I peed my pants in College...didnt you?

I peed my pants in college.  Yep, I’m that cool.  As a sophomore at the University of South Alabama, I decided to go on a water diet.  It was a simple plan.  Super smart plan.  This is how it went.  You drink water.  Lots and lots of water.  When you think you are going to combust all over your music theory class, you are close to achieving the highest level of greatness with this water diet, so you simply drink more water.  And I thought it was brilliant.  That is all.  True Story. 

So one day I am downing unnatural amounts of water during my music theory class.  I look like I am doing my own sort of weirdo Chinese water torture and others are starting to notice.  I smile and tell them how I am on this super smart water diet.  I am brilliant (Did I already say that?).  If you are right now imagining all the crazies running around telling you that they eat just like the cave men during the Paleolithic period, claiming that people who never got over four feet tall and probably had no teeth past the age of ten and died by the age of twenty-five had the best nutrients ……..you are doing a great job at imagining my kind of crazy.    

Class dismisses and I pick up my over-sized water jug and my purse and start out the door.  I have to make it across several fields to my statistics class in ten minutes.  I am wearing my normal uniform.  Sophie shorts, a Chi-Omega t-shirt, brown rainbow flip-flops and nothing more.  So I start to run . . .walk . . .run . . .as fast as I can because I have been late to stats more times than I can count.  Half-way across the first field it hits me.  Not like a little message that is whispered to my brain.  My bladder screams in its most angry dragon voice, “I HAVE TO PEE NOWWWWWWWWWW!”    I panic.  There is no where to go.  Literally.  There is no where “TO GO.” 

So I spot the nearest building.  The administration building where the Dean of Students and the President of the University hang out.  I make a mad dash in my flip-flops for the front door.  I make it in the building and I am running up the stairs to find the women’s bathroom that is for some reason NOT on the first floor where it would TOTALLY make sense for it to be. No,no, it is on the third floor.  As I am running up the stairs, someone up above slams the hallway door and it scares me.  I don’t think you get it.  IT. SCARES. ME.  I jump and it all comes running down my leg.  I stand frozen as the waterfall flows down the stairs.  There is no going back.

 So I sit.  I sit down on those cold, lonely stairs and contemplate the fact that my Sophie shorts are now so wet they are sticking to my thighs.  And then it hits me. “What does one do when one is eighteen and pees her pants in public?”  I reassure myself that I am not truly “in public.”  That would mean someone was around.  I peed my pants by myself. I feel much better about that.  Just when I am feeling better by my li’l pep-talk, the door opens and down comes a group of students.  They see me.  They see the water still dripping down the steps and their lips curl up and they can’t stop staring.  They really were overly nosey and should have controlled their surprised faces.  Come on people, it’s just a little pee…on the stairs….of a public building……in college……  The moment of silence could not go on any longer and they were clearly rude enough not to talk first, so I smiled and said in my most classy voice, “Yep, I just wet my pants.”  They could see that, and they were a little grossed out, but it happens.  “Yes, this happens…all the time…well not with me…but with others…I mean…..”  I had nothing more to say to them. 

After a while I decided I was not going to make it to statistics.  Another miss.  So I made my way to the girls’ bathroom where I dried my shorts on with the hand-dryer until I could sneak out unnoticed.  I got into my car and drove home.  No more class for that day.

That night I picked up Jeremy Gibbs for a date.  He would later become my husband, and I’m pretty sure it was this date that sealed the deal.  You see, when he got into the car, he kept crinkling his nose up.  He finally looked at me and said, “It smells funny in here.”  I laughed and threw back my beautiful hair and with tons of southern belle charm I said, “Oh don’t worry about that honey.  I peed my pants today and got in my car with wet pants….that’s the smell.”  I smiled my million-dollar smile at him.  Then he knew it was true love. 

