A Ram in the Thicket

I'm sure I've shared before a portion of my testimony when we were knee deep in the trials of infertility.  Technically, I guess we are still infertile as I have not had any children from my body, but I wouldn't describe us as in the trials of it now.  Happy children's voices tend to drown out the pain of trials.  There was a time, though where pain was my common denominator in life and I clung to it rather than seeking joy.  I've never experienced being so far from the Lord and yet held so tightly in His arms like that time.  I pushed Him away, doubted, feared and questioned Him while He pursued, blessed, loved and spoke to me in His great mercy over and over.  It was one of those times when my behavior did not warrant His mercy, but He gave it anyway that I was reminded of tonight.

It was at the point in our story where we were deciding how to proceed with this infertility thing.  We had options, they said.  There's always options.  Medications were the least invasive and then we could move up the scale venturing into needles and petri dishes and there was always surrogacy too.  It was quite overwhelming and scary.  I tried the meds for a while and the least troublesome side effect was my crazy mood swings.  Not a fun experience for an already grieving and heartbroken girl.  After a few months with no avail, the doctor asked where we wanted to go from there.

As I've said, I wasn't in a great place spiritually.  I wasn't seeking the Lord.  I wanted a fix to my problem, not His presence.  I had asked someone to pray for my healing and was basically told God didn't heal like He did in the Bible anymore.  In my ignorance then, I believed them and abandoned the hope that God would change things for us.  I was alone and I thought we had to make this decision by ourselves.  One day, I was wrestling in my mind about it and the story of Sarah and Abraham popped in my mind.  You know the one...Sarah is 80 and barren and Abraham is 90 and the Lord tells them to get ready because they're going to have a son.  Abraham laughs.  Sarah laughs.  Then, ten years later, Sarah has a son.  Their laughter turns to joy.  I wanted to cling to that promise like it was for me.  Lord, are you telling me I will carry a child too???  Almost instantly, another part of their story came to my mind.  In between the time the Lord had originally promised Abraham and Sarah that they would have a child to when they finally did, Sarah began to get anxious.  She doubted God and started to take matters into her own hands.  In Bible times, that played out as Sarah convincing her husband to get one of her own servant girls pregnant.  That wouldn't go over well nowadays, but Sarah. Was. Desperate.  Abraham did what Sarah told him to and a son was born, but the problem was, he wasn't the one God had promised and no one had let God in on the change of plan.  He wasn't changing His end of the bargain at all.

As soon as I recounted that story in my mind, the merciful Spirit of the Lord spoke straight to my heart that FOR US (no judgement to anyone else making other choices), to go forward with any of the treatment options available to us was to step out from under God's promise and plan for us.  He was going to do this His way.  Peace flooded my soul for the first time in years and I shared what God had said to me with Jason.  He agreed that we should obey and we never went back to an infertility doctor again. 

As we waited for God to "do His thing" in our lives, God used other parts of Abraham and Sarah's story to speak to me as well.  After they finally had their son and when he was still young, God asked Abraham to take his son Isaac to the mountain and sacrifice him.  Every parent can feel that gut wrenching pain Abraham must have felt.  But, he was obedient and took Isaac, bound him and when his knife was raised above him, Abraham heard the Lord say STOP, and he looked in the thicket nearby and there was a ram stuck there that God had provided for him to sacrifice instead.  The Lord taught me through that scene that following Him means laying down my plans, my dreams, my desires and following after Him with all I have, knowing I can trust Him with my most precious treasures.  I had to come to the place where I could willing lay down my desires for a family, not expecting anything in return, trusting that God's heart for me is good. 

Fast forward to today when I had my sewing machine pulled out making matching Thanksgiving shirts for my three littles.  I had decided on using some scrap material in the shape of each of their initial with turkey faces on them.  Before putting on the turkey faces, I laid out each initial to size it up from my oldest child to the youngest and there, spelled out in front of me was God's promise and provision He has been teaching me for around fourteen years now.

I laughed out loud like Sarah did all those years ago.  God has done GREAT things for me.  He has kept His promises to me and made provision for me in ways I would have never dreamed.  He has provided (and continues to provide) a "ram" in the thicket for me.  He is trustworthy and faithful and above all, He is GOOD.

And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called the name of that place, “The Lord will provide”; as it is said to this day, “On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.” 

