From Insufficiency to a Handful of Rocks

            I have begun this blog post several times and then deleted it.  I struggle to express what is in my heart.  Sometimes there are not words. I wrote it several weeks ago and have been changing it each time I read it.  I am not sure if my words can adequately express all God is doing in my heart during this season.  Each day He is doing more and continuing to grow me.  I am sure once I post it, there will be things I will want to change the next day.

          Each adoption journey is unique and this one has been different from the last for me.  Some things have been easier, because I know what to expect, but there have been some unexpected things that have caused me to run after God like never before.  Being outside of my comfort zone will always do that! I think my Heavenly Father knows that, and that is right where He wants me to be!

A couple months ago, I found myself completely overwhelmed and crying out to God. Actually, I was beyond overwhelmed and sinking very quickly into the waves of “Oh my goodness, I can’t do this; this is so far beyond me it is going to swallow me whole, and I will never find my way out and back to any semblance of normal ever again!” 

Much like the Apostle Peter when he jumped out of the boat to walk on water when the Lord called to him, I had started this adoption journey with gusto.  I had jumped out of the boat of the normal routine of life and found myself once again out on the lake of the adoption journey.  I was familiar with the waves of paperwork and governmental red tape between two countries.  I was familiar with the winds of everyday chaos in a house with 4 homeschool children.  But then the big waves hit and the wind really picked up.

As the school year began to come to a close and the graduation of our oldest loomed right before me, things began to get stirred up big time.  I had no idea that his impending graduation required me to act not only as adoring parent but as high school counselor as well.  I would never have made it without our amazing homeschool director, Michele, and my dear friend Laurel, who had bravely walked through graduating two of her children in recent years and made it appear as though anyone could do it.  These ladies are truly two of my heroes. On top of these unexpected demands, for some reason my girls needed more time and academic attention, and everyone in the house seemed to need more emotional attention from mom.  I have no idea why! Maybe it was just all the craziness in the house and that my attention seemed to always be on adoption stuff or graduation stuff.  Either way they needed me.  My days spiraled out of control and I felt like I could never get all the “have to’s” done or give any of my children what they really needed.  I just was not enough.  I couldn’t do it.  And then the big waves hit. 

We began to get some updates on our sweet Hayden and his special needs.  The autism, sensory issues, speech issues, and some other things that we weren’t really expecting hit me in one big wave.  I took one look at myself, all the craziness around me, all the things currently being demanded of me, and all the what ifs of what Hayden was going to need of me when he comes home, and I started to sink.  Yep, I was going down.  There was just no way I could do it. Period.

That’s where I was one morning a few months ago, alone in the early morning quiet of a house still full of sleeping children.  Sinking and sobbing and crying out to God as I felt the wind and waves of life engulf me.  I slowly began to flip back through the pages of my journal.  My tears were making it hard to read at times, but then I started to see it.  Over and over again I had written this prayer, “God let there be more of YOU and less of me.”  Then I heard the whisper of my gentle, loving, and patient Heavenly Father, “Sweetheart, for there to be more of ME and less of you, I have to take you beyond you.” For the first time in months, I had peace. It filled my soul and mind and wrapped around me like a blanket.

His voice was not condemning or judging me.  He did not ask me why I couldn’t do it all or chastise me for running on ahead into what if’s of the future, and not holding His hand in today.  No, He lovingly reminded me that He had called me out of the boat fully aware of the storm to come.  He knew of the wind and waves to come way back at the beginning of my journey out onto the water to meet Him. And He alone knows of all the future wind, waves, and storms.  He had not stopped walking toward me even when I got distracted and disoriented and began to think I had to manage this storm of life on my own.  Even though I had lost sight of Him behind the waves of the awareness of my insufficiency, He had not lost sight of me.  He was with me the whole time!  I didn’t have to be sufficient for this storm or any other that might come, because HE IS!  He had called me out here to walk with Him, because I had asked Him too.  I wanted, and still want, to know life that is all Him and far beyond me.  I just got confused and somehow started to think I had to manage it on my own.  I am not sure how I got distracted, or how I came to that place.  I intended to walk out to Him on the water, completely focused on Him.  I really did!  I didn’t even realize my focus had shifted until that morning when I sank into the tears of my insufficiency. 

Then He began to show me how He had been there all along.  All my life my Heavenly Father has been with me preparing me for this now moment.  He wastes nothing.  Just as these moments are not just for today, they are preparing me for moments in the future, moments that thankfully I cannot begin to imagine or comprehend now, when I will be able to look back and say, “God was in this.  Look what He has done!”  

So the last few months the Lord has lead me on a pondering journey.  One where He has been showing me moments from my past that He has ordained or walked with me through to bring me to now, so that I could become more aware of His sufficiency.  For example, the years during nursing school that both Frank and I worked at a respite center for special needs children and adults.  It was not just coincidence that I saw the help wanted sign on the bulletin board in the nursing