For Such a Time as This

The past few weeks have been a bit of a whirlwind as I have found myself once again in the middle of a battle with government and bureaucracy for the welfare of children.  Only this time, it's local!

It took almost two years to secure our contract with DFPS to place waiting children in adoptive homes.  When I first started the process, even the DFPS contract managers told me it would be a difficult and life-draining process.  They were right.  But we knew God had revealed to us the orphan crisis in our own backyard for us to make a difference....not to just walk away and pretend like we didn't know.  So I pressed on.  We placed our first waiting children in an adoptive home in December, and they finalized last month.  If all that work was done for just those two kids...it would be worth it...because every child deserves a home! But there are 13,000+ still waiting.

That's why when I was made aware of a sibling group of four kids who have had parent rights terminated for over a year with NOTHING done according to policy of CPS to try to find an adoptive home, I jumped to action.  Initially just because we had an adoptive home that was open to looking at the possibility of adopting them.  There is so much more to their story and the travesty of it, but that will have to be a post for another time! My efforts to find them a home were met with a huge brick wall!  Texas is undergoing a foster care redesign and evidently sometime between February when I was told adoption wasn't part of it and June when I am trying to find a home for children whom the system has failed for a year now, adoption became part of it.  The details are appalling and make it obvious that the issue is money and not welfare of children, but that too is a post for another day also.

I spent the better part of the next two days on the phone with officials trying to explain the issue that would severely limit the availability of adoptive homes for the 13,000+ children who are waiting.  On July 3, I found myself on a phone call with a foster care redesign attorney with DFPS and a couple of other people.  It became obvious that this was not going to be an issue easily fixed.  I was defeated.  I was left wondering where God was in all of it! I knew He had called me to this work with waiting children of Texas.  It's my passion, it's become the focus of my life's calling to care for the orphan.  But I truly didn't think I could fight not one more battle in the war for these kids.  I was emotionally, physically and spiritually spent with the demands of that battle, the cases I still had to work with Addy's Hope, and the job to be wife to John and mom to 9.  I leaned over my kitchen counter and just sobbed!

"What do you want from me, GOD?!" I screamed from the deepest part of my soul!  I have fought this battle before in Liberia. I had to walk away from that one without success leaving children and families broken in the wake of those events.  What are you asking me to do now?  What more do you want from me?

I knew I had to have a break at the very least.  So I determined to not work for the 4th of July weekend and take that time to enjoy my family.  I spent most of that weekend trying to figure out how to shut Addy's Hope down.  I truly didn't know how I could continue to work passionately for children to keep hitting government bureaucracy that stood between them and forever families.  It was one thing to deal with that in a third world country half way around the world, but to once again be face to face with this monster in my own country, in my own state in a "civilized" society was more then I felt I could continue to battle. But come Monday morning, God was waiting for me when I got still and started my quiet time with Him.

I had heard a couple of teachings on the dry bones coming to life in Ezekiel 37.  I had turned there that morning.  I started in verse 36 to try and get a little intro to what was happening in 37.  As I read, I felt the despair and hopelessness of the situation melt away.  The Spirit of the Lord spoke to Gideon telling him that what he saw with his eyes was not reality.  He told him to tell the bones to get up...then piece by piece, the bones became an army that could fight for him!  As I read, I knew God was reminding me that what I was being told by those I was talking with was the physical world, but God was telling me to speak life into the situation!  He was reminding me that the true reality of what was happening was in what He had planned.  He brought to mind several Words that had been shared with my be key people in my life.  He showed me how they were for this time and this exact situation.  Then He did something I don't know that I can ever remember Him doing in my walk with Him.  He gave me a choice.