^{Genesis 22:13-14 ESV}

^{He gives the barren woman a home making her the joyous mother of children.}  

^{Praise the Lord!}

^{Psalm 113:9 ESV}

^{Dear friends....the Lord is not slow in keeping His promises...}

^{Based on 2 Peter 3:8-9}

The I'll Nevers and the God Who Blows Them Out of the Water

During the years of 1999 through 2009, I said on countless occasions that I would NEVER move back to Abilene.  Having spent a year and a half in an Abilene university and snagging the man of my dreams for a husband, I was quite content to live out what I knew-busy city life in a huge metroplex.  And that's just what we did.  We lived close to my family, made family-like friends and enjoyed the fun of living in a city where there is always something to do.  Then, in the summer of 2009, God lit a spark of possibility that we should infact, move to Abilene.  Sigh.  I left my family, my dear friends, my huge shopping mall and green grass and trees and we followed where He led.  And it has been, for the most part, glorious!

I find that I make these I'll Never statements more frequently then I care to admit.  Like, 'I'll never yell at my kids" or "I'll never let my kids eat chicken nuggets in the backseat while watching a movie when we are only going to Walmart simply because I need the peace and quiet".  Clearly, the me who said those things hadn't met the me that lived out the opposite.  Whether in big or small things, I have ideas about how life is supposed to go for myself and nine times out of ten, those ideas are in direct conflict with the heart of God for me.

Jason and I have always said that we would NEVER foster children, just for the sake of fostering.  Once we started adopting, our intent has been to join children to our forever family.  We knew that we could never allow a child to come into our home and then watch them leave one day.  Nope, fostering was too risky.  We very carefully allowed ourselves to obey when we were called to receive our youngest daughter last year through the Foster system.  We were comforted that her situation seemed ideal for adoption, but in the system, nothing is guaranteed.  Our worst fears were realized when early on things seem to go off track for us to adopt her.  Still, God has been faithful to His promises, even amidst my fears and anxiousness.  Last week, she officially crossed over from a foster placement to an adoptive placement and we are looking forward to her adoption finalization in the next few months.  Whew!  We made it through that!  Now, we thought, we'll NEVER do fostering again until we are done adding to our family.

Enter again, the God who likes to blow my I'll Nevers out of the water.  Through a series of events, He has brought us in relationship to a two year old little boy who needs a foster home.  My strong, keeps-his-emotions-under-wraps hubby, melted at the first meeting of this little guy.  And the little spark from the heart of God started again in our hearts.  Would you share your home with this little boy, even for a short time, if I ask you to? I'd like to say that immediately we jumped up and down, thrilled to our core to obey, but we are a bit more like our children at times.  Obedience doesn't often come easily or with a smile on our faces.  We prayed and weighed and asked and thought.  We crunched numbers and analyzed our kids and at the end of the day, we faced the real question.  Is there anything that is too much for us to do if God Himself asks us to do it? 

I often think of Mother Theresa. I'm not Catholic, but I think for our culture, Mother Theresa represents an unattainable, sacrificial living for others.  This dear woman, compelled by the love that she had been given from God, gave up her creature comforts and worldly desires to serve the lowest of the low in places most of us dare not go.  I think of her and resolve that I certainly could not do what she did.  Thankfully, I don't think God is asking me to, but her life begs the same question.  Is there anything that is too much for me to do if God Himself asks me to do it?  I think if Mother Theresa could answer for herself, she would say that how she lived her life was but a small offering in return of what she had received.  Her sacrifice, so large to us, pails in comparison to the sacrifice her Savior had made for her.

The same is true for us.  I have been Redeemed.  Rescued.  Bought with a price.  Given freedom beyond my comprehension.  Is there not a way that I can offer a warm bed to a child in need though my heart and my comfort be put on the line? And with that, we are doing something we said we'd never do--we are becoming Foster parents without a scope for adoption.  As the days get closer for him to join us, we are getting more and more giddy!  That's what Jesus does.  He gives you the opportunity to follow Him in adventure and then let's you have the butterflies of excitement along the way like you're on your very first amusement park ride.  Honestly, following after Him is getting pretty addictive.

Our new boy will be here November 4th and we are busy about sharing the news with our family and the people we do life with and preparing our home for his arrival.  It's a fun and crazy time.  As we share the news, there is sometimes applause that comes from people thrilled by what we're doing.  But, those applause are not for us.  We're not the stars.  This is about Jesus.  He's the star of this show.  This has been His idea from the beginning.  It was He that brought a bouncy blonde toddler to us seven and a half years ago.  It was He that delivered a three day old miracle to our literal doorstep last year.  And it is He that has sewn a love in our hearts for a boy so polar opposite of us that we aren't able to contain ourselves.  He gets the applause.  He has rescued us-- now, we make MUCH of Him.