Growing a Zacchaeus Tree

Growing a Zacchaeus Tree

“And he was seeking to see who Jesus was….” Luke 19:3

We have become gardeners.  Nothing special, we just have red gloves with green turtles on them, a spade, and a little rake.  Every morning we go to the back yard and water our garden.  We must wear our gloves, because that makes it official garden business.  Eight feet stand around the raised garden while eight hands dig, pull weeds (sometimes two of those little baby hands pull up my cucumbers. . . arrrrrrrgggghhhh….), and water.  We talk about the day, talk about what we are going to cook with our vegetables, talk about who loves red pa-ta-toes (tomatoes) and who loves squishy squash.  Then, when we feel like we have covered all of the official gardening duties for the day, we take our gloves off and stand in a circle beside the garden.  After deciding who will go first and who will go last, we bow our heads and pray.  This is the best part of being gardeners.  I stand and watch as their little faces pray with the morning sun beaming on their cheeks.  They ask Jesus to grow their garden deep and BIG!  They ask for big red pa-ta-toes and for seeds that will grow.  They giggle and squirm and swing from side to side as they pray like they are playing red rover.  I pray, too. I pray while I watch their little lives grow in faith. 

We started the garden to have vegetables, but it has become so much more.  It has become a very tangible way for my children to see the Lord’s work.  They are watching as seeds are planted in good soil and grow into seedlings that eventually produce the food (fruit) for which they were created.. 

I also watch my very own garden grow.  These children that were brought forth from good soil are being watered with the word of God each morning at our kitchen table, fertilized with the Holy Spirit during each prayer time, stretched by faith and understanding, and raised to produce the fruit for which they were each created in the Kingdom of God.  I pray that the Lord will water them, stretch them, shine upon them, and prepare them to be worthy of the calling. 

Yesterday we stood at our garden, holding hands and smiling at a job well done.  Mattox turned to me and said, “We are growing a Zacchaeus tree!”  I laughed and asked her why she thought that.  “Zacchaeus wanted to see Jesus, but he couldn’t, so the tree helped him.  He climbed it and it helped him see Jesus.  That’s our garden. It’s helping us to see Jesus just like the Zacchaeus tree!”  I held her hand a little tighter and smiled big.  Yes, we are growing a Zacchaues tree, and it is helping us to see Jesus. 

Mommies, remember that everything we do should be pointing those little feet to the path that will lead them to Jesus.  Grow a Zacchaeus tree every day in every way for your children.  Plant the seed early, grow deep roots, and pray that the Lord will make it grow reaaaaalllllly BIG and Strong! 

“And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, since he (Zacchaeus) is also a son of Abraham.  For the Son of Man came to SAVE the lost.”  Luke 19:9.

Riding with a Soldier

A little over a year ago I was traveling from Germany (home), to Alabama (Mimi’s house), with my circus children to visit my family.  After a 5:30 wake-up call, hours standing in line holding my 2.5-year-old on my right hip while holding the hand of my 6-year-old, an 11-hour fun-filled trip of pull-ups, spilled drinks, Disney movies, color crayons, lost sippy cups, pull-up nightmares, plane-toilet drama, and tears of “joy,” we finally landed in Atlanta, Georgia.  We all sighed a deep breath of relief when we made our connection flight to Pensacola, FL.  LAST LEG OF THE TRIP!  Can I get an Amen and Hallelujah? 

We got on the plane and started to get settled.  At this point of the trip, I have stopped making eye contact with any other humans in my vicinity besides the ones who came from my loins.  People, we have been traveling for hours at this point and it is close to like 2 a.m. for us who are still on Germany time and we look and smell like road kill.  So we get the DVD player out, the blankies, the toys, the kitchen sink. . .(you get the picture) and try to love each other through one more flight.  After the flight attendant explains the emergency exits and I day dream about us all sliding down the big yellow slide that comes out of the side of the plane, the pilot comes on the speakers with a special announcement. 

“We are honored to be riding with SGT ______, on his final journey home to Pensacola from Afghanistan.”

Mattox immediately pipes up, “Afghanistan!??  That is where my daddy lived!  He was there a loooonnnggg time!”  I reassure her that yes, it is the same place and we talk about the amazing memory of the day Jeremy came to us after his final journey home from Afghanistan.  There is nothing like that moment.  The moment you have dreamed about, prayed for, played out in your mind a million different times over an entire year of separation, that moment when you are at last together again.  I remember well making signs to hold up for him to read.  Mattox was about 3.5 years old and she drew a family portrait for Daddy.  We looked like hotdogs with worms growing out of our heads, but it was priceless because it showed us holding hands with Jeremy.  We hadn’t held those hands in so long………..just the drawing made me tear up.  And we waited in this hot gym’ we waited and waited for him to come marching in.  “They” tell you to come at a certain time, but “they” are never sure what time that C17 will actually come rolling down the tarmac.  But then it happens. People start to stir, excitement rolls through the air and people start to straighten their clothes and their hair……THEY are coming!  Our boys are home! 

