I do not love to blog. I don't do it often. Mostly I blog because I have to. Words press themselves into my heart and on my brain. My mind writes line after line while I go about my day and then relentlessly reminds me to put the words to paper if I want relief.
Today I am blogging as a foster mother. We are a foster family facing the indescribable task of saying goodbye.
I have been pleading with God for months to do my will. My will made sense. My plan (even now) seems to be what is best for this child. Yesterday, when I knew for sure what would lie ahead, my body and emotions went into shear panic. I was sick, almost unable to breathe, and feeling completely unequipped (both spiritually and mentally) to even face life, much less face goodbye.
This morning I woke in complete and utter desperation to Christ. (as I should every morning, but rarely do) I just began to pray for something. I prayed for some supernatural thing aligning with God's will to occur and either bring me calm or change a situation that I have absolutely no control over.
My heart and mind urged me to the Bible, the perfect word of God, (as it should every morning, but I too rarely make the time for it)
I am not sure whether God leads me to certain passages or if the Bible is such a living scripture that any passage I read seems perfectly relevant to my situation. I read about the faith of Abraham and Sarah and then the story of Hagar and her son Ishmael and how God "was with the boy" as he grew up in the desert. I eventually landed on Phillipians 1:9. "And I pray this: That your love will keep on growing in knowledge and every kind of discernment, so that you can determine what really matters and can be pure and blameless in the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God."
So this became my chanting prayer and I repeated it in my heart and in my mind over and over and over again "I pray this, that my love will keep growing in knowledge and discernment,so that I can determine what really matters..."
What really matters?
To glorify God in everything I do.
God's perfect will, His perfect timing, His perfect plan, will always glorify Him. This is a promise I know to be true.
So while going through our morning circus training of brushing 92 teeth, pouring Jack in skinny jeans and properly layering 4 monkeys for varying degrees of weather, I wondered to myself.
What will I do this moment to glorify God? I will surrender every agenda of my own. I will surrender the things that I feel I am entitled to. I will lay down every injustice, all of the anger, the frustration, the blame. I will not demand understanding or logic, God is bigger than what my eyes can see, what my mind can comprehend. I release myself from the responsibility to make this right. I do not have to bare the burden of what might go wrong in the future, He will bare it for me. I will focus on glorifying God this day, this very moment, in my love for this child, my love for my own children, my husband, my family, friends and community.
Perhaps the glory of God was always intended to shine through the heartache and the only thing holding back the ocean of peace and calm was my refusal to cast the burden entirely at his feet.
So many of you have shared this experience with us through constant prayer, tears, and anger on our behalf. I love you so much for that. For loving her so freely, and loving us in all the right ways. And I ask you to please join me in surrender. I refuse to give one more thought to anger, confusion, should haves, what ifs, or whys. I have flung this into the hands of our Saviour and He has lifted it onto His mighty back and smiled. Then I could almost feel the hug, I could almost taste His tears join with mine as we rock this precious child and cherish her sweet smile for a few more weeks.
