How is it . . .

Do you ever just want to fall to your knees in humility, wonder, and gratitude that the creator of the universe would have a place for us mere humans in His plans?  That He chooses to reach out through us ~ broken, messed up, selfish, sinful us ~ to work in the lives of others?   That well-timed word, the call at the last second, the card that comes out of nowhere, the song that pierces straight to your heart, the kind gesture that shouts of God's love ~ for all of those, I give You thanks.  Thanks for being the recipient of those moments, thanks for being the conduit at times, but thanks most of all for Your love.

Thank you Lord for sending your son.  For your grace.  For the relationship.  For the Holy Spirit's presence within our lives.  For your word.  For your presence.  Thank you!

Do not withhold

Proverbs 3:27 - Do not withhold good from those who deserve it, when it is in your power to act.

On Sunday I began a new read-through of the Bible.  This time

So this post isn't the post that I thought I was going to write.  This morning, after reading this verse, I had notions that this verse was tying in to the messages that my husband has been getting from Matthew 25 about feeding the hungry, clothing the poor, and other ways of providing for the "least of these."  But as the day has worn on and I've had to battle (unsuccessfully, I must add) against the distractions, I've come to realize that this verse is actually aimed right at me.


The me that spent too long on the computer this morning, even if some of it was for "good" purposes.  The me that walked past a  many pile(s) that needed to be picked up.  The me that has yet to get started on the teacher-directed part of school for the day.  The me that needs to put in a load of laundry and make lunch for the two children using their imaginations in the other room. 

The me that needs to stop withholding my best from them, from my husband, and from myself.  Because a mama who is living in the present with an eye heavenward is good.  Because they do deserve it ~ God placed them in my care.   Because it is in my power to act ~ I've just chosen not to do so when my emotions or circumstances feel overwhelming, or when I've given in to selfishness and laziness.

So for the rest of today, I will not withhold good (me, my attention, my energy, my thoughts, my love) from those who deserve it (God, my husband, my children, my friends), when it is in my power to act (which is almost always is).

Puzzled

Yes, around here today we're listening to a 6 year old girl sing that old favorite Christmas carol, "Mark the herald angel sings . . . ."  After telling her the actual lyrics and their meanings, she gave a thoughtful look, then pronounced, "No.  It doesn't make sense that way.  Mark the herald angel sings . .  ."  as she skipped off.

How much that reminds me of myself when I think that I've got something all figured out.  I've run through all the details in my head and made a case for it working out just the way I'm imagining.  Then if something comes up that doesn't quite fit . . . well, I'll admit my first instinct is often to mentally argue it, since I've got it all neatly wrapped up with a bow.

Lord, help me to remember that You have all the pieces to this puzzle, many of which I haven't even seen yet.  And while the parts I can see may look like one thing now, chances are that by the time more of the pieces are revealed, it will become apparent that it's actually part of something much bigger.  Help me not to try to force pieces together that don't belong together, but wait for the matching piece to be turned over.  And open my eyes to the times when I've misunderstood what You have been saying instead of blindly clinging to the way I hear Your words in my own head.

Fear of the Lord

 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.   Proverbs 9:10

In this past week, I have been struck by a new respect for God's power and the way that the Holy Spirit can bring about change in a person's life.  Simply put, the changes that I see beginning to happen in my husband are not of his own making.  They don't fit the patterns that he's become comfortably accustomed to over the years, and aren't something that he's been actively seeking.  He describes with a sense of awe and wonder that his thoughts are changing in many areas, often in ways that he hasn't expected.  But at the same time, he finds a certain peace with them, even when they are a bit scary in their newness and distance outside his comfort zone. 

I'll be honest ~ it's a bit scary!  Because this whole journey isn't something that is happening because we thought it would be a good idea, or because we decided to try to become ultra-spiritual by following some checklist of things to do and not do, or because we wanted another child.  It's not from within.  Back when 2011 began, neither one of us had any clue that by the time the year wrapped up we would be viewing life from a much different perspective, with a greater purpose than our own.