We always have a choice.  I know that.  We can choose life, or we can choose death.  We can choose obedience, or we can choose sin.  But this time was not like that.  This time He spoke to me like I would one of my children who were contemplating a decision.  He assured me that He knew the sacrifice this battle would take.  He told me it would be hard,  it will take all you have to fight it. Then He assured me that I could walk away from it.  It wasn't a "you can walk away, but you will be walking in disobedience" rebuke.  It was truly a choice.  I felt like what I think Jesus must have felt in the Garden of Gethsemane.  Obviously not nearly to the extent of sacrifice that Jesus had to make or the agony he felt, but a similar scenario.  God was telling me this is truly a choice.  However, there were some "buts" to that choice.  It was a choice, "but" all the work I had done in Liberia with the government there was for such a time as this.  It was a choice, "but" the working of the CPS contract and having an agency doing only adoptive placements of waiting children was for this time and place.  So much of the heart ache and the walking through the valleys was for this moment.  It truly felt like God was saying, "This is the moment I created you for!  But I know it will cost you, and you can walk away from it.  Just know that all you have suffered in walking out your faith, beliefs and passion has prepared you for this battle. Now what are you going to do?"  He assured me the battle would be won.  He had already declared it in the heavenlies.  However, He also made clear that pulling that victory down from heaven to earth would require going to battle.  In my work with Addy's Hope, I have always felt inferior.  Inferior as a professional, inferior as a tiny agency, inferior in just about every way possible.  Can I tell you something? God knows our insecurities!  And that morning He spoke directly to mine when He said, "Do not be ashamed or timid because you are a small agency - you are David and I will give you the stones of Truth and wisdom to sleigh Goliath."  (And to confirm that one of my amazing families made a reference to David and Goliath just a few days later!)

And with that, I had a decision to make.....

It will be enough.....

Can anyone out there relate to weariness?  I know weary in this season like I have never known weary before.  I thought I knew weary, but this is weary at a whole new level!  John and I were talking the other day.  I know the joy of the Lord is my strength.  I know we are supposed to have abundant life, and I don't believe that life is one that finds us grumbling all the time and ....weary.  Yet, that is exactly where I find myself most days.

I am doing all I know to do.  I am in the Word daily, praying almost hourly, crying out to God - often even out loud - through out the day as I have feelings of being overwhelmed and feel like the water is most definitely going over my head.  So then the voices start accusing me of not having joy on top of all the other accusations that they have hurled at me throughout the day!

I shared with John that right now life feels like I get up, fail at being a good mother, fail at being a good wife, leave work with a bigger to-do list than I started with despite working my tail off all day, fail at health, fail at our finances....you get the picture.  Then I go to bed defeated, wake up - sometimes with a fresh outlook sometimes with just enough strength to get out of bed - and do it all over again.  There are moments of joy when a baby laughs and it makes me smile, or Journey has a new word he uses in the wrong context, or I see one of the older ones nurturing a relationship with a younger sibling, or John schedules me a massage....there are moments of joy, but overall, life is just extremely weary.

So as I look at school starting and entering the fall season where our schedule becomes double and triple booked most evenings, I almost faint with fear.  I have been trying to gear up.  Yet, it seems God's presence has been just beyond reach the past week.  So today, I just sat down and cried out for a fresh Word from Him.  I just sat in my chair with my coffee...just got still before Him and asked Him to speak.

I opened my Bible, and there was a book mark that took me to Judges.  And plain as day I heard in my head "Judges 6".  So I turn there and start reading.  God promises when we seek Him we will find Him! And today I can testify that is true!

As I began to read Judges 6, I realized it is a very familiar story.  One I had actually read not that long ago after hearing a teaching on Gideon and wanting to do more study on the back story.  There is a part of Gideon's story that I can so relate with! In Judges 6:13, Gideon asks the angel of the Lord, "if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his wonders that our fathers told us about when they said, 'Did not the Lord bring us up out of Egypt?' But now the Lord has abandoned us and put us into the hand of Midian."  I have rants like that to God, John and sometimes poor intimate friends who catch me on a bad day!  But God, where are the finances to provide for these children you asked me to care for?  But God, if you are with us, why am I having to fight so hard to keep placing waiting children in homes?  But God where is the money to pay for the adoption of these two babies? But God, where is the time to love and parent 8 children and run a ministry and fight for children? Where are all the promises you have given to me when we walked by faith?

