Wuv...twu wuv

I have the best husband in the world. 

He is the love of my life.  He is an incredible provider, protector, husband, father, best friend.  He loves me more than I ever deserve.  He loves our children so much, there are no words to accurately express it.

I never thought I would have this.

As a young adult, I never had much self-confidence.  I was filled with doubts and fears and poor decisions.  I was not headed toward the "white-picket-fence" life, that's for sure.  Then as a single mom, I really felt as if my chance had passed.  I was 24 with a child.  I would look around at the guys my age and realize that none of them wanted to take on the baggage of a single mom.  How depressing it was to be an "outsider" amongst my peers!

Then one day, I walked into my new 'temp' job and there he stood.  Wow!  I remember the very first time I saw him.  My heart jumped.  I could see his soul in his eyes.  I was hooked!

One of the first conversations we ever had began with him asking me, "If you woke up tomorrow with no restrictions of time or money, what would you do?  What job would you want?"  That is certainly a great "get-to-know-you", breaking the ice question!  Six months later, we began dating.  Our second date was a family date.  We walked along a mountain river, with my 18 month old son in between us.  I cried.  I knew at that moment that this was my family.  This is what my heart had been longing for for so long.  This man was the answer to so many prayers!  He was all I ever wanted and more than I could ever have imagined!

A year later, we were married.  Two more kids quickly followed.  What an amazing ride it has been!  I often hear people say the first year of their marriage was so difficult.  That was not the case with us.  Don't get me wrong; marriage requires work.  It is not sunshine and roses 24/7/365.  But we choose to assume the best from each other.  We work at loving one another.  We are always talking about the pitfalls of life and marriage and how to avoid them as best we can.

He is my match.  He is my best-friend.  He can make me laugh harder than anyone else.  He is my protector.  I never knew what it felt like to be completely safe before.  I never felt able to let my guard down.  I can with him.  I have with him.  I know that I am safe with him emotionally, physically, intellectually, and spiritually.  I cannot explain how wonderful it is to truly feel safe. 

He is an amazing father.  When he puts the kids to bed, I love to listen-in.  I love to hear him talk with them, pray with them, laugh with them, love on them.  I will never forget the day right after we were married that he put our oldest son to bed.  He had read the book, "Love You Forever" as that night's bedtime story.  He came back downstairs with tears in his eyes, and told me that he just then fully realized that this was his son.  Let me tell you, this mama's heart melted!  Since then, I have watched him become the most incredible father.  The love he has for our three boys is overwhelming.

He is such a giving, self-sacrificial man.  He would literally give us the shirt off his back.  He daily gives us the best as he takes the least.  He always wants me and the boys to have "the big brownie".   I have never seen him take the biggest and best thing for himself.  That is just not who he is. 

This world is full of examples of awful marriages.  We live in a society that sees relationships as disposable.  Our culture encourages infidelity and promiscuity and walking away from your commitments.  Husbands are portrayed as crass, stupid, cave-man like, boyish figures who are good for very little.  Wives are portrayed as materialistic, money-wasting, nagging, annoying, ball-and-chains.  It is perfectly acceptable to "fall out of love", as if it is just a lane on the highway you can weave in and out of. 

But that is not what love is.  Love is a choice.  It is what you do in spite of how you feel.  It is giving when you don't want to.  It is helping when you don't feel like it.  It is always putting others' needs ahead of your own.  It is staying when you want to walk away.  It is never giving up on the other person or on your relationship.  Love is a commitment.  Love is a covenant.

I am so truly blessed to have such an amazing man to do life with.  Someone who is as devoted as I am to this thing called love.  Someone who lifts me up when I am down.  Someone who holds me when I am sad.  Someone who will fight for me when I don't have the strength.  Someone who will forgive me when I mess up oh-so often.  Someone who will not give up on me.  

I have the best husband in the world.

"I found the one my heart loves."  Song of Songs 3:4

One Step

Do you ever feel like spending time with God is a chore?  That you would much rather spend your free time watching some tv, playing around on the internet, reading a book...doing anything but spending that time reading the Bible and in prayer?  Sometimes even cleaning the house seems like a more desirable option!  Time with God can seem like such an obligation.  I know I certainly have felt this way more often than I like to admit.
  
I have come to the conclusion that on our own, it is impossible to truly love Him and desire to spend time with Him.  We are too human, too selfish, too prideful, too lazy.  Maybe we don't really believe that His promises are for us, that His words are still relevant.