The changes happening make me realize that if all of this truly is God's plan, we really aren't in control.  It's a lesson that I've had to learn over and over, and am still learning daily.  I AM NOT THE ONE IN CONTROL (no matter how much I sometimes think that I am or try to be).  And that's a good thing.  Because what I would choose for my life is so much smaller, so much more bound by what I can see at this moment.  My plan would play it safe, and would result in missing out on so many blessings.  God's plan takes into account things that I have no way of seeing or knowing about now.  His plan is so much bigger than just a comfortable life with my own family. 

And I can't help but wonder, living in a time when choice of religion is considered something that we can pick up or put down as easily as changing our shoes, how much we misunderstand about the power of God.  If we believe that one week we can choose to follow Jesus, and then the next change our minds and follow a different path, then decide to follow none,  what does that say about what we believe in an inherent power in any higher being?  How much do we miss by trying to confine God to a box of our own making?

There's the temptation to treat God much like we do a bottle of vitamins, turning there when we feel weak and need a dose of something more, but if we forget them Him, well, we wonder how much good does it actually do anyway? Aren't we doing pretty well on our own?   I've certainly been guilty of that for far too much of my life. 

My Bible reading the other day included words from Hebrews that stood out as I read them.   Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts  . . . (from Hebrews 3:7 & Hebrews 4:7)  Be careful that you do not refuse to listen to the One who is speaking.  For if the people of Israel did not escape when they refused to listen to Moses, the earthly messenger, we will certainly not escape if we reject the One who speaks to us from heaven!  (Hebrews 12:25)

Lord, that I might always have an appropriate awe and respect for Your power and might, and never doubt that you are capable of so much more than my limited mind can wrap itself around.  Help me to listen when You speak, and more importantly, act on that.  Amen.

Part of something much bigger?

Even as fast as the Abigail references were coming last week, this weekend has been one that we couldn't have anticipated.  God has certainly been working overtime in our lives. 

Friday night we went out on a long overdue date night to celebrate our anniversary (which was back in October).  After a busy couple weeks, we had the chance to really take the time to talk at more length (our own little bubble amidst the peanut shells, cow bells and chaos of a busy restaurant) about what God has been doing in our lives and where we're seeing Him leading us. 

How it's becoming more and more clear that He has been at work in our lives for a very long time.  He clearly had a big hand in our move back to the Midwest six years ago, and brought us to our current church shortly after that.  A walk back through all the different ways that God has been at work in our lives.

And we talked about where it seemed that God might be leading us. That we've both been getting messages along the same lines.   That feeding the hungry and clothing those without and giving to the poor are increasingly important.  That maybe Abigail won't be coming to us ~ but we may be going to her.  That just maybe we're being called to be a part of something much bigger than just one child's life.  That maybe God's work is about to become ours in a much more real way.

I had been praying that the next step in this journey would be revealed to my husband, so that I wouldn't get carried away with the "what if it's this" or "maybe it's that" and somehow get ahead of God.  Hearing that God has been planting thoughts in him for a brand-new direction, that line up with where God has been leading my heart was such confirmation!  And it explained a whole lot of our indecision in some seemingly unrelated areas of life.

By the end of the evening, it was pretty clear that God was calling us to something much bigger.  Our prayers that night, the seventh day of praying together, were at a whole new level of joyfully submitting to God's plans for us.  And then we realized the significance of the date.  November 11th.  Exactly nine months after the promise of Abigail on February 11th.

Praying together

We were supposed to go  to my brother's wedding last weekend, but a certain young boy came down with an intense bout of the stomach flu.  In the unexpected time at home, there was a chance to catch up on some things, and open up a book that was on the to-be-read list, Couples Who Pray.  I didn't expect to come away from that reading with a strong feeling that this is what the next step for us was supposed to be.  An intentional forty days of prayer as a couple ~ and so it begins.  God willing, may it just be the beginning of forty weeks, forty years of praying together each day.  In that simple, yet profoundly intimate act of joining our hearts and voices together before the creator of all, we find ourselves opening up to Him and His plan is a new way. This is new for us.  While we have prayed for each other before, it is often in silence.  And though we've prayed with each other a few times in our 13+ years of marriage, it has been random and isolated.

Humble yourselves under the mighty power of God, and in His good time He will honor you.  Give all your worries and cares to God, for He cares about what happens to you.    1 Peter 5:6-7

In these first short days, it already feels that God is working.  That first day, I read again of the way God often uses 40 day periods to prepare someone for His purposes, and I wonder what 40 days could mean for us.