Let me stop there and just say....every huge faith step that John and I have taken in the past almost 17 years have failed.  Yes, failed.  At least that is how it appears when looking at outcomes.  If it didn't completely fail, then the outcome looked nothing like what we had thought it would when we stepped off that mountain into a free-fall of trust and faith into it!  I can remember a few years ago when we were once again looking into the face of a huge faith journey.  I just sat and cried asking God why all my "stones of remembrance" were ones of Him failing me?  But as the years have passed, and as I have gotten to know my God more intimately, I no longer look back at those stones of remembrance the same way.  It's true Eden and Addy didn't come home.  It's true adoptions in Liberia did not open back up.  It's true I am not currently in a relationship with the daughter God gave me a mother's heart for. It's true the contract that I worked three years to complete is in jeopardy after only placing 5 waiting children in forever homes.  But with mature eyes, I can see that in each and every one of those circumstances, I grew closer to God.  He taught me a little each time about faith and trust.  He showed me a new dimension of Himself in each journey we took.  And really, I think that was His goal when He asked us to take the step of faith...not the outcome we sought!

So today as I sat and reflected on my weariness and all of the promises God has given over the past couple of years that seem to be empty, I cried out for a new Word of encouragement from the One I have grown to trust and love...and truly believe is good no matter what the circumstances of my life might say.

And just like Him, in His very personal, loving and intimate nature, He answered.  After Gideon's rant about "where are you", God answers him with a sentence I know I have read multiple times but never saw before this morning.  The Holy Spirit highlighted it as I read this morning.  It says, "Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian's hand.  Am I not sending you?" In the strength you have - soothing balm to my weary soul! God knows I am tired.  God knows I end each day with just enough energy - physically, emotionally and often spiritually - to climb in bed and lay down my head.  And this morning He let me know, that's enough!  Whatever you have, do what I have asked with what you have....it will be enough!

What are you facing today that seems overwhelming? Are you weary or defeated?  Can I encourage you to face today with what you have?  Do it tired.  Do it afraid.  Do it broke.  Do it depressed.  Whatever God is asking you to do this morning, do it with what you have, and at the end of the day, it will be enough if You are trusting in Him!

The "Daily" of Discipleship

I have a blog post started about stepping into your calling and saying “yes” when God calls you up to bat…or something like that.  I am sure it’s a really good post, a really good concept.  But I haven’t had time to finish it because my “yes” has pretty well kept me working day and night for the past few weeks.

Which brings me to this….I won’t be finishing that post today either.  I am going to be really honest right here.  I wish I could turn back.  I wish I could go back to my American dream life and not know what I know about the injustices to children and the need for more to speak up.  I wish I could turn a deaf ear and a blind eye as so many do and go about my life in order to make it more comfortable for me and my children.  I wish if I was going to have to work at something that took my time away from my children, it paid better than a minimum wage job…or even minimum wage would be an improvement.

On a day that I had more people fighting with me than I have since my days of fighting for children in Liberia, I should be encouraged and on fire.  In a week when I have now heard two amazing teachings on attitude of thankfulness and a perspective of half-full, I should be seeing my life through the blessings it holds.  But can none of that is happening tonight as I crawl in my bed.

 

Why? Well, there are many reasons, I am sure…none of which really matter right now.  So what now? Do I really quit?  Do I really give up?  Do I stop just before the victory? Can I really do this another day?

The answer is Yes, I can.  And the answer is, Yes, I will.  God promises His mercies are new every morning.  In a season when my “yes” has taken me to a whole new level of faith, trust and obedience, I am using all the mercies available to me every day just to make it from the time I wake up to the time I am able to finally close my eyes at night.  Luke 9:23 has come to mind many times in this new journey I find myself on: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.”  Being a disciple of Jesus doesn’t mean being comfortable.  It means denying myself! It means taking up my cross... DAILY!

I did that today.  Did I do it with joy?  No, I can’t say that I did.  But that DAILY means that I had a choice this morning, and I chose to take up my cross….make the phone calls, inform others about the need to speak up….and when I wake up in the morning I will have the same choice.

So tonight as I go to bed, I can’t say that I am thrilled with the cross I am carrying.  But if even Jesus could ask for the cup to be taken from Him, I think God understands my lack of enthusiasm at times for the cross He has asked me to carry right now.  But just like Jesus, and most importantly BECAUSE of Jesus, I have to say “but none the less, not my will but Yours be done!” 

**And as is par for the mood of the post, this is being uploaded the morning after because our internet is down...again...and the hot spot wouldn't turn on last night! :)