Daddy's Girl

I'm a daddy's girl.  And not in the way that I wasn't a mama's girl too.  I just really love my daddy in a world where girls crave the attention of their dads and then push them away in spite of themselves.  I'm such a daddy's girl that while I have a lot of friends who comfortably refer to God as "Daddy" or "Papa", I have struggled with this for myself.  I love God with all my heart, but I treasure the man who is my daddy.  It's this kind of devotion that is the basis for my heartache the last eleven years since my daddy passed away.

I think about him and his loss a lot.  I don't audibly talk about it that much, but I think about it at least daily.  This morning has been no different.  I found myself thinking about the growth that I've had spiritually and as a person since he left.  Some of that growth, I fear, came directly because of his loss in my life.  That stirs even more sadness in my heart. 

And so I said to God,

I wish I had been more together, more mature.  That I didn't need to learn so many lessons that have come from his passing.  Maybe if I had already gotten all of that, You wouldn't have had to take him when you did. 

Holy Spirit immediately responded, "I am the designer of all things.  I work everything out for good.  There is nothing that you could've or should've done." 

Still, I pressed Him, I wish that I was the apple of Your eye. 

"You are.  I've told you that a million times."

No, I mean, I wish I was the star pupil at the front of the class.  Having it all together, knowing all the answers.  I'm the one with wrinkled paper in the back looking for my dropped pencil.

"I don't have a class of students, Sweetie.  I have children, whom I love and adore.  You can't perform well enough to have anything all together.  I've got it together for you.  You can't know anything already because I reveal myself to you as you press into Me."

It's here that I sink into the love that He's poured over me many times before and also here where I realize that the daddy that I love so dearly, learned all his good daddy-ing ways from the real and true Daddy. 

I'm extremely blessed to be in the legacy of both.

The Day I Would Do Over

I've talked before about how I don't really do regrets.  I don't like them.  I try to learn from my past mistakes and move forward.  Like updating my blog more often, but I digress.  This morning though, I was thinking about something our pastor talks about occasionally.  He calls them mulligans, which is a fancy golf term I don't understand that simply means, do over.  When you get a mulligan, you get a do over.  I'm sure there are many things in my life where a do over would come in handy, but today only one came to mind.

It was in the fall of 2001.  It was actually September 12, 2001.  I was not in a good place.  I had been struggling with panic and anxiety attacks for a couple of weeks and when I had awakened the day before, I began to spiral almost out of control.  To a person already struggling with anxiety, three planes flying into buildings and our nation being attacked doesn't make anything better.  So, for whatever reason, even though I was twenty-two and married, my mom felt like my safe place.  For several weeks, I didn't leave her side.  I went everywhere with her and on September 12th, I was with her and my grandmother (MeMaw) at MeMaw doctor's appointment. 

When we got called back to the exam room and finally saw the doctor, MeMaw began telling him about her back pain.  She was already in her seventies at that time and had raised four children, worked on a dairy farm for a good portion of her life, lived through two strokes, back and other surgeries and in the next few years would live through a brain aneurysm so we wouldn't have made a trip to the doctor simply because she had slept wrong the night before or something.  Still, the doctor was arrogant and rude and didn't really want to listen to my MeMaw or the pain she was describing.  He never looked her in the eye until he had enough of her talk.  When he did stare straight at her, he grabbed her not-all-that-big belly and shook it at her a bit and said "This, Mrs. Tucker, is the source of your back pain.  Get rid of this and your pain will go away." Turning away to write on the chart, my mom and I noticed the shame and hurt come across MeMaw's face as she lowered it to look down at what he had diagnosed as a problem.  After a few seconds and the initial shock wore off of us, I remember strong words coming from my mom to the doctor, but she was soon dismissed as well and he left the room.  Mom tried to comfort MeMaw, but the damage had been done and we left the office, MeMaw in a different kind of pain than when she had arrived.

When I think back about that day, I would use a mulligan there.  I would be in a different frame of mind; not afraid of my own shadow.  The part of me that is still being transformed would stand up and give a swift uppercut with my elbow to that doctor's jaw (in a mostly metaphorical way) and we would parade MeMaw out of there in triumph over the cruelness of a rotten man.  And even as I type this I realize how opposite this scene is from the way I was brought up.