"And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him."  Hebrews 11:6

I have been praying for God to help me love Him and desire time with Him and really have faith in Him.  I have asked Him to re-ignite passion for Him and His Word.  Just as the father in Matthew 9 cried out, "Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!"  v24

My prayer is similar:  "Lord, I love you; help my ambivalence." 

I stopped trying to love God in my own strength.  That was impossible.  Instead, I turned to Him and asked for help.  I confessed that I really had no desire to spend time with Him and asked for Him to change that.  And He did.  All I had to do was turn to Him.

"Draw near to God and he will draw near to you."  James 4:8

That is a promise. 

"The Lord is faithful to all his promises..."  Psalm 145:13

"Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart...for he who promised is faithful."  Hebrews 10:22-23

Take one step toward Him and ask for His help to bring you closer. 

He will. 

He is faithful!

I will leave you with an amazing quote I came across a couple days ago that so accurately illustrates my heart right now.  It is a beautiful prayer. 

It is that first step.

"O God, I have tasted Thy goodness, and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more.  I am painfully conscious of my need for further grace.  I am ashamed of my lack of desire.  O God, the Triune God, I want to want Thee; I long to be filled with longing; I thirst to be made more thirsty still. 

Show me Thy glory, I pray Thee, so that I may know Thee indeed.  Begin in mercy a new work of love within me.  Say to my soul, "Rise up my love, my fair one, and come away."  Then give me grace to rise and follow Thee up from this misty lowland where I have wandered so long."

A.W. Tozer ~ The Pursuit of God

Aching Faith

Do you ever feel so overwhelmed with emotion that you feel like you just might burst?  Part of you wants to scream at the top of your lungs and the other part wants to crawl back in bed and pull the covers over your head.  You literally physically ache all over. 

Lately, I am there more often than I am not.

The emotions.  The longing.  The impatience.  They are so hard to handle each day.  But, in a way, it is this experience, these difficult emotions that have brought me so close to God.  I feel Him.  I hear Him.  I see His hands working all around me.  Would I have been able to experience God in this way without experiencing the difficulty?  Probably not.

I find myself turning to the book of Psalms often.  In the past, this book just confused me; David at times seems so bi-polar.  Such as in Psalm 88 where he says, "But I cry to you for help, O LORD; in the morning my prayer comes before you.  Why, O LORD, do you reject me and hide your face from me?"  Then the very next Psalm begins with: "I will sing of the LORD's great love forever; with my mouth I will make your faithfulness known through all generations."  The entire books seems to be a roller-coaster-ride of emotions, of doubt and praise. 

I get it now.

God continues to show me His unfailing love and faithfulness everywhere--through songs and people and sermons and things I read--even while I am in the midst of the fire.  While it feels like I am not getting an answer to my pleas, He is showing me His love and comfort. 

My heart still aches. 

I am still overwhelmed. 

But I know He is here with me, holding me, working things out in ways I cannot yet see. 

I am confident that He has great plans for me.  And yet, I still cry out to Him.

Never before have the Psalms struck such a chord in me.  I am understanding now that David was not bi-polar.  He was human.   

And so today, I will leave you with a verse that sums up where I am...full of praise and trust in God, even as I cry out to Him with every aching fiber of my being:

"The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me;
  your love, O Lord, endures forever --
 do not abandon the works of your hands." 
    ~Psalm 138:8

Olga

At the end of September, I had a very vivid dream...the kind that feels so real. 

In my dream, it was very cold outside and I was in a strange place....another country, perhaps.  There was a precious little girl named Olga who was running away from something.  When I asked her what was wrong, she told me that some bad men were after her.  I scooped her up, ran and hid.  I held her close in my arms and told her it was ok...she was safe now.  Then I woke up.

I woke with such an overwhelming desire to "rescue" a little girl, knowing that there are so many who are being chased by the enemy. 

In early December, a friend of mine posted a link on Facebook to this blog about a precious girl with Down Syndrome named Olga. 

It so very much touched my heart.  I have closely followed this blog ever since, posting links frequently on Facebook, trying to get others to see the stories.  You see, God had prepared me with that dream...and now He was showing me the ugly truth of it. 

My eyes were opened.

This sweet Olga has been so much a part of my thoughts and prayers and heart since then.  She is what prompted me to start this blog.  There are many other facets to my story with Olga that show how much God is in the details.  Maybe someday I will share those pieces of the story.  But, let me just say that she will always be in my prayers and a part of my life....for she truly changed me. 

Olga was a Divine Interruption.

Sign here, please.

I want.  Please give it to me...soon.
I want.  Please make it happen...right now.
I want.  Can you show me that you are working on this?

