In Oceans Deep

“But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, ‘Be of good cheer!  It is I; do not be afraid.’

And Peter answered Him and said, ‘Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the water.’

So He said, ‘Come.’

And when Peter had come down out of the boat, he walked on the water to go to Jesus.  But when he saw that the wind was boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink he cried out, saying, ‘Lord, save me!’

And immediately Jesus stretched out His hand and caught him, and said to him, ‘O you of little faith, why did you doubt?’  And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased.”

~Matthew 14:27-32, NKJV

I cannot seem to stop thinking about this passage of Scripture.  There is so much of my current story in this little section, but the part that has me thinking and pondering, is the part that is left out.  Verse 32 says, “And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased.”  So for some distance, long or short, Peter walked on the water.  With Jesus.  Through the storm.  Everyone always talks about Peter’s faith to get out of the boat, and his moment of being overwhelmed and taking his eyes off Jesus and sinking, and Jesus saving him immediately.  But what about the part where he actually walks on the stormy water with Jesus?  Hand in hand, I’m guessing.  Shoulder to shoulder.  Peter, now fully depending on and trusting in Jesus, not to quiet the storm, but to get him through it, back to the boat. 

 

And what is all this saying to me?  I’m not sure yet; I’m not done dwelling here.  But I know I am encouraged by Peter’s moment of overwhelm, of succumbing to his circumstances and falling.  And then, after crying out, Jesus responds with all of His Lordship and authority and, hand in hand, they continue through the storm.  Peter walks fully in the grace and power of God—and he walks on water in the storm.

Peter’s story is mine in many ways.  I saw Jesus in the unclear and stormy waters of adoption as we pursued ways to grow our family.  I called out to Him—if this is You, Lord, tell me to come to You.  He did, time and time again.  The storm swirled from adoption to foster care and still He said, “Come!”  So we stepped out of the boat of our safe little world and headed into the storm where Jesus was.  I took a few steps and then the wind blew and the salty waters hit me in the face, stung my eyes and threatened to choke and drown.  What was once solid under my feet gave way to murky, stormy waters and I sank—hard and fast.  Like Peter, I cried out to the Lord and He pulled me up, but unlike Peter, I would catch a glimpse of His love and grace, catch my breath, and then sink again—overwhelmed by the storm rather than my Savior.  I think, in crying out, I kept hoping for Him to pull me out, to calm the storm, to make it all go away, to bring peace and safety to our home again.  I just kept treading water, barely staying above the surface, praying and waiting for God to heal, for a miracle, and, if I’m honest, wondering why He wasn’t coming through, why He wasn’t fixing everything.  But Jesus has been there all along, with hand outstretched saying, “Come!  Walk with me.”  He wants me to take His hand so I can walk with Him on the water—through the storm.  I can stop treading water, and walk fully in the grace and power of God.  Gripped by Love and Peace.  Hand in hand.  Shoulder to shoulder. 

“When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;

And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you…

For I am the LORD your God,

The Holy One of Israel, your Savior…”

~Isaiah 43:2,3

An Unexpected Gift

"I give your priesthood to you as a gift for service..."

~Numbers 18:7b

 

The responsibilities of the priesthood were intense and heavy.  Everything they did was either for God or on behalf of the people--people who were immature and ungrateful.  They risked their lives and gave their all because God chose them for the task.

 

"I give your motherhood to you as a gift for service..."

 

A gift.  For service.  Is this my attitude?  Do I treat motherhood as a gift for service--a gift from God?  Do I show gratitude each day for this gift that gives me the opportunity to die to myself and live for Christ, thus growing closer and closer to the One who did the same for me?  Who gave up everything so I could--serve?  So I could serve.  And serve in love and gratitude, not complaint and self-righteousness. 

 

"Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights..." ~James 1:17

 

Thank you, Lord, for this good gift.  Please forgive my selfishness, and help me to serve with Your love and grace.  Amen.

Graves of Craving

"So he called the name of that place Kibroth Hattaavah [literally Graves of Craving], because there they buried the people who had yielded to craving."

~Numbers 11:34

 

In Numbers 11, the people began to complain about the manna, God's perfect provision.  What began as a grumbling about what they had to eat, led to a dissatisfaction with God's provision, which in turn led them to reject and despise God's plan and purpose for them.  Ultimately, they questioned His love and goodness--His character.