Day 1 ~ Shared prayer at the end of the day turns a negative, snappy, gloomy day around for the better.  We talk, really talk, for the first time in a couple weeks.  Has it just been a couple weeks?  The lack of communication makes it feel far longer.  I find the coloring page that says "Abigail is wise."

Day 2 - The negative undercurrents threaten to pull me down ~ isolation, disconnect, self-pity.  He prays for me first, when I can barely make words myself through the tears.  I stumble across the word simcha - joy in Hebrew, and read that it is important in Jewish philosophy because when a person is happy, is filled with joy, they are much more capable of serving God and fulfilling their daily activities than when depressed or upset.  Crying out for wisdom from our Father, I flip open my Bible and it lands on Esther 2:15 . . . When the turn came for Esther (the girl Mordecai had adopted, the daughter of his uncle Abihail) to go to the king . . .


Day 3 - Possible answers to a prayer about daily life emerged today.  Seeking wisdom on a financial decision.  Prayed together again, and wondered why it felt so foreign to consider doing this (praying together) just a few days ago.  Time spent in conversation with a young friend searching for answers in her own life.  My FB status is about our Operation Christmas Child boxes.  That brings up a link to their page in the sidebar, and I click Like.

Day 4 - First thing that I see when opening up my FB page this morning is an Operation Christmas Child update (yes, the one that I just liked last night.)  It reads:

In Zimbabwe, Abigail, 13 yrs old, said "Thank you for the gift box I received.  I'm talented in drawing . . . .I received my gift box and was shocked!  Exactly the drawing equipment I needed was inside! . . . Today, I have joy and understand that Jesus is my provider.

God brought a blog post to my attention that was meant for a dear friend, and used me to pass it along to her.  Feeling humbled again to be used by Him!   We pray together again, and wind up looking at a possible opportunity for giving through Sixty Feet next month, struck by how incredibly blessed we are with material possessions and at the same time how they can blind us to the really important things of life.  And it brings up hard questions.  We feel a little bit like that scene in the movie The Matrix where taking the blue pill lets you stay in your comfortable belief in the illusion, while taking the red pill opens your eyes to the reality (often unseen) going on around us.  In this bond of prayer, though, we feel that we're tiptoeing towards the door together.

Day 5 - God wakes me up in the wee, wee hours of the morning with such congestion that I can't sleep.  Instead, it's time for some devoted time with Him that I have missed recently.  Major chunks from my daily Bible reading get copied down, both the New Testament passages pertaining to my attitudes and much of Psalm 107.  After reading last night about a facility that is essentially a prison for children and the efforts to improve conditions there, the lines from Psalm 107:10, 13-16, 22 glared out to me in the predawn light:

Some sat in darkness and deepest gloom, imprisoned in iron chains of misery . . . "Lord, help" they cried in their trouble, and he saved them from their distress.  He led them from the darkness and deepest gloom; he snapped their chains.  Let them praise the Lord for his great love and the wonderful things he has done for them.  For he broken down their prison gate of bronze; he cut apart their bars of iron. . . Let them offer sacrifices of thanksgiving and sing joyfully about his glorious acts.

As I clicked online, there was a perfect blog entry about the beauty in waiting, followed by another blog entry about patience, which led to my getting to share our Abigail story with an online friend who was inquiring what God was doing in my life. A quick phone call with a friend to share some of what God is bringing our way.

And then one more blog entry comes my way this afternoon, from a Compassion blogger  traveling in Ecuador.  I read of poverty and our wealth blinding us, and then it comes:

I remember to breathe – remember that it all can begin just one beautiful child at a time, one small, necessary sacrifice at a time.

After the last potatoe eye is buried like a seed in good soil, I take Rosa’s neice’s hand, Abigail and we walk up to eat, and this shaping a life into the Cross-life, could it begin by just simply stretching out a hand?

I watch Abigail across the table too.
I pray too.                                                                             - Ann Voskamp

Again.  Abigail.   Lord, you are working in the wait.  We pray in those last moments before sleep, keep preparing us and molding us to be vessels of Your love.

9 years - HOPE, Part 1

Nine years ago.  While I didn't know it at the the time, that's when my journey to hope began.  It didn't feel like it then.  Instead it felt unthinkable. 

