Perfect Love: A Work in Progress

Parenting is no easy job.  Parenting Special Needs kids is no easy task either.  Parenting an adopted child takes work.  Parenting requires love, often the kind of love that without God we are not capable of showing. 

This is love:  not that we loved God,

but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.  1John 4:10

My kids behaving just so and me appearing as the awesome mom of well disciplined children is about my glory and my pride. This scenario has a very high possibility of unachievable expectations. It leads to frustrated children and infuriated parents. But what does perfect love look like? Perfect love anticipates mistakes that can be followed with appropriate correction. Perfect love doesn't compare children and it allows each child to work within their ability. Perfect love teaches discipline and self control that are lasting opposed to the emotional outrage and tirade that may only produce momentary obedience and mediocre remorse. Perfect love is about God's glory, not our own.

A Four Letter Word

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You can call it whatever you like, stress, worry, anxiety, a rough patch, but I'm gonna call it what it is.....at least for me........FEAR!  It is ugly and it has held a great power over me the last few weeks.  It haunts me when I'm trying to fall asleep.  It greets me bright and early each morning.  It shares afternoon coffee with me and sometimes even sneaks in when fun has shows it's lovely face.

I watched as Chris struggled to get back into the groove of doing college, and not knowing how else to encourage him I tacked up a sticky note to his computer with this verse...

"Do not fear, for I am with you; do not be afraid, for I am your God. 

 I will strengthen you; I will help you;

 I will hold on to you with My righteous right hand."  

Isaiah 41:10

 

In that moment I certainly did not imagine I would be the one to need to draw the most strength from it.  I read it each time I sat at my computer.  I read it over and over and yet it's words and power did not put out the fires of fear raging inside of me.  The older I get the more I really learn about myself, the good and the bad, my strengths and my weaknesses.  And yet despite this knowledge I continue to fall prey to the same lies again and again.  Satan, our enemy, indeed loves to watch me squirm and fret, loving each moment I feast on his lies.  "You are not enough.  You are not good enough.  You don't measure up.  Look at you!  It won't work!  You are not enough."  It started out subtle.  Then it became a nagging ache and before I knew it I was experiencing daily headaches, heartburn and hives to top it off!

 

 

And yet that sticky note said "Do not fear....." why, "because I am with you."  When I was finally ready to admit how awful I had been feeling to my husband and how not enough I felt he lovingly and kindly told me, in a way only a Marine can do, "Your not enough."  No I did not make him sleep on the couch that night.  It was a stark wake up call!  He was absolutely right.  He continued to tell me he thought that was the point.  We can't do much of anything on our own.  Without God's help we will fall on our face, we don't quite measure up and that is OK!

 

"My grace is sufficent for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."  2Cor. 12:9

 

I wish I could be so bold as Paul, to say that I am "boasting all the more gladly about my weakness," but I am at the point where I can acknowledge my need for help and be ok with it.  Maybe the next time that four letter word tries to work its way in I will be a little wiser to it and be ready to say "for when I am weak, then I am strong" because I know that the Lord's right hand is holding onto me and surely his grip is better than mine.

Lifting Them Up

Jack

At just the right time, when our hearts are open to His plan, God lays a special burden on our hearts for His precious ones.  One such family has heard that call and boldly stepped up and said, "Send me!"  You can read about them here on their family blog.  I do not know them personally, but when we came home with Toby I knew that our mission of caring for orphans was not complete.  I poured over the pages on Reece's Rainbow for a child to advocate for and in doing so felt my heart break for an older boy named Jensen.  For weeks I prayed for him and checking his page for updates when one day he had been moved to My Family Found Me!  What a glorious day!  I immediately went to the families blog and saw that they are also adopting another boy who has very serious medical needs. 

Jensen

Their need is great.
The time is now.
We are called to help those in need.
The blessings we receive are to be used for God's glory.
For it is truly a blessing to BE a blessing.
No gift is too small.
No act of kindness too insignificant.
We are God's hands and feet of love and mercy.
If the Body of Christ will not help, who will?