Growing up in church you are taught about the virtues of being meek, mild and slow tempered.  I don't disagree with those virtues at all.  I wish I had more of them.  But, when you look at Jesus' character, it's hard to ignore that He was also a bit feisty at times.  In his book Beautiful Outlaw, John Eldredge described Jesus as having fierce intention.  Consider John 2:13-17:

¹³ The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. ¹⁴ In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there. ¹⁵ And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. ¹⁶ And he told those who sold the pigeons, “Take these things away; do not make my Father's house a house of trade.” ¹⁷ His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.”

Did you catch that?  Jesus got REALLY angry.  He was so angry that He didn't act on it right away, but rather He went off and made a whip to really show off His anger.  Meek and mild? No.  Righteously angered and taking charge? Yes!  

Just like the time with MeMaw, the places in my life where I could really use a do over is when I have either a) blown my top in an unbecoming way or b) passively sat by and watched unlovable things be done to lovable people. Jesus didn't do this.  He started with holding God and His word as non-negotiables and nothing to be cheapened.  Then He stood up and defended the defenseless and the lonely and abused all with calculated words and actions cutting to the very root of sin and pain. 
The truth is, MeMaw is dancing in Heaven today with a new body and I'm pretty sure, remembers nothing about that day in the doctor's office.  Going back and living out my do over fantasy would do nothing to add or subtract from the eternal joy she is experiencing right now.  But, here's my goal:  I want to be like Jesus.  That's it.  Sure, I want to be a great wife and mother, I want to do great things in the Kingdom, maybe be fantastically good at something before I die, but absolutely none of that is worth anything if it doesn't resemble Jesus. I want to be good and kind and honorable like He is, but I also want to be calculating and strong like He is in the face of injustice.  As my days increase, I want there to be less situations where I would like a do over and more and more where people can see Jesus in me, taking calculated steps to stand up for injustice in the poor, in the lonely, in the forgotten faces of this world.  Jesus didn't need any mulligans and I don't want to need them either.

Tough Love For A Flat Head

Tuesday I took our sweet baby girl to her 4 month check up. All is fine except she's beginning to develop a flat head. Ask my mother and she'll blame this generation's rule not allowing tummy sleep, but the doctor said she needs more awake tummy time. At 4 months, she hasn't rolled over yet and screams so the Russians can hear when I put her on her tummy time play mat. Ten minutes of screaming twice a day won't hurt her, says the doc. So I come home and attempt to suffer through ten minutes watching the poor girl scream.

As I'm watching her wailing little body with one eye and the other on the clock, I began to ache with her, so identifying with that pain. It seemed familiar to me, seeing her kick and scream, helpless to get out on her own. The worst part I think, was that she knew I was there watching her. Why wasn't I saving her from this misery, she must have thought.

The scene seemed familiar to me because I'm on my own tummy time play mat right now. This whole situation with her birth father and the uncertainty of who will be her forever parents is nauseatingly similar. I couldn't be more powerless to get us out of this situation. In fact, every attempt from my tenacious personality to fix this has been shut down. I've been forced to rely solely on my prayers, the ferocious prayers of my friends and family and the steadfast love of The Lord. What??? Rely on Him alone?! But, I'm so used to fixing things with His help on the side. That's the way I like it. That's what's comfortable. This way hurts. Really bad.

And so my cycle each day is wake up fighting anxiety and fear, beg The Lord to take this away, cry, declare His goodness, fight anxiety and fear, beg The Lord to take this away, cry...I think you see the pattern. This gets particularly exhausting while taking care of four kids and a home.

And sometimes the worst part is knowing that He's there with me, watching me, aching for me, but won't save me. I want to be angry at Him. I want to scream! But, I know He's a much better Daddy then I am a Mommy and he doesn't want me to have a spiritual flat head anymore than I want my sweet baby to have a physical one. He knows that pain for a little while yields victory for eternity and He won't rob me of that victory because I'm uncomfortable with pain.

Honestly, right now, the understanding of this doesn't make it better. I'm still desperate for Him every moment and continue to beg Him to move mountains and shake the ground so we can raise this beautiful girl as our own. But seeing His perspective in a natural way does remind me of His vast love for me and I know His heart has only good for me.