 

"...in everything give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you." ~1 Thessalonians 4:8

 

Lord,

Help me to become a person who is grateful and thankful.  When I start to complain, help me stop short and realize what I'm doing: rejecting You and all You've given.  Complaining about the little things and desiring something other than what I have leads only to destruction--to Graves of Craving.  Help me, instead, to practice the habit of gratitude.  This is Your will for me.

Amen.

Quicksand vs. Puddles

"For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace."

~Romans 8:6

 

This struck me today in my role as a mom.  When I focus on the things of this world--the diapers, the mess, the meal-planning, the early mornings, the sibling rivalry, the crying, the whining--well, the list goes on and on and begins to pull me down.  My day becomes drudgery and I look down the long path ahead--of everyday more of the same--and I lose my joy because how can I do this forever?  And then top all the mundanity with the heavy choices of schooling and friendships and moral training and extra curricular activities and my life becomes quicksand--slow and suffocating.

 

But all of that is to be carnally minded.  To be spiritually minded is to see three little creations of God in my home, each being shaped in his or her own way into the image of their Maker.  God is doing a work in each of them, different from each other, and different from me.  My role is to help guide and shape what He is already doing.  My job is to be a vessel through which they can see and feel and know His love.  God has a purpose and a plan for each of them, and I get to be a part of it--a gentle guide, a counselor, a teacher, a servant.  And my utmost responsibility is to seek after and know Him, the One in charge.

 

To be spiritually minded changes "have to" into "get to."  To be spiritually minded means life looks less like quicksand and more like puddles, messy at times, but a whole lotta fun!  To be spiritually minded means I get to wake up each morning to a new day and witness what God is doing in three little hearts.  That brings joy.  That brings life.  That brings peace.



Update

So, it's been awhile...again.  Before I launch into, hopefully, more regular posts, I thought I'd include a brief update with regards to our foster kids via an excerpt from my last Valentine's Day letter:

For those of you who weren’t aware, a thick and heavy door closed on our family on December 13^th.  On that dark day, we said good-bye to our two foster babies that we’d had in our home and loved for a little over a year.  We had no way of knowing if that door would remain closed forever, or if we would get a phone call one day asking if we could take them back.  This hallway of the unknown seemed long and possibly unending.  It was an incredible exercise in trust as we prayed for their safety and gave our desires over to God’s eternal plan, whatever that might be.  We were met head on with the challenge of praising God in the hallway.  Six weeks later, a door swung wide open, and in a matter of hours our sweet two-year-old boy and 15-month-old girl were back in our home. 

What a journey this has been, and what a Guide we have to lead us!  As my days are filled with all that occupies a mother of 3 little ones in addition to foster mom responsibilities, the time I have left to write is small.  However, I have a few short minutes each morning, in the quiet of my dark and sleeping house, with which to read my Bible and write in my journal.  I think, on occasion, I will share those writings with you, if you care to read them.  Maybe something He says to me will be helpful to you, too.

The Journey Continues

As you may have noticed, my blog came to a screeching halt several months ago…

To summarize:

Three years ago, I began to feel a stirring in my soul.  A longing.  A desire to know God and to know Him fully.  I began to pray and ask God to reveal Himself to me.  To unite my heart with His.  To show me His glory.  In response, I heard God inviting me into an adventure with Him, to step into the Jordan fully trusting His ability to make my footstep sure, to keep me on solid ground even though the river raged (Joshua 3: 5, 13, 17). 

 

My adventure will be risky, it will be disruptive to your routine life, it will be hard, but we’ll be in it together.  And it will be an adventure, if you trust Me.

What I didn’t know was that God’s glory would come to my house in the form of a child, two children, actually.  Through a series of circumstances, orchestrated only by the One who knows our hearts best, Dave and I became foster parents.  Please do not place us on the foster parent pedestal of sainthood.  There are many out there who deserve such a position, but not us.  We did not set out to be foster parents, but foster parenthood came to us.  Having just recently been certified as adoptive parents, we got a phone call one late October afternoon.  A not-quite-one-year-old boy needed a long-term foster placement, along with his soon-to-be born baby sister.  The chances were high that they might become available for adoption, but there were no guarantees, except that the road would be long and bumpy.  Would we be interested?  We had 2 hours to make this life-changing decision.  We said yes to our adoption worker and yes to God.  And the adventure began.  Less than 24 hours later, little K entered our lives and 2 weeks after that, newborn Baby M joined our newly formed and very raw family.  I’d like to say that I’ve had a heavenly, rapturous experience ever since, but the truth is, my selfishness has been exposed.  I’ve reeled and railed and beat my fists against the ever-closed door of “Why?”.  I’ve looked at my poor, trapped, diaper-bound, naptime-bound, formerly independent self, and cried and asked God, “Why, when I asked for bread, did You give me a snake?  Why, when I longed for honey, did You give me these stones?”  And I sank into the miry clay of selfishness and discontent.  I longed for my simple, routine life. “I wanted an adventure, Lord, not a nightmare.”  But all the while, God held out his hand to me, offering His redemptive perspective.  And I reached for His pinky finger, still dangling above my own selfish desires, but starting to see, starting to hear…