That is what I tell God.  "I trust you will do what I want, right away."

"Yes, but....I have something more for you."

Grrr.  I really do want to be in His will.  I really do want what He wants for my life.  But I have found I have something in common with Corrie ten Boom.  In her book "Tramp for the Lord" she talks about how she had a tendency to lay out all the plans and then ask for God's endorsement.  She learned that it was much better to have Him draft up the plans and her just sign on the dotted line.

I still struggle with that.  If what I want is a worthy, good thing that is in line with His Word...why can't I have it....now?  Wow.  How impatient am I?!

He has clearly shown me this week that His answer is not necessarily no...He just has other things He is working out first.  So I sit.  And wait.  And trust.  And watch Him do things in the process that I never imagined could be done. 

While I am waiting, He is working.

He is teaching me right now.  Teaching me that He doesn't hold out on you just to show you He can.  He is working.  He is orchestrating.  He is refining you.  He is using your experience to touch others.  He is putting all the pieces in place.  He is removing your notion that you have the ability to do it all on your own.  He is giving you time to realize that He has the power to work the miracles, not you.  He wants to bless you.

"Yet the LORD longs to be gracious to you; he rises to show you compassion. For the LORD is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him!"  Isaiah 30:18

Blessed are all who wait for him.  Blessed.

I must admit, it doesn't feel like a blessing to wait.  But maybe my waiting is blessing others.  And maybe someday I will look back at my time of waiting and be able to see the full picture of the blessing in my own life as well.

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God."  2 Corinthians 1:3-4

God helps us through our struggles so that we may help others.  These two verses speak of God as being a God of compassion.  Dictionary.com defines compassion as "a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering."  God does not desire for us to stay in the difficulty.  He works to alleviate the suffering.  He sends others who understand to help us, so that the waiting will be bearable.

How thankful I am of dear friends who understand!  I can never fully express how much they help!  And I hope that I can be that help to others as well. 

I have been finding so many amazing scriptures of comfort and hope and encouragement.  Scriptures that show me how amazing and powerful God is.  It is not through my strength, my wit, my wisdom, my abilities that anything happens.  It is all God.  I pray that the process, the journey, the waiting, and whatever comes of it all, will glorify Him.  And that at some point, I might get better at this waiting thing and learn to let Him draft up the plans for me to sign on the dotted line!

"Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory...for ever and ever! Amen."  Ephesians 3:20-21

Waiting

I LOVE seeing God's miraculous timing in other people's lives.  There are so many miracles happening every day.  So many testimonies of His faithfulness and His perfect timing. 

I have even experienced it in my own life.

So why is it so hard to wait on His timing with each new situation?

I have read amazing testimonies such as this wonderful story, For the Love of Vera.  And this one, Announcing Peter's Family.   After reading these, how can anyone deny the awesome beauty of God's divine plan?!

And yet, when you are the one waiting on an answer, the days and hours are so painfully and silently long.

Yet, I am reminded over and over again:  If we let Him, He will orchestrate such incredible beauty in our lives in such a way that we will be left speechless.  His plan and His timing are so much more amazing than we can ever even dream of!

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
   neither are your ways my ways,”
            declares the LORD. 
“As the heavens are higher than the earth,
   so are my ways higher than your ways
   and my thoughts than your thoughts." 
                                               Isaiah 55:8-9

Open your hand

A few weeks ago I attended a women's conference.  It was a truly incredible weekend of encouragement for moms.  Each time I go, I leave with my passion renewed for mothering and teaching my children.  It is the perfect mid-school-year pick-me-up.  I went this year with the expectation of hearing some great talks from fellow moms on parenting with purpose, bringing beauty into our family's daily life, and the importance of good literature in shaping our children. 

And, as always, the conference delivered on all of those and more.  I came home with the desire to have a less chaotic home, to use the nice dishes for my family not just company, to read more good books to the boys, and to spend time alone with God daily.  (Just so you know, those are all a work-in-progress!  I have yet to successfully and fully implement any of them.  One day at a time, my friends.)  But the one talk that affected me the most was not from one of those seasoned moms.  It was from one of their daughters. 

She was a 15 year old amazing young woman who wanted to share her story with us.  She told us of the difficult year she had had, how she spent much of it fighting with her parents over a particular subject.  She wanted something, but they didn't think it was a good thing for her.  After months of arguing over this, her parents finally told her that she could make the decision on one condition...she had to be certain that this was what God wanted her to do.  She told us how she prayed and prayed about it, coming to the clear realization that God wanted her to let go of it.  She had been holding this in her hand so tightly for so long, and now God was asking her to open her hand.  She did, and quickly her relationship with her parents was mended.

