I am not Abraham...that's for sure.

 Oh course there are the obvious reasons, like I don’t have a camel, I am not in the desert, and Im a girl……you can come up with your own.  But I have realized I couldn’t even play him at a costume ball.  In Romans, Paul recaps the story of Abraham.  Not that he came from Ur or that he married Sara, or that he lied to a king in Egypt (all the soap opera parts), he leaves those out and focuses on the meat.  How very Paul of Paul.  (can I say that?)   The word says that Abraham believed with “hope against hope” that he would become the father of many nations.  He believed what the Lord promised despite every single circumstance in his life that screamed out, “Liar Liar pants on Fire”.  How?   Hope.  Hope is powerful.  Hope burns deep in your belly and redefines the here and now, it is the true liquid courage that pulses through your veins when the Spirit of the Lord makes a covenant with you.  Hope against Hope makes you a Believer. 

Abraham …..HOPED, and did not weaken in faith.  I read this verse (Romans 4:19) today and had a break through moment.  I. Am. Not. Abraham.  Wow.  That is an Oprah, “AHHH_HAA” moment for you on a bran-spaken new white couch with millions of your best friends watching as they eat cookie dough batter (you know you have done this too…don’t judge).    I had to sit back and let this sink all the way down.  Down to the part that I have padded with great bible studies, scripture, words of truth and belief systems.  The part that I don’t ever truly admit to because to be honest, I didn’t even know it was really there.  That is the part that the Lord is interested in now.  The hidden part of me that stores the stuff that makes you sink when you are walking on water, or lie when your wife is too pretty, or strike a rock out of anger, or hear the crow of the rooster for the third time.  Doubt.  Its Doubt. 

You have to understand that I am in the middle of the end of this adoption.  The thing that the Lord called me to walk in, the promise of a child, just like Abraham.  Abraham waited for years, I have waited for months.  Abraham hoped against hope, and I…..I????

You see the verse says that Abraham did not weaken in faith when he looked at his body( that’s a big one….Ive had two kids….you get the picture), which was, “as good as dead”, or that Sarah his wife could not have children, that he did not waver in God because of doubt, because of distrust, but that he GREW in his faith because of these things.  Grew!  He GREW not because of what did happen, but because it didnt happen immediately.   This is so opposite of my thinking that I can hardly wrap my brain around it. 

I grow when the Lord DOES something!  When he shows me his glory, when he does great things for my life, when he makes the doors fly wide open and when he answers my calls.  That is when I want to grow!  I grow through movement, through change (Im a military wife after all)……not through stillness!!??   And then comes verse 22, “That is why his faith was “counted to him as righteousness”.  And then it comes.  That moment where this realization flows over me, when the why’s and the how’s and the do’s fall away and I see it.  I see Him in this.  Abraham grew in the stillness that led to growth and took years to birth life.  He grew when everything in this world said NO but he believed anyway.  He believed and so will I.  I am not Abraham.  But I am growing in this stillness.  Our adoption seems to be stalled out, everything that can go wrong is going wrong.  I have no great story of how the Lord has overcome the circumstances, or busted in the door to shoot first and ask questions later.  That is not what has happened here.  Things have gone wrong, and are still not going right.  But Abraham had years of this, years of circumstances that tested him to question God.  But in spite of that, He Believed and HOPED!   I want to grow when things don’t happen, I want to grow in this hurt, I want to grow by crying in the shower at the throne of the Lord and by holding on to His promise that I will have a child named Moses.   “But the words “it was counted to him” were not written for his sake alone, but for ours also.  It will be counted to us who believe in Him”.  Oh how true is this truth.  Amen and more Amen.