He came in first, calling the soldiers to attention and standing with pride and exhaustion ten feet in front of me.  Jeremy was in front of me, standing at attention.  The soldiers try so hard to keep their faces still and stoic, but they can hear their babies calling, “DADDYYYYYY” and you see their resolve break.  Some have tears coming down their cheeks. Some are smiling. Some are biting the insides of their cheeks. Some are staring at their newborn babies whom they have yet to hold.  Then the Colonel says they are released and the sea of people engulfs the heroes.  

That memory is playing through my head while we fly across the sky to Pensacola that day.  It was a short flight, only 45 minutes and then the landing gear was coming down.  As we landed, the pilot made one more announcement.  The plane came to a stop and he said,

 “Please allow us to let SGT ______, off the plane first.  His family has waited for their soldier to come home.  Please remain seated until he is safely off the plane.” 

And then,  No. One. Moved.  No soldier stood up.  No man in green came forward.  No. One. Moved.  The kids were looking back and forth to see the guy who dressed like daddy.  But no one moved.  I was sitting by the window during this flight and I noticed a commotion by the side of the plane.  That’s when I saw him.  The brown box with an American Flag draped over it.  It was slowly but surely exiting the plane first.  I saw as a woman come from the shadows of the building and draped her body across the casket.  I saw her lie on that flag and embrace her soldier and my heart stopped.  The soldiers stood around the casket at attention as she lay with her soldier.  No one asked her to hurry up or to move; no one ushered her to the side or spoke to her.  The soldiers stood beside her, at attention, waiting and watching over her. 

“Mommy, where’s the soldier?  Where is he?”  Mattox and Bubba snapped me back from the deep grief and pain striking my heart.  I look at her, my six-year-old little girl, and pointed out the window while tears streamed down my face and pain held onto my heart.  She looked and saw the brown box, the American Flag, the back of a woman broken over the casket, a woman dressed in black.  “Is that how Daddy came home?  Did he come home in a box?”  No words.  Just a broken moment that stood still between her little face of pure curiosity and me.  “No, Daddy gave a year of his life, he worked hard and sacrificed much, but this soldier gave it all.  He sacrificed everything for our freedom.  So now we can thank him, we can be quiet and think about how much he gave for us, for all of us.” 

Slowly I gathered our bags, I hugged my children tight, and I took one more glance out the window to a sister I will never meet. A woman who has slept alone and cried alone, who has fed her children meal after meal praying for her soldier to come home soon, who has lost herself to that song on the radio that reminds her of him, who has sat at the red light praying for his safety even when it turns green, who has dreamt of him coming home, and lived for the calendar to pass by.  A woman who knows my life as a military wife, who has waited anxiously by the phone for the calls to hear his voice, and the dreaded call she hoped to never receive.  I will not forget her, dressed in black, lying on her soldier, crying onto the American Flag and I hope my daughter will not either.  She is a part of us; she is a part of this life that we live.  This Army of One.  We, the wives, husbands, and children that make up this military life, we are one.  We are the families of soldiers. We are the strong, the proud and the brave…..serving from home until our soldiers come home to us at night.

A Picture to Drown In

But when he saw the wind…….he began to sink

Matthew 14:30

A Picture to Drown IN?

Recently, I read the story of Charles Templeton.  Templeton was a close companion and teaching partner with Billy Graham in the 1940s.  He was even thought by some to have the potential to eclipse Graham as an evangelist (The Case for Faith pg 8).  After a night of hard drinking, Templeton found himself answering a call from his Savior on his knees in his hotel room.  Up all night and exhausted, he found peace in Christ.  A few fishermen once had a very similar early morning experience when they had been up all night fishing and heard the call of their Savior.  Like Peter James and John, Templeton was called to more than simply living life for himself.   He was called to bring others into the peace of Christ. Templeton quit the newspaper where he worked as a sports journalist and started a church which quickly had more than 1,200 seats filled each Sunday.  God was working powerfully through Templeton.  He was a pastor of a huge church in Toronto, Canada, where he hosted a Christian TV show on CBS once a week, and was traveling with Billy Graham on crusades across England, Scotland, and Europe.  But then, in the midst of the boat ride, Templeton saw the wind, and he began to sink.