The story brought to my mind the picture of a small child who has found a "treasure" and grasps it tightly.  As the mom tries to convince the child to open his hand so that she may see the object, he only squeezes tighter.  Mom doesn't know what it is.  It might be something she will let him keep, it might not.  But until he opens his hand for her to make sure it's ok for him, the struggle continues.   Anyone with a toddler has experienced this first hand, I am sure!

Isn't that how we are?  I find myself holding on to an idea, a desire for something, or a plan so tightly for so long.  I am certain this is what my Heavenly Father wants for me, so I squeeze my hand shut around it.  I obsess about it.  I protect it.  I advocate for it.  I will not let it go.

The point the young woman was trying to get across to us was that at some point we will have to trust that God is leading our children as well.  That we should give them room to seek Him and hear His voice.  It was a great message.  But I walked away from it with another message as well: 

Open your hand.       

You see, I had been holding on to something yet again.   Through-out my life as a Christian, I have had many opportunities to "give it to God", whatever the "it" of the moment may be.  I know in my mind that God loves me and takes care of me.  I know that His plan is always so much bigger and better than mine.  Yet, I regularly find my heart holding on to something.  And here I was again. 

Open your hand.

Those three words echoed in my mind and heart and soul for weeks.  They still do, in fact.  Because, at least for me, opening my hand is something God has to daily remind me to do....sometimes hourly.  Actually, if I am brutally honest, there are times when I have to open my hand so often, I feel like I am waving!!! 

So what are you holding on to? 

A plan?  A promise?  A hope?  A wish?  

Whatever it is, it cannot flourish while being smothered in your hand.  Let God take it and make it into so much more than you can ever imagine.  Release your will into His care. 

Open your hand.

In the wise words of the beloved Corrie ten Boom:
"Hold everything in your hands lightly, otherwise it hurts when God pries your fingers open."

God's Hand

I was thinking today about how God uses us, even when we don't realize it.  I am repeatedly amazed at God's visible Hand in my life when I obey him.  I recently finished the book "Something More" by Catherine Marshall.  She ends chapter 5, which is entitled "The Joy of Obedience", with this statement:  "Always and always the understanding comes after the obedience."

How true is that?!  How often in our lives are we confused and flustered over something we don't really understand, but that we have to do, for one reason or another?  But once we do it, and look back on it, it suddenly all makes sense.  Trials are no fun, that's for sure.  We must remember, however, that God is refining us.  We must trust His guidance.

And what about those times when you think you should do something, but you aren't sure if it is from God or not.  I'm sure many of you have gotten this forwarded email story called "Buy the Milk", author unknown.  It is a beautiful story, worth reading again:

A young man had been to Wednesday night Bible Study. The Pastor had spoken about "listening to God and obeying the Lord's voice."
The young man couldn't help but wonder, "Does God still speak to people?" After service he went out with some friends for coffee and pie and they discussed the message. Several different ones talked about how God had led them in different ways. It was about ten o'clock when the young man started driving home. Sitting in his car, he just began to pray,"God, if you still speak to people, speak to me. I will listen. I will do my best to obey."
As he drove down the main street of his town, he had the strangest thought to stop and buy a gallon of milk. He shook his head and said out loud, "God is that you?" He didn't get a reply, so he started on toward home. But again, the thought came to him... buy a gallon of milk.
The young man thought about Samuel, and how he didn't recognize the voice of God, and how little Samuel ran to Eli. "Okay, God, in case that is you, I will buy the milk." It didn't seem like too hard a test of obedience. He could always use the milk. So, he stopped and purchased the gallon of milk and started toward home.
As he passed Seventh Street, he again felt the urge, "Turn down that street." This is crazy, he thought, and drove on past the intersection. Again, he felt that he should turn down Seventh Street. At the next intersection, he turned back and headed down Seventh. Half jokingly, he said out loud, "Okay, God, I will".
He drove several blocks, when suddenly, he felt like he should stop. He pulled over to the curb and looked around. He was in a semi-commercial area of town. It wasn't the best, but it wasn't the worst of neighborhoods either. The businesses were closed and most of the houses looked dark, like people were already in bed.
Again, he sensed something, "Go and give the milk to the people in the house across the street." The young man looked at the house. It was dark and it looked like the people were either gone or they were already asleep. He started to open the door and then sat back in the car seat. "Lord, this is insane. Those people are asleep and if I wake them up, they are going to be mad and I will look stupid."
Again, he felt like he should go and give the milk. Finally, he opened the door and said, "Okay God, if this is you, I will go to the door and I will give them the milk. If you want me to look like a crazy person, okay. I want to be obedient. I guess that will count for something but, if they don't answer right away, I am out of here."
He walked across the street and rang the bell. He could hear some noise inside. A man's voice yelled out, "Who is it? What do you want?"
Then the door opened before the young man could get away. The man was standing there in his jeans and T-shirt. He looked like he just got out of bed. He had a strange look on his face and he didn't seem too happy to have some stranger standing on his doorstep.
The man asked, "What is it?"
The young man thrust out the gallon of milk and said, "Here, I brought this to you," he said.
The man took the milk and rushed down a hallway speaking loudly in Spanish. Then from down the hall came a woman carrying the milk toward the kitchen. The man was following her holding a baby. The baby was crying. The man had tears streaming down his face.
The man began speaking and half crying, "We were just praying. We had some big bills this month and we ran out of money. We didn't have any milk for our baby. I was just praying and asking God to show me how to get some milk."
His wife in the kitchen yelled out,"I ask him to send an angel with some. Are you an Angel?"
The young man reached into his wallet and pulled out all the money he had on him and put it in the man's hand. Then he turned and walked back toward his car and tears were streaming down his face. He knew then that God does still speak to people... and answer prayers.

