Great Ideas

This is Vanessa. She's one of our foster children. She's 9 years old. She and I share a room, which is an adventure. :-)

Tonight, I tucked her in bed. We read a book, and then we prayed. Vanessa always prays exactly what she's thinking, and I love that, but tonight her prayer really blew me away. She thanked God for letting her live in "a good place like this." She thanked Him that she gets to go live with her aunt soon. She thanked Him that her aunt has said she can stay in contact with us and "write them letters and maybe come see them once in a while." Then she said,

"God, I think You have really great ideas right now. You always have great ideas, and I will always trust You. Amen."

That is coming from a child whose life has been turned upside down over and over, and is going to be turned upside down again when she goes to live with her aunt in about a month. She doesn't know where her life is headed. She has no idea where she'll be this time next year. Her life is a mystery--a mystery that would scare most of us. But not Vanessa. Vanessa has found the secret: She knows that God has great ideas. And she knows she can trust Him. I think that's 9-year-old lingo for, "Not my will, but Yours be done." I'm so proud of Vanessa. She is learning to trust God and His great ideas, even when she doesn't know what those ideas are or where they will lead her. Thanks, Vanessa--you just redefined "trusting God" for me.

Father, let us all be more like Vanessa. Let us believe that Your plans and Your ideas are truly great, and help us to remember that we can trust You with all our hearts.

" 'For I know the [great ideas] I have for you,' declares the Lord..."

I AM

Growing up in church, I have heard many different explanations of what God meant in Exodus 3:14 when He told Moses that His name was, "I AM." I've heard that such a name describes His timelessness, that no matter where we are in time, He is I AM. I've heard that this name is simply a testimony to His awesome existence, a declaration that He is. And I'm sure I've heard a marvelous explanation derived from the actual meaning of the Hebrew word for "I AM". I love to think on and process each of those possibilities, but the other day, I was struck with a new possibility for the meaning of "I AM." Could it be that God was offering a comfort to His people? An assurance that everything we are not, He is? He gives this name in the middle of Moses' protests that he is not capable of leading the Israelites out of Egypt. Was He trying to tell Moses, "No, you're not, but I AM"? If so, what does that look like in our own lives? As we protest with, "God, I'm not ______ (fill in the blank)", is He answering with those simple words, the definition of Himself, "I AM"?

"God, I'm not strong." "I AM."
"God, I'm not holy." "I AM."
"God, I'm not courageous." "I AM."
"God, I'm not worthy." "I AM."
"God, I'm not patient." "I AM."
"God, I'm not wise." "I AM."
"God, I'm not beautiful." "I AM."
"God, I'm not perfect." "I AM."
"God, I'm not joyful." "I AM."
"God, I'm not enough." "I AM."
"God, I'm not gentle." "I AM."
"God, I'm not confident." "I AM."
"God, I'm not adequate." "I AM."
"God, I'm not sure." "I AM."
"God, I'm not faithful." "I AM."

...and so the list goes on and on. Everything we are not, He is. In our weakness, His strength is made perfect. He steps into every void, He fills every crack. And then He takes it one step farther--He clothes us with Himself that we might be those things, too. He makes us beautiful and perfect and adequate and confident...He is so very good to us.

So the next time you find yourself crying out, "God, I'm not ______!!!", may you hear His still, small voice whispering, "I AM."

It's a Jedi, it's a Sith...no! It's....

Yesterday, Jonathan, Stephen and Andrea were playing in the living room. They're Star Wars nuts, so they frequently play as Jedi Masters and Sith Lords. The conversation went something like this (though I don't remember which child said what, so I'm making that part up :-)

Jonathan: "I'm Darth Sidious! bzzzzzzzzt" (That was my attempt at typing an electrocution noise.)

Andrea: "I'm Master Yoda! bzzzzzzzzzt"

Stephen: "I'm the Holy Spirit! BZZZZZZZZZT"

I never pictured the Holy Spirit with supercharged Force lightening coming out of His fingers, but if you stop and think about it, it probably just looks like a thunder storm. :-)

The Reason

Okay, I know some of you have been worried about me after reading my last post, and for that I am sorry. The reason for all my tears is this: we have been told that Shyanne will be leaving very soon. Her aunt has decided that she wants custody of her. We started the transition process on Monday when Mom took Shyanne to meet her aunt for the first time. I'm not sure exactly how long the transition is going to take, but I believe it will be within the next six weeks. The aunt seems to be a very kind, Christian woman who is open to allowing our family to continue a relationship with Shyanne, which is a positive thing.