In the book of Matthew we read the story of Peter walking on water towards Jesus.  The disciples are in the boat trying to cross the Sea of Galilee to get to where Jesus has instructed them to go.  On the fourth watch of the night, somewhere between 3 and 6 a.m, he disciples see a ghost walking towards their boat.  They are terrified until they realize it’s Jesus walking on water towards their boat.  I imagine they are then rubbing their eyes and afraid in a new sense of awe.  Jesus immediately gives them peace, saying, “Take heart, It’s me.  Don’t be afraid.”  Peter, asks a bold question.  “If it is really you, tell me to come to you and let me walk on water with you.” Peter steps out of that boat slowly, but surely.  He keeps his eyes on Jesus as his feet defy all of his rational thought, and walks firmly on water.  The Bible says that Peter came to Jesus, but then something happens that changes everything.  He sees the wind. 

Peter has walked on water, he has WALKED on water, but even more than that, he has “walked on the water and has come to JESUS”.  But then, he sees the wind.   Everything that has just happened is blown from his mind, and consumed by the wind. The wind, a natural force of the world that he has known his entire life, that he has felt with his hands, that has blown his fishing boat through the waters, that has ruffled his hair and refreshed his skin on a hot day.  The wind, which is what his world would call reality, comes crashing in and awakes his rational thought again.  We can almost hear how his mind might work, when he feels the wind and remembers a reality of nature, “I can’t walk on water.   This is impossible…….all of my life I have known you cannot  walk on water….what am I doing…why did I believe that I could walk on water?”   Once he saw the wind, he began to sink.  

Charles Templeton also saw the wind.  The Lord was doing mighty things through Templeton.  Templeton was on the spiritual Sea of Galilee and the Lord had called him out to walk with him, to come with him and defy the rational thought of the world.  He said that one day he was looking in Time Magazine and saw a picture of an African woman holding her dead baby in her hands.  The baby died because of a terrible drought that was causing massive famine in Africa.  Templeton said he looked at that picture and he thought, “Is it possible to believe that there is a loving or caring Creator when all this woman needed was rain?” (The Case for Faith)  That  picture was his wind.  Templeton started sinking. He felt the wind of doubt and never reached out for the hand of Christ to pull him back up and into the boat. 

It sounds sadly simple.  Doubt.  Doubt that blows in and changes our direction.  It distracts, destroys, and drowns us.  How did one picture drown a man?   Because the enemy knew exactly what doubt Templeton carried deep within him. 

We all carry some kind of doubt.  Recently, a friend of mine lost her young son to a brain tumor.  So many people had been praying that this child would be healed.  I had spent many mornings asking the Lord to hear our cries and heal this innocent, sweet child.  But he went to sleep four days ago, and never woke up.   I was amazed and in complete awe at his mother’s response.  On the day her sweet baby boy left this world and went to be with the Lord, Julie posted on FB,

“Today was a good day, truly it was, in all ways. Sad, yes, but still good. After the fierce storm that raged yesterday, today was glorious. Though weeping and mourning may last for a night, joy comes in the morning. Come to Me, you weary ones and I will give you rest...joy...peace.”

When the wind of this world was like a “fierce storm that raged,” this mother kept her eyes on Jesus and walked through the fire on water and did not sink.  I have to admit that after I read that Caleb had passed away, I thought, “Why didn’t the Lord heal him?  Do I really believe that the Lord hears our prayers?”  It was a moment of doubt.  I felt the wind and I was tempted to look at it, but the Lord is gracious and kept me steady.  He kept my eyes focused on Him. 

When Peter starts to sink, Jesus says something that breaks my heart to read.  I can hear the pain of his heart when he says, “Oh you of little faith, why did you doubt?”  I don’t here a rebuke, I hear His honest pain coming from his heart.  Jesus has been with Peter, teaching him, protecting him, providing for him, strengthening him, and will soon die for him, but Peter still doesn’t trust HIM.  But what does Jesus do?  “He immediately reached out his hand and took HOLD of him”.  Jesus reached out when Peter’s faith failed him, and took hold of him, until Peter was strong enough to walk on water again.    