“…it’s the Word of God that turns the rocks in the mouth to loaves on the tongue.  That fills our emptiness with the true and real good, that makes the eyes see, the body full of light.”

~Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts

 

***

As the days went by, I continued to seek His perspective, to grasp for His heart.   It went something like this:

Upon finding out that I’m a foster mom, the most frequent comment I hear is “I don’t know how you do it.”  For a long time, I didn’t know how to do it either; I still don’t have it all figured out.  Early on, my efforts with Little K were met with challenging and difficult behaviors: a little heart lashing out at a world that had let him down.  My emotions became entangled in his, and I prayed and I cried and I begged God for the mercy and grace and love to not let him down, too.  This little one pushed and shoved and I wanted to run, but God said Stay, so I did.  I prayed and I cried over and over again as love became hard work, and I knew in the back of my mind that all this hard work, all this loving, might be met with a bitter end, an end that would make all this feel worthless, pointless.  I cried out to God again, looking for a way, looking for an answer.  And He replied,

“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?  Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?  Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard.  Then you will call, and the LORD will answer; you will cry for help, and He will say: Here am I” (Isaiah 58:6-9).

And I understood that this work I was doing was “fasting.”  It was hard, it was uncomfortable, it was a sacrifice; it created an emptiness that only God could fill.  The very thing God asked me to do caused me to cry out for His help.  But it was what God had chosen for us, and He promised to be exceedingly available.  The Lord Himself would be my help, the Lord would be my strength.  I began to settle into His arms and the children began to settle into mine.  But the more settled I became, the more each passing comment of “I don’t know how you do it” stuck like a thorn in my heart, threatening to tear it in two, urging me to flee, to build up a wall of defense, to protect myself from the pain that was sure to come, from an ending that was unknown.  Hidden in that phrase is the understanding that we might love and then let go, love and then lose two little pieces of our hearts.  “How do I do it, Lord?  How do I give my all when I don’t know how this will end?”  And He answered,

“Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.  Each day has enough trouble of its own” (Matthew 6:34). 

And then, in that still small voice of His, He whispered,

Love them today.  Right now.  Tomorrow is in My hands.  Let it stay there. 

A peace flooded my soul in that moment.  With God’s help, I can do today. 

It doesn’t mean life is easy from here on out.  As God assured me several years ago when He began to prepare my heart for this very adventure, this is the hardest thing I’ve ever done.  But now, when someone says, “I don’t know how you do it,” I say, “One day at a time.  God has asked me to love these kids today, and I can do that.”  I trust in Him and His goodness, and even if my heart will break, I choose to love today.  It’s not about me.  It’s about Him, and it’s about them.  End of story.  No.  Beginning of story…

Shortly after I wrote this, we learned that the dreaded possibility is indeed happening.  The process has begun to transition these little ones back to their birth parents.  Please keep our family, and theirs, in your prayers.

I Learned It By Watching You

“…be imitators of God as dear children.  And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma.” 

~Ephesians 5:1-2

As I prepared dinner earlier this week, Ruthie took up her usual place of watching me by standing on a chair at the kitchen counter.  She filled every void with her usual chatter as I inserted an occasional “uh-huh” in an attempt to feign my attentiveness.  Then, after a brief moment of silence, she said,

“So this is what you have to do to be a mom.  Cooking…washing dishes…  I’m learning how to be a mom by watching you.”

Gulp.  She had no idea what sobering words she uttered to my very soul.  All I had done and said in her short five years of life came rushing at me in a sort of end-of-life experience.  She’s watching my every move.  Studying it, even.  Consciously. 

O, Lord.  I pray I am a mom worth watching.  Help me to walk in the light of Your love, imitating You, studying You, so that in watching me, Ruthie sees You.  Please forgive my feigned attentiveness to You and Your ways.  Please cleanse the stench of my selfishness so that my life as a mom might be a sweet-smelling sacrifice to You.  Amen.