Just as this family has boldly stood and said, "Send me!"  Let us also stand with them as Aaron did for Moses (Exodus 17:12), lifting this family up with prayers and offerings of love.  This link will take you to the family's FSP.  Thank you for your support. 

"When Moses' hands grew heavy they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat down on it.  Then Aaron and Hur supported his hands, one on one side and one on the other so that his hands remained steady until the sun went down."  Ex 17:12  As long as Moses' hands were held high in prayer, the Isrealites were victorious, but he could not do it alone.  We too grow tired and weary in the things God calls us to and we too need a helping hand.

Open Doors

And we know that in all things

God works for the good of those who love him,

 who have been called according to his purpose. 

 Romans 8:28

After much rejoicing came a moment of realization.  I sat in the chair of our church intently listening to the pastor preach about following where God is leading and not dismissing it as your call or not the right time when it hit me!  Suddenly the previous days oh hum feeling and this mornings out of sorts nature stemmed from one very real emotion:  I was terrified of where God was leading!

Days before I was practically doing cart wheels down the hallway over finally having some direction.  I pride myself in handling the truth and reality opposed to the ugliness of the unknown, but as Scripture says, your pride will go before the fall.  As I sat with tears streaming down my cheeks I felt as if I were flat of my face beseeching God for the strength to follow him.  You see this new adventure God had planned was not all that new.  We have trudged this long hard path before.  This was plan B for us, but God bumped it right up to plan A!

While Chris waited to hear back from potential employers he toyed around with the idea of going back to school.  IF and that was a very big IF, no other job came, then maybe he should continue going to school, a decision many others have been left with in this kind of economy.  His company would pay for school, but it would be a huge time commitment and without a raise, he would have the continued stress of a pretty tight budget at home.

One college seemed to stand out both for it's academics, but also for it's strong commitment to Christ, Crown College.   It has been our policy for a long time that we knock on doors and we let God open or close them and so Chris applied to their MBA program.  At what seemed like lightening speed and days before they had projected Crown accepted his application and automatically enrolled him in the first 2 classes!  I thought this last part was kind of funny since I had asked Chris to see if he could delay starting if he got accepted, God must have gotten a good laugh!

Did I mention I am not good with not knowing?  I finally felt relieved, we could start the next adventure!  Then the phone rang.  And the flood gates of heaven opened.  Chris got a call for an interview for a job he thought he had been passed over for.  School and an interview!  It was almost too much excitement.  That night I kept the kids as quite as possible while Chris sat in the back room on the phone with a man several states away. 

The next day Chris calls our bank to see if they will reconsider a home loan for our family.  As you can imagine things are getting a little cozy in our rambler with 4 growing boys.  I tried not to get my hopes up because we have been told banks may not consider our rental income since we are unable to sell and yada, yada, yada.  I have been working on being content where I am.  Then another phone call.  Chris calls to say we got pre-approved!  Sometimes God's goodness is overwhelming.

Did I also mention that friends of ours are moving this summer and that they have blessed us with an awesome deal on their house?  It is more than we could have hoped for and such a wonderful gift!  The timing is all God.  A new job for them, a move for us, retirement for Chris's mom and BAM renters and grandparents in town for us!  Only God can line things up like that.

Things really just seemed to be coming together and with or without a new job we were moving this summer.  Then the phone rang.  The call Chris had anxiously been waiting for, the one saying "you are the man for the job" finally came!

I am so glad I surrendered my fear to God that Sunday morning because walking in obedience even on a hard and difficult road is far easier than tuning your heart from God's leading.  Trying to work through all my emotions of the morning I told Chris it would just be so much easier for him not to go to school and not to move, but clearly God has other plans and all it took was for us to walk through one open door to see it.



The Clear Path

Trust in the Lord with all your heart.

 

Don't hold anything back, no reservations.

 

And lean not on your own understandings.

 

You can try and figure it out, but human or earthly logic won't work here.

 

In all your ways acknowledge Him.

 

Give God praise, even if you don't feel like it, remember His goodness and mercy.  Seek Him.

 

And He will make your paths straight.

 

Be paitent and in His time God will make it clear.  His light will guide you, His word will give you courage to follow him where He leads!