Doubt will come into your life.  It comes into mine.  Don’t hide it; don’t bury it down inside of you.  Bring it to Christ.  Even though you feel the wind of doubt on your cheek, ruffling your hair, keep your eyes on Jesus.  He will take HOLD of you, and return you safely to the boat. 

Once Peter got to the boat, the Bible says something amazing happened.  The wind STOPPED.  Doubt does not have to drown you.  Give it to the Lord, honestly tell him of the wind you are feeling. The wind of this world, that can bear down, burn your face and make it hard to stand up straight as you walk on water.   Allow him to take hold of you and then the wind will stop.  The choice is here in these two men, either sink and ultimately drown, because the doubt consumes you like it did for Templeton.  Or like Peter, grab hold of the Savior who stands willing and waiting to pull you up from the depths of your doubts that wash over you like waves.  But be prepared for the miraculous because that is why He has called us! 

Do not drown in the doubt, but walk on the water with His truth and peace. 

Trusting God with my Babies

Yesterday I had a conversation with a good friend that I completely, “got”.  She was talking about the fear of taking her oldest child to start school outside of their home.  She has been homeschooling and is really torn about continuing at home, or letting her son start school.  Once we got down to it, her fear is not what you think of when you weigh the pro’s and con’s of homeschooling vs public/private schools.  The issue at hand is trust.  Trusting that the Lord will protect her son when he is out of her hands.  Not what you thought?  Me neither.  But I sooo get this struggle.  I have my personal corner table in this struggle room. 

When I had children I started to really wrastle with the Lord (yes, Im southern so we wrastle down here) with this very question.  He kept asking me, “Do you trust me with them?”  I skirted around this issue, answered some really nice Sunday school answer and moved on.  But, as my family continued to grow and more children were added I heard the question more and more frequently, “Do you trust Me?”  I finally had to answer.  Good thing I was answering in the privacy of my very own Jesus/Julia coffee shop that we have created at my kitchen table because if I had been anywhere else I might have answered it much, much nicer.  There it was, the thing that I had kept in my heart, the truthful, ugly, yuckiness that is me. 

“No.  I don’t trust that Your good is the same as my good for my children.  I don’t trust that You will keep them from harm, from hurting, from suffering.  I don’t trust that you will not allow bad things to happen for Your ultimate will.  So, my answer is No, no, no”.

He did not throw my coffee cup at my head, or walk away with his hands up in the air muttering frustration underneath his breath, he didn’t even give a look of shock and surprise at my overly blunt and ugly answer.   He spoke these simple words. 

 “Whoever preserves his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it”.  Luke 17:33

There it was.  The answer that I had feared so much, the whole reason I did not want to have this conversation in the first place.  I feared the truth that I knew would come.  But when He showed this verse to me, in his scripture it did not bring the fear that I had anticipated, it brought peace.  Peace because the answer is so simple and yet empoweringly fierce with the reality of truth. 

He will not promise me that my children will never hurt, never suffer, never lack for food or water, never face the hard reality that this world is a broken, shell of what it was meant to be in the beginning of time.  My children will walk this hard road because we are not home yet, we are not at the end of the race, we are in the dead-heat of running with perseverance of allowing suffering to produce endurance and endurance character and character hope.  And it is in the race, that they will find life.  I cannot preserve them from this world, I cannot lay my body over them and protect them from the world (oh how I would if I could), but I can trust that losing this life, handing it over to the Lord will preserve it.  How much more do I want them to know the Lord than I want them to be just….safe.  Safe.  It no longer holds the same value it once did.  

Hannah could not keep Samuel safe, she had to trust that the Lord would raise him.  Jochebed could not protect Moses with her own two hands, Elizabeth could not protect John the Baptist from death, Mary could not hang on the cross for her son either.  Jesus had to walk it and Mary had to let him. 

We have to allow our children to walk with the Lord, and trust that He has an ultimate plan for good not to harm for our children.  If we don’t allow them to walk and fall with Him, then we are standing in the way of their relationship with the Lord. 

So I give my children back to Him, because they have always been His….I just got overly possessive.  Knowing that they will have to lose their lives in order to preserve them. 

