, and I obeyed.Second, it is going to be OK.What of next month? Will I tithe again? I cannot depend, indeed I do not believe, that this will happen this way again. But that does not change the point in stepping out on faith.It isn't about the rational, the logical. It's not about banking on the predictable. The point is, I don't know what will happen, but I believe that the God I know, the Creator of all things, the Lord of my heart, is able, and will, take care of an obedient servant.Still doubt?I can understand that.My mom once told in a phone call how she had just returned from China."China!" I said. "How could you go to China? You haven't any money!""Oh, that doesn't matter, Honey," she said. "I knew God wanted me to go, so I went.""How? How did you go?""Well a group from our church was going, a sort of mission trip, and when they drove to the airport, I packed my luggage and rode along with them.""Without a ticket?""I knew that if God wanted me to go He would get me there. So I went to San Francisco with the rest of them to the airport.""San Francisco! That's 500 miles from where you live! You went to the San Francisco airport to go to China without a ticket?""I knew it would be all right.""So how did you end up going?""Well, at the last moment someone else couldn't go, and they gave me their ticket.""Wow."Wow... How much money did you have to take with you?""$10.""What?!""I knew it would be OK. And it was. I had a wonderful time meeting people. I walked around the city, I found people who could speak English, they took me in, fed me. And I told them about Jesus, and they translated for the other people. It was really wonderful how God always provides."And I worry about tithing.That part of me that watches, the part I've written about that seems to be monitoring what I am feeling, which level of Erikson's stages of maturity I am operating under, which of Maslow's needs I am trying to grasp, which stages of grief are moving my heart over my marriage. The watcher part of me sees a reason, deep inside my heart, to trust in God.I know I have many weaknesses. I know that being weak is a part of being human.And I get the other stuff as well. I know I'm sentimental. I know I'm the artsy type that reacts to colors, and shapes, and feels things deeply. I'm not as tough as the other men in my family.But I know that it is OK. I know I am this way because God made me this way. I know that part of the reason my wife left me is because I am not the sort of man who parties the way she would like, who thinks about things that mean more to her and instead ponder my own interests (art, science, and especially, faith).I know I am grieving the loss of my wife, made horrible in that she did not leave me in the due course of mortality, but due to the frailty of her own standards, morals, choices.I know a little about the size of the universe and my minuscule role in it. And I know that despite my microscopic role in this fourth dimension, God knows who I am, what I need, loves me, and will take care of me and my family.I believe I can rely on God.I know I can rely on God.