(Bold txt Proverbs 3:5-6)

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Fire From Heaven

image from http://michael2011.blogspot.com/

Today in school we read the story of Elijah and the Prophets of Baal from 1Kings 18:17-40.  Please let me share with you the story in my own words, it is one of my favorites.

It had not rained for 3 years in the land of Israel because the King and the people had forgotten about God and had disobeyed his teachings.  The King was desperate for the prophet Elijah to fix this problem and for him to pray to God to let the rain come on his scorched land.  Elijah told the King to bring the false teachers and the people and to meet him on the mountain.  There they would see with their own eyes who was the true God. 

Quietly the people listened to Elijah tell them that it was time for them to choose.  It was time to stop going back and forth between God and the idol Baal, but first they must watch. 450 false teachers came and together they erected an alter to their god Baal and on that alter they placed the sacrifice.  For hours they wailed and cried and begged their god to hear them and prove himself to be true,  to consume the sacrifice with fire.  But no fire came.  Elijah told them to try harder, maybe Baal was sleeping.  They cut themselves, cried harder, but still nothing happened.

Finally it was Elijah's turn.  He built an alter with 12 large stones in the center of a large trench and on the alter he placed the wood and sacrifice.  To the people's surprise he had water poured on everything!  So much water that everything was dripping and the trench was full to the brim.  And then he began to pray, "Yahweh, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, today let it be known that You are God....Answer me so that this people will know that You, Yahweh, are God and that You have turned their hearts back."  Suddenly fire poured down out of heaven and consumed the entire sacrifice to include each stone,  drying up every bit of water along with it!  The people fell on their faces and worshiped God declaring "Yahweh, He is God!  Yahweh, He is God!"

We are more like the children of Israel than we care to admit sometimes.  We go back and forth between trusting God and going our own way.  Maybe we don't worship an idol made of gold or bronze, but anything we place above the Lord God is an idol.  Today put aside those things, bring them to the foot of the cross, kneel at the alter of the Lord and watch as God pours down fire from Heaven.  He wants to reveal himself to you, the only true God worthy of such praise and honor.

No Coincidence

Pure joy!

Do you ever get tired of waiting?  Can you recall a time you said, "I can't wait to sit on my thumbs and wait some more"?  I thought that our year leading up to bringing Toby home was our time of waiting.  Perhaps it was, or maybe it was more of a time of preparation and even abundance.  God provided all the funds needed for the adoption and even enough to have a bit of cushion.  I miss the cushion and looking back it probably didn't feel like it then either.  It is only on this side of things that I can see the plenty.

With fundraising over and surplus from college behind us the reality of raising four kids on one income has hit us.  Paying for numerous doctor bills for Toby and attempting to climb out of debt seems to be like trudging up a sand dune with bricks fastened to our feet.  Chris with degree in hand anxiously waits on God's direction.  His resume is out there in what seems like a dark void waiting to be found.

"When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought joy to my soul."  Psalm 94:19

 

It's about more than money.  Dare I say it is more than just Chris's desire to be in the field he studied so hard to be in.  We both desire to seek God's will.  Not only is it important to enjoy the work you do, but to know God is using you for His purposes in your vocation.

 

"Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men."  Colossians 3:23

 

For me following God's plan is not the hard part, it is not knowing what the plan is.  He has not made it clear, but for weeks now the devotion book we are using again and again has provided encouragement and hope.  It is as if God himself wrote out this book mapping out each days scripture and commentary just for us.  Dear brothers and sisters in Christ consider nothing a coincidence, but rather consider each encounter, each moment a carefully thought out plan. 

 

"All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be." 

 Psalm 139:16b

 

He makes no mistakes.  He is never late and He will NEVER let you down.

 

"As you do not know the path of the wind, or how the body is formed in a mother's womb,

so you cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all things."  Ecclesiastes 11:5

 

Are you also waiting?  Can we stand together?  Scripture tells us not only to diligently study God's Word, but to pray and lift each other up in this way.  While we are waiting let's be busy in prayer.  I would love to stand in the gap for you.  You can leave comments or email me.  Together let's storm the gates of heaven!