At the time, we were both teachers, living in a townhouse with our cat out in Phoenix.  Life revolved around work, grading papers, watching a heavy slate of television, and going to AZ Diamondbacks baseball games.  We spent too much time discussing how we would be perfect parents (who would always check our child's homework each night and never have crayon decorated walls!  :)  ).  For the most part, life was under our control.  If we wanted to eat out, we did.  Go to a movie?  Sure, any time.  Buy a new car?  Head out one weekend and drive one home.  Have a baby?  Just go off the pill and wait for our carefully planned out schedule to match up maternity leave and summer vacation unfold. (Are you shaking your head yet?  Yes, it was bad.  My planner side had gotten totally out of control, and I didn't even realize it.) 

We didn't even realize what else was missing from our lives then.  At that point, God wasn't invited.  My husband hadn't been raised with any sort of religious upbringing, and while I'd grown up in church, life as a college student and young adult out on my own had pushed me far away.

After several months of trying to start a family, we had gotten a positive pregnancy test early one Saturday morning (by this point we were off the carefully constructed schedule, but had begun to worry about getting pregnant at all.)   I drove across town to a baby shower for one of our young teaching assistants and for the first time, felt responsibility for new life.  My smile that day had to be huge, as I nursed the secret.  We were going to have a baby!  All those months of planning and reading ~ I thought we were ready.  Dreams began to take root in my mind.  What would she look like?  What would we name her? Who would she become?    Who would I become, as a mother?

I remember someone snapping a picture of me at a school event a couple days later and thinking that it was the first picture of me pregnant.  Our little secret!  We began planning how we would surprise our families with the news at Christmas, and starting dreaming of her due date.

Little did I know that our child would be born much sooner than expected ~ and born not into this world.  Before I even was able to make that first doctor's appointment, I had an early miscarriage.  I had so many questions.  Was it my fault?  Did I make a mistake being on my feet during that event?  Was the test wrong?  (Not likely, since I'd taken many.)  Was something wrong with me?  Wrong with the baby?  Was it even really a baby, happening so early?  The doctor acted skeptical that I'd even been pregnant, stating that it had perhaps been a "chemical pregnancy". 

There's an innocence about a first pregnancy, an uneventful pregnancy.  That was shattered on that day nine years ago.  I'm sure that I'd read about pregnancy loss in at least one of that giant pile of pregnancy books that was sitting on the bedside table, but must have skimmed right over it in that "Oh, that wouldn't happen to us" confidence of someone used to being in control.  But at the same time, I clung to the reassurance that we could get pregnant and that all the statistics said that after a miscarriage, most women went on to successfully have a baby.

That's the beginning of our story, really.  Where I first began to realize that maybe, just maybe, life wasn't under my control as much as I thought.  But we still had far, far to go, and hope felt a long way away on that day.

To be continued . .  .

Happy heaven day to the baby that made me a mommy, even if only for a short time together here on earth. 

Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere . . . Psalm 84:10

Encouragement in the waiting

Many of these posts are about waiting.  Because that's where we are in this journey.  But as I read the other day, waiting is active. It's not just sitting around lamenting the fact that nothing is happening.  Quite the contrary.  Sometimes it is in the wait that the most is happening.   It is in the wait that we are being shaped and molded.  In the book Couples Who Pray (Rushnell & DuArt), it was emphasized that while prayers aren't always answered immediately, it doesn't mean that God doesn't hear.

It's in the waiting that God does the work.  And in the waiting, He's building your faith.  As promised, "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."  Hebrews 11:1

If you are waiting, too,  please go and read The beauty of waiting on Wilderness Pathways. 

There is hope in the waiting. Don’t miss out on the beauty of becoming, the aching beauty of the silence, as you wait. God has promised and planned. It is worth the wait – and sometimes, it is in the waiting itself that we discover just what it is we are waiting for. - Wilderness Pathways

As hard as it is to be in the waiting season, there is beauty in it that I wouldn't want to miss.

