So often my life has involved learning how to operate with a gap. Life has demanded strength, patience, wisdom, endurance, and I have looked at my hands and they are empty. Strength was gone, patience used up, wisdom failed, and endurance withered. There was a gap between the demand and my resources. Who hasn’t felt this? Who hasn’t been awakened from sleep to the needs of your child and thought, “I literally cannot go on like this?” Who hasn’t sat on the floor, no tears left to cry, staring blankly at the wall not knowing how to move forward, what therapies to try, what route to take, what answers to give to the unanswerable questions? Who that has been forced into the life of caring for a child with unique medical needs hasn’t had to face their own limitations? Who hasn’t seen the gap between the demands of their life and their own resources to meet them? 

Knowing the Gap-Filler 

I remember so many times reaching this point in tears. Nights, wide-awake on a cot in a hospital room, hopelessly measuring the gap and wondering how. I was a finite mom in the midst of what felt like an infinite storm. I had a son at home that was growing up with only my shell to care for him. I had a daughter who was battling the ravages of cancer. And yet I found in the darkness, the beauty of knowing a Savior Who was willing to be my gap-filler. There is a story recorded for us in the Gospels that I love about a time where Jesus demonstrated this willingness. It is the story of the feeding of the five thousand. During Jesus’ earthly ministry He spent a day teaching and healing an enormous crowd of people “in a deserted place.” It was an area far from town where the people had gathered to hear Him and be near Him. As the day drew to a close, the disciples of Jesus recognized that the people would be hungry and urged Jesus to, “Send them away, that they may go into the surrounding country and villages and buy themselves bread; for they have nothing to eat.”(Mark 6:36) 

Jesus responded by saying, “You give them something to eat” (vs. 37).  

The Gap Created 

Imagine the confusion in their minds. They knew that Jesus realized there were upwards of ten to fifteen thousand people that needed to be fed (the number five thousand only referred to the men present). They knew Jesus wasn’t insane, and yet why would He ask such an impossible thing? They did not have the resources in any capacity to meet the demand He was asking of them. There was a gap– a giant gap between what their Lord was asking of them and what they themselves were able to do. In their confusion they begin, like me, to calculate the distance between the gap saying, “Two hundred denarii worth of bread is not sufficient for them that every one of them may have a little.”(John 6:7) Ignoring the calculation, Jesus went on to say, “How many loaves do you have? Go and see.” (vs. 38). The disciples’ search led to the not-very-promising accumulation of one young boy’s lunch containing five loaves and two small fishes. This, they offered up to Jesus with the naturally hopeless postscript of “but what are they among so many?” (John 6:9)  

The Gap Overcome 

And we know what happens next. That small lunch in the hands of one mighty Messiah became a feast that I doubt anyone would ever forget. There was no longer a gap. The hands of Jesus Christ eliminated it. There was no demand that exceeded His resources.   

Your Gap Created 

This same Jesus is the One Who stands beside His disciples today. If you are a follower of Jesus, there will often be times in your life, as there has been in mine, where He will ask of you an impossible thing. Feed this multiple, bear this heartache, give up one more night of sleep, endure one more day of isolation—behold the gap. His commands are often a means of testing us, trying us to see whether we will entrust the gap to Him or attempt to bridge it on our own. In fact, in John’s recording of the feeding of five thousand we get a glimpse at this. After Jesus had asked Philip, one of His disciples, how they should feed the multitudes, we read this: “But this He [Jesus] said to test him [Philip], for He Himself knew what He would do.” (John 6:6) Would Philip recognize the power and the goodness of the One Who stood beside him? Would Philip dig down deep into his own pockets to count the change to see if he had enough to meet the demand, or would He turn to the One Who spoke all things into existence? What will we do? Will we finally recognize the power and the goodness of the One Who stands beside us? Will we dig down deep or turn to Him in expectant hope?   

Your Gap Overcome 

You see, in spite of the gap there is always hope. The hands of our Savior are both mighty and good. He may in turn ask us, as He did the disciples, ‘How many loaves do you have. Go and see.” But whatever we bring Him—whatever we have to offer up—we can be assured that it will be enough. Whatever energy you do have to rise from your bed to face another day—offer it up. Whatever wisdom you do have to discern and plan a way forward for your child—offer it up. Whatever patience and gentleness you can muster—offer it up. Able, capable—He will bridge the gap. Turn to Him. Cry out to Him as you stare at the gap. Say, “This is what I have—this small lunch—but I know You can make it enough.” Add no faithless caveat of “what is it among so many?” Cry out instead: “I know You don’t even need this but let me be a part of the story! Let me have a share in this miracle.”   

My friends, there will be gaps. How can there not be? You are one finite human that has been given a seemingly infinite weight to carry. But recognize the One Who stands beside you. Recognize the power that is in His hand. Whatever is in yours, offer it up. Be a part of His miracle as you care for your child today.