However, even with that, this is going to be a very painful trial. In my heart, Shyanne is my child. Having her taken from me will doubtless be one of the most difficult things I have experienced, and possibly will ever experience, in life. I am struggling greatly with this and would appreciate all of your prayers.

Once again, I'm sorry if I worried you all, now you know the reason. I love you all and thank you for your prayers, love and support. You are amazing!

Jesus Wept

I have done a lot of crying today (The reasons for that shall be divulged soon enough but are not the point of this post.), and as such, John 11:35 has come to mind many times: "Jesus wept." As many of you know, this verse comes right after Lazarus dies, but before Jesus raises him back to life. Growing up in the church, I have heard many explanations for exactly WHY Jesus wept.

First, there is the explanation given by the Jews present at the time: "See how He loved him!" (v. 36)

Then there's the explanation that says, "Jesus wept because of the lack of faith of Mary, Martha and the other Jews."

Or this one: "Jesus wept because He was bringing Lazarus back from heaven."

There are many more explanations, I'm sure, and I'm not going to attempt to judge which of them are true and which aren't. However, I have my own opinion about one possible reason why Jesus wept.

I think Jesus wept simply to show us that it is okay for us to do so, too. I think He just wanted us to know that it's okay to cry. He gave us a glimpse of Himself at a place of sadness and vulnerability to emotions so that we would know that it's all right to be at that place sometimes. The Bible doesn't elaborate here on why Jesus wept. It doesn't give us an explanation or an insight into His thought process at that moment. It simply tells us, "Jesus wept." If we are supposed to be striving to be like Jesus and He wept, then I suppose it's all right (and even blessed, as He says in Matthew 5) for us to weep, too.

I'm sorry Jesus was sad, but personally, I'm glad He wept.

Clouds

A couple of weekends ago, I flew to Texas to see my dad. When we took off from Tulsa, it was cloudy and rainy, just an overall dreary day. As we flew up through the clouds, it got really bumpy, and we couldn't see anything. Then, all of a sudden, we came up out of the clouds and the sun was shining brightly. The clouds that had looked so gray and dismal from below were bright white in the sunlight and looked like mountains of cotton balls.

As I looked at the clouds from above, it made me think about life, trials and faith. The trials that we face bring clouds into our lives. When we see things from a human perspective, it seems dark and difficult. If, however, we choose to make the journey upward in faith to see things from a higher perspective, everything changes. When we look from God's perspective, the Son shines on all those trials of life and makes them into something beautiful that we couldn't see from below. When we look from His perspective, we can appreciate the beauty of the hard things, even though they're hard.

Even so, there are those times where we're stuck in between and it's bumpy and we can't see a thing. We know God has a plan and we know these trials are growing us, but we just can't see how or why. It is in those times that our faith is truly tested. Either we will lose faith and go plummeting back into the dark, cloudy place we started from, or we will persevere until we come out of the clouds and can see His plan at last.

I pray that today you will trust in His plan, whether you are above, below or in the middle of the clouds. I pray that the Son will shine through and give you hope in the storm.

"And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us." Romans 5:2-5

I can do it myself!

Shyanne is currently in a stage where she really enjoys her shoes. (I know, I know: "She's a girl. She's supposed to like shoes." Whatever. I'm a girl and I hate shoes. But that's not the point. Moving on...) Her favorite thing about her shoes is putting them on. She sits in the floor and tries her very hardest to put her tennis shoes on by herself. Now, she's very smart for a 15-month-old, but even a very smart 15-month-old can't put her tennis shoes on by herself. She comes very close sometimes, but she can't quite get it. Yesterday, she had been trying for over five minutes to put her shoes on, so I offered to help her. I held out my hand for her to give me the shoe, but she turned away and kept trying. Eventually, she got mad, quit trying, stood up and threw the shoe.

...it made me think of us. "Us" being the children of God. How often do we suffer from the "I can do it myself!" syndrome? How often are we so set on putting our shoes on ourselves that we turn away from the extended hand of the Father? We are so determined to do our job, our family, our life and even our ministry on our own that we won't let Him help us. We forget the words of Jesus when He said, "Apart from Me you can do nothing." (John 15:5) Instead, we try for so long on our own power that we get mad, quit trying and throw our shoe (or our family, our life or our ministry) away in frustration. If we would simply have handed it over to Him, He would have slipped it on with ease and tied it in a double knot.

Father, help us to not turn away from Your outstretched hand. Teach us to give You control in every aspect of our lives. Remind us that without You, we can do nothing, but with You, all things are possible. Help us to surrender, and when we do, unleash Your power in our lives. Thank You for continuing to stretch out Your hand to us even when we don't deserve it. You are an awesome God!