Reminders when I least expect it

Sometimes in the midst of hard days that leave me wondering about my capability of getting through life as it is, much less taking on this new venture, God sends little reminders that this is His plan ~ not mine.  As I was sorting through a stack of papers on a cluttered side table, this coloring sheet showed up.  Abigail is wise.  I recognized the stack of coloring pages from the weekend before, when we'd gone to church with my parents during a visit there.  After the children's message, each child is given a clipboard with coloring pages and crayons to use during the sermon.  Several seats down the row with grandma, my daughter was carefully coloring a picture of Abigail.

I was reminded of a story that I'd read early on in this journey about a little girl named Teddi.  Her mama had been given her name several years before she was born on the other side of the world, which was several years before she was adopted.  Tina (One Blessed Nest) tells the story of how God was faithful to keep sending little reminders of His plan as she would see variations of their little girl's name throughout those eight years.  (Thank you, Tina, for sharing your story and helping build my trust!)

The other night was a hard one, and I found myself opening my Bible to a random page.  Sometimes God speaks to me through His word in this way, and the margins of my Bible are increasingly becoming noted with dates of certain verses.  It fell open to the book of Esther, and there in chapter 2, verse 15 I read, "When the turn came for Esther (the girl Mordecai had adopted, the daughter of his uncle Abihail) . . ."  It's not quite Abigail, but it's close.  :)  And it makes me wonder (yet again) if the path He leads us on will end up including adoption.  But for now, there hasn't been any word to move forward in any specific way.


Just to continue praying . . . and preparing . . . and obeying the steps we've been given for now.  Those steps have included beginning to take the first part of any income and giving it to God.  Beginning to pray together (my husband and I) on a regular basis.  Examining the different ways that we are spending our time and our money to see which ones are giving God our best at this season of life.  Opening ourselves to hearing God's voice and direction in all areas of life in ways that we haven't before.  So that when that time does come, we will hopefully be ready.
 

Thoughts from the bookshelf (or e-reader, as it may be)

As much as fall leaves beckon me to come out and crunch through them on sunny autumn days, the written word calls to me on chilly, overcast days that hint at hinter to come.  This fall has brought a couple of library books my way.  I once read (wish that I could remember where!) that while we read books and stories, what we remember are phrases, and that it is those short snippets that end up taking hold in our lives.  In my life, that's definitely been the case.  Long after the plot and characters of a story or the facts of a true account have been forgotten, small snippets remain. 

Here are some of the snippets that have made their way into my story in the past month or so:

• I was born with a plan . . . none of that came true . .  And if it had- if I had lived the life I thought I wanted - I know I wouldn't have experienced the grace or the miracles of God in the ways that I have.  What I've found is that it's in the most unlikely times and places of hurt and chaos that God gives us a profound sense of His presence and the real light of His hope in the dark places.  (Choosing to SEE, Mary Beth Chapman)
• Each act of kindness, the prayers and every gift comfort us and assure us that our spirits will heal, even though the painful loss will always be with us. - Nickel Mines Accountability Committee (Amish Grace: How Forgiveness Transcended Tragedy, Donald B. Kraybill)
• Proximity to temptation is one of the deadliest determinants of procrastination . . . the more enticing the distraction, the less work we do . . . we work harder for rewards that are unpredictable but instantaneous when the arrive . . . (The Procrastination Equation, Piers Steel)
• Like many another educated adult, I consumed "news" in the same way that I consumed Coke Zero:  in great empty gulpfuls throughout the day.  It was filling but hard to digest, producing an uncomfortable informational flatulence. . . .Their online world had become "the point" - of existence, I mean - and every other kind of interaction constituted a tangent.  An interruption. . . . She never felt entirely hungry, nor entirely satisfied . . .   (The Winter of Our Disconnect, Susan Maushart)
• In spending this money, am I acting like I owned it, or am I acting like the Lord's trustee?  (http://www.goodtobecrazy.com/)
• Imagine you have a great job working in France for 3 months and are staying in a hotel while there.  The rules are, you can send as much money back home as you wish or spend it there, but anything you buy while there you have to leave when you return home.  Would you spend your money on new furnishings for your hotel room, etc., or send it to your real home?  (David Platt)

The Winter of Our Disconnect  was a tale of a mom and her three teenagers who went screen-free for six months, and included many insights from research on digital media and how it affects our lives. I found a lot of my struggles as a "Digital Immigrant" described in this book.   I also found the very different mind-set on parenting expressed in Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua interesting, if not a bit troublesome at times. 

What have you been reading?