Surviving the War Zones of Life

"Surviving the War Zones of Life" is the name of the chapter I am reading in "When Life and Beliefs Collide". I highly recommend this book for anyone who is struggling with how you continue to walk in faith when faith seems to have disappointed or you wonder where God is in so many areas of your life!

I have found that even though I am transparent, I am a stuffer! If there is an issue I really don't understand or don't want the pain of really dealing and healing, then I stuff it! I just push it down in my mind and heart until it is covered by something else and forget it is there....until God brings it to the top because He knows is will stay down there and fester and ooze and cause problems for me as I walk this journey called life with Him!

This morning was one of those times he brought a hurt to the surface.

The past year has been horrendous in the agency. Yes, the government of Liberia and the US government have lied, played the political games, cause the death of one of the children we loved and several that we know of, but that is not even the biggest wound. The biggest wound(s) have come at the hands of the Christians I have served. They have come at the hands of people who think they understand all the dynamics to running an orphanage half way around the world, but really have no clue of all that it entails. They have come at the hands of Christians who think getting a child home is more important than standing on ethics and morals during the process.

I have been slandered and accused of just about everything in the book. I will be the first to say that I haven't done everything perfect! There are times maybe I should have listened to some of the gossip from adoptive parents, but if they only know how much "he said" or "she said" I hear and that most of the time it is totally false!

I have been amazed at "Christians". I have told John so many times over the past two years - put me on an island with lost people and let me love them, PLEASE! I am so tired of Christians destroying each other and me! At least lost people have a reason to act that way...they don't know any better! We are supposed to! The word says the world will know us by our love for each other...well, no wonder we are not impacting the world anymore than we are! We would rather kill each other than find a way to work together!

All this has made me question where God was in the work that He called me to! I know he is sovereign, so I know that none of this has happened without first going through His hands. Just as He granted Satan permission to sift Job, He has allowed these things to happen. At anytime, He could have stopped them. So why didn't He? That is my overall question! He knows the pain they caused. He knows the physical effects this stress and hurt has had on my body and my mind. Yet He allowed it.....so that would always bring me back to a question that I am still wrestling with in my heart...How can a good God do that?

So I LOVED this chapter. She talked about Job and she also talked about Joseph. Joseph ended up in a prison because of his brothers. God allowed that. God, who had already told Joseph He would do great things, allowed him to be put in a pit, shackled with chains, rejected by brothers, isolated and lost from the father he adored...and yet God is good. Really? That just doesn't compute in my heart....my brain can read The Word and see that it says it, but with what I have gone through at the hands of others, my heart just isn't there yet...I am getting closer every day - I'm in a good place right now and enjoying it - but I know God is bringing up the heart and pain so I can deal with it through His Word and understand a little more about Who He Is!

Carolyn Custis James says it this way: "The war zones of life force us to take our theology seriously, to see if our beliefs about God hold up when the tragedies and perplexities of life press down upon them...Our hope in God is no better than a placebo if his plan doesn't encompass all of life - the dark side as well as the bright." If you go back and read my posts from these dark times, you will clearly see that my beliefs about God were not holding up at all under the tragedies and perplexities of life! I was flailing like a fish out of water!

James goes onto discuss the two parts of God's plan - the "revealed will" which are his statutes and commands. They are written and not a mystery. Then there is the "hidden will" which is the part that we don't know and may never know. James says, "It is important for us to see how the Bible distinguishes between these two aspects of God's will because this distinction enables us to maintain, on the one hand, that God's will (revealed) is always for us to live holy lives of obedience to his Word and, on the other hand, that God's plan (hidden will) is to accomplish his good purposes for us through everything that happens, even through the evil that takes place in his world. In a fallen world populated by sinners and relentlessly assaulted by the powers of evil, the sphere of God's reign would be minuscule indeed if it extended only to areas where his moral will was being obeyed." I have understood that, but there was a time when the pain was so much from fellow brothers and sisters in Christ that I didn't want anymore of God's "good purposes"! I truly believed for a time that my plot in life was to sell myself out to Christ and live a life of sacrifice and hurt so that others could see the good of God while I was left behind in the aftermath. I wrestled for months if not a year with that concept. The enemy was trying with all his might to make me believe that was God's plan for my life. But that is not Truth! Praise God He kept speaking to me until I understood that even in the bad times, God was working for my good. Even if I don't see it, I am beginning to be able to believe it.

Which leads me to the next part of what the author said that I think strikes a chord with many of us! "Living with mystery is uncomfortable for us." Well, that is an understatement! I have always said that I can deal with whatever the outcome is in most instances, but it is the "not knowing" that kills me! It is the wait time before the answer comes that can make me insane. So the next statement is profound if I want to live a life of faith! "But faith inevitably takes us into mystery, where we don't - and won't- have all of the answers and where, from time to time, we have to affirm truths that to our finite minds seem to conflict. The paradox we are wrestling with now is that God's good purposes, his hidden will, are preserved and advanced even when the devil takes a hand in our lives, when we fall int the hands of other people, or when we, with our own two hands, pull our lives crashing down around our ears."

So I must wrestle with this: even in the hurtful words and actions of adoptive parents who went so far as to meddle with my staff in Liberia causing great strife and dissension there and limitless issues that I am still dealing with, the words that have not only been spoken in phone calls to each other that make it back to me, but that have been put on the web for all the world to read and see, God's good purposes are preserved and advanced!

That may seem like an easy statement for you. For me, as I wrestle and seek what God wants next for Addy's Hope during this time, it is excruciating! To continue any adoption program means opening myself up to this all over again! It means understanding that I can go into any adoption program with my heart - a heart for all involved in adoption: the children, the adoptive parents and the birth family - and still people will accuse me of being heartless, a liar, a cheat, ruthless and even unethical. Well, frankly, I would rather cut off my right arm! And that my friends is why God is bringing this to the top!

But let me share a positive note in this! God, the gracious God that I serve and Who is teaching me more and more about His character at this point in my life is allowing me to walk a safer path. Since turning over the orphanage to Lifesong in Liberia, and thus making Addys' Hope's future in adoptions an unknown, I have spoken to more people about adoption than I had in over a year with the agency! But here's the deal - these people are friends! They are people from our new church home who God has burned a passion for adoption and fostering. They are safe! He has allowed me a safe place to put my feet back in the water that scalded me. He is allowing me to work with people who know me. They know my heart! They know passion! So even if circumstance don't turn out like any of us planned as they most certainly did not in Liberia, they will not blame me or question my integrity or call me names. Words may not break my bones, but they definitely hurt me and break my heart and spirit! God has placed me in a safe place for now to walk in my calling! That is a good God!

Will I always be in this "safe" place? No. God will eventually take off my training wheels again and call me back into the adoption world with adoption programs that will probably cause people to question me again. And the thing I pray I have learned by then is that in those times when people try to pull me down, I can press harder into God. I will have learned a little more about his character so that I can stand stronger and not spiral into depression or despair. I will understand a little more after this season of life that God is good. That head knowledge will have moved to my heart and allow me to trust Him more than I did in the last season! And that is worth the heart ache! At least I can say that today...on a good day! And my prayer is that I will be at a point in my life where I say that EVERY day!

Pick up When Life and Beliefs Collide if you have been struggling with God's goodness in your life! I think you will find some healing in the words of a great woman theologian!

Walking this walk one step at a time,

HollyAnn