This story chokes me up every time I read it.  But I know what you are thinking.  It's just a fictional story someone made up to solicit an emotional response from people, right?  Probably.  But I know for sure that God does use us to bless other people.  I have seen it in my own life.  A friend of mine has often told me that my obedience in helping to start a MOPS group saved her from complete insanity when her children were little.  I didn't really want to start the group.  But God told me to and I obeyed.  Through that many, many very close friendships were formed...friendships that truly were the "sane" force for us young moms.

I experienced this once again just this week.  Through this blog, in fact.  Prior to a few months ago, I had never even heard of Reece's Rainbow.  I came across them by accident, it would seem (I now know otherwise)...all because of a forwarded post on Facebook.  I was touched and blessed in tremendous ways through another blogger's obedience to God's call.  She inspired me to start my own blog...to do something to help these children who deserve loving homes, not institutions.  And after months of thinking about these children non-stop and praying about it, I did something.  I started this blog in an effort to help these children.  Little did I know that my obedience would in-turn touch someone else. 

A friend of mine from college contacted me yesterday after she read my blog.  It seems her family is planning to adopt and they have been considering Reece's Rainbow.  I know this doesn't seem like much...but, to me it was a lot.  A connection.  A note from God saying, "Yes.  You are on the right path."  That's what I got from it.  I had no idea that someone I knew was praying about that decision.  Maybe that was a nudge from God for her as well, I don't know.  What I do know is that when we obey God, His blessings are poured out on many.

Take a minute to check out the blog that got it all started in my heart, A Perfect Lily.  I promise you will be touched beyond measure.  Not only does she have an amazing heart for God and these precious orhpans, but she is putting that into action in a MIGHTY way.  She regularly has amazing give-aways.  All you have to do is donate, post on Facebook or on your blog and let her know.  Then you will be entered to win one of many prizes.  Through give-aways like the current one and people just walking in obedience, she has already helped to raise tens of thousands of dollars for three little ones.  And on top of that, we have seen two of these precious children get homes and a family is inquiring about the third! 

They are just waiting on all the formal paperwork and such to be done, and then they get to leave the orphanage forever!  And all of this happened, because of one woman's obedience to God's nudgings....and in turn, many more people's obedience to spread the word and/or donate money.  God is GOOD!!! 

Don't ignore God's nudgings.  Does reading about this make you feel something?  Does your heart break when you watch the Today Show clip?  Then do something.  Post this link on Facebook.  Who knows, maybe one of your friends is waiting for this nudging from God.  Or maybe a friend of a friend. 

Maybe through the continual forwarding and reposting, sweet Danila will find her family. 

What if YOU are a vital piece of that chain? 

It doesn't take much to get the word out.  Don't just let your feelings end with you. 

C.S. Lewis, speaking of man, says it so wonderfully in "The Screwtape Letters": 

"The more often he feels without acting, the less he will be able ever to act, and, in the long run, the less he will be able to feel..."

Do you long to see God's Hand in your life?  Do your part and then sit back and watch Him work.  I promise, you will be blown away!

"Faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead."  James 2:17