So much continues to change in our home. It’s not the kind of change I’m use to. It’s the kind that just seems to come out from around the corner and shout: HERE I AM!
What I’m amazed by is how quickly it seems to be a norm for us.
I think it’s why I don’t know how to blog so well outside of the ‘adoption journey’. I mean is one thing more important to share than another? Is any of it important? I think that’s where I just have to say ‘it’s good for ME’ if nothing else to ramble and process some.
So, enter this thing of ‘change’. I’d like to think it’s just that time of year where new school plans, new grades, new activities are the ‘drivers’ in my life. I do build every bit of my day around these schedules and my families’ needs as a result. I have 2 ways of handling these sorts of days: 1) Get hyper-organized and dare anything to change or 2) AVOID anything that isn’t a neat fit into the mix.
These aren’t are bad until sickness, andy’s travel, a child’s meltdown, a sleepless night, a child’s funk, etc. enters the mix. Then it’s clear who I think the DRIVER really is. ME! It reminds me of when I was young (pre-driver) and driving on one of those race tracks at the amusement park where I really think I’m driving those old timey cars! I THINK I’m driving when in reality it’s all planned out, it’s all really steered and I just push the gas pedal and GO. Silly probably, but sometimes I think the Lord wants us to learn how bad of a driver we are and what a GOOD driver HE is. It’s one thing to say the Lord is driving, it’s another to say HE’S A GOOD DRIVER!!
That’s where this change thing fits in. Change is beginning (i said beginning) to taste very sweet. It’s unfamiliar, it’s unsure, and it’s certainly unpredictable. What I’m learning is how good it can be to ask for eyes to see the things the LORD wants to change and a heart to receive it. There are many of those things happening as we’ve been HOME A LOT!! There have been more than 5 kids in our home often (who are truly delightful to me). There have been ways of seeing others love on our family that feel just like a gift dropped from heaven. There have been nights of lingering and talking and mornings of waking and reflecting that I didn’t think I’d see for A LONG TIME. There have been ...changes that have come from letting go of the old and trusting the new that’s ahead.
A friend shared a passage from Isaiah that she thought of me when she read it. She was right.
ISAIAH 43:
18 "Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. 19 Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.
As adoptive parents especially, we need to remember God is doing something NEW in our kids. The past is not what lies ahead! Their past matters but it doesn’t define. Jesus defines. But what thrilled me too in this passage was how the Lord asks a simple reflection after telling us HE wants to do something new. He says, “DO YOU NOT PERCEIVE IT?”
Oh this is where I want to live...to PERCEIVE THE THINGS OF THE LORD?!!! I desire it with all my heart, but block it with all my ‘striving’.
Today I perceived many things...it was one of the best and one of the worst days all in 1. I must say...that’s the rub. That the Lord would take the ‘ugliest mommy moments’ and then show me the most beautiful heavenly things. I don’t get it. BUT I DO PERCEIVE IT!! AND THAT’S WHAT I LIVE FOR!! Not to CREATE the heavenly moments but to get a glimpse of our Lord Himself.
Today we had a rotten day on 1 kid’s front. It doesn’t matter who. It changes each day. On the little boy’s front it was a taste of heaven. We went to our pediatrician for the 1st time. They were WIMPERING from the moment we stepped in the ‘room’. I had KA with me for ammunition. It didn’t matter. Doctor enters the room and ‘wimpers’ grew. Here’s what I want to say about our time there (which was loaded!). The boys’ wimpers and groans turned to high fives and REJOICING!! NOT b/c we made it but b/c they were learning to sense from Mommy to ‘trust’. They read me. They read the doctor. They’re changing. They’re learning. They’re becoming more trustworthy. They told Andy at dinner (in Amharic) about their visit and then about parking the car in the garage (a 1st b/c of their junk/stuff) b/c of the storm and ...we UNDERSTOOD. CHANGE. It’s ok. It’s hard, it’s awkward, it’s just plain not easy. BUT, we have been given eyes to PERCEIVE WHAT HE IS DOING....and it is good.
Totally blessed. Not always feeling it, but praying for eyes to see it....because at that precious point, I could take my last breath and be so satisfied in the GLORY OF THE LORD!
Clinging to the precious promises! Who can make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert? ONLY GOD!!! let’s ask...