The Words of Eternal Life

John 6:60-68

Have you ever agreed to an idea because it sounded wonderful, but you get into day 3 of traveling from Alabama to California to see Yosemite Park, packed into an RV like a clown car with 15 family members and realize you might have been taking too much cough syrup the day you agreed to this “adventure”?  But then after you fold yourself out of the fun mobile and see the absolute beauty of God’s creation and you stand hand in hand with the people you love the most in the world and realize you made it through this together.  The memories of laughter in the RV come flooding back, of cards games, dirty diapers, spilled sippy cups, long stories and camp fire songs hit your throat and make the tears stream down your face because the moment is so beautiful…….that is what this adoption is like.  Clown-car and all (because when you go through this, so does your family and friends….can I get an AMEN?)

After waiting 4 weeks for what should have been a quick (ha ha I laugh at this word now) Embassy Appointment, we finally have the Birth Parent Interview completed.  This was a challenge to get Moses’ birth father and the Embassy Consulate in the same room, but the Lord is good with the word challenge!  It’s His thing. 

In regards to my last post, I should clarify.  I was not saying that I don’t believe in God or that I don’t aspire to have faith like Abraham.  In fact I was actually saying the exact opposite.  This process of pruning and refining that the Lord has allowed me to walk in has showed me how deeply flawed I am and I how amazingly merciful the Lord is.  On Sunday we visited Jeremy’s parents church in Silver Hill, Alabama.  Their pastor preached from John 6.  This is where Jesus feeds the 5000.  Then after their bellies are full with bread and they are happy and content He starts to give them truth to feed their souls.  He tells them that they have just eaten bread but that He (Jesus) has come to feed them His flesh.  Yes, I would have loved to been in that crowd to watch the faces.  “And the bread that I will give for the life of this world is my flesh” John 6:51. 

“Truly I say to you unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you” John 6:53. 

I am sure the disciples where standing beside Jesus proud of the who loaves and fishes feat and then Jesus starts in on the crazy and they are probably started looking for the nearest exits.  They are standing in support of Jesus, working for him, spreading the truth about him to their neighbors, and wearing his campaign buttons…..and then…..Jesus becomes a cannibal (ok, so I have a flare for the dramatic). 

So this is the part we all know very well if you really think about it.  This is the part in the story that we have heard from our mouths and the mouths of our friends and loved ones so many times.  The part where we realize that God is not just our “Spiritual Sugar Daddy”, giving us what we want all of the time, granting the wishes we make on stars and making sure our bellies are full, but that He actually is going to require something from us as well.   The part where the disciples turn to eachother and say, “This is too hard…who can bear this?  Who can listen to this??” (John 6:60), and they start to grumble. 

Jesus calls them out on the carpet, “Do you take offense to this?  The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life” 6:61.    Are you offended that I have not come simply to make your desires come true, to feed you until your tummy burst, to give you everything you wanted in your American Dream, to make and adoption timeline?  Are you offended that it is so much bigger than you, so much broader and so much more deeper than your own personal quest to happiness? 

Then they walk away.  Not the people that didn’t ever believe in him, read verse 66 well.  His disciples walk away.  “They turned back and no longer walked with him”.  The weight of these words are crushing.  These words are death.  To turn back because the call was too much, it cost too much, asked too much, sacrificed too much.  To walk with Him no longer because it didn’t go the way we…. (I) thought it should go.   There have been moments in the depths of this adoption where I wanted to ball up my fist at the Lord and tell Him of the injustice, the failed promises, and the hurt he was causing me.  But those words, “to turn back and no longer walk with him” are death.  And they are never an option.  So I had a choice to go deeper, to allow Him to prune me with the hard or to just stay stagnate and stunted in my relationship with Him. 

Jesus asks the twelve left standing in front of him, “Do you want to go away as well?”.  The hurt, the disappointment, the cutting truth of this question penetrates my heart again and again.  And I find myself on the floor in front of the King, wanted to wash his feet with my hair. 

My answer is right there in the printed words of my bible, “Lord to whom shall I go?  You have the words of eternal life”.  These are the words that beat in my blood, that make the foundation of this world, that call me into his presence and break me again.  Where would I go precious Father?  Where could I run, How could I breathe without you?  You are my life.  You have the words of eternal life.  I am your bondservant forever and ever Amen. 

“Simon Peter answered him, Lord to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life”.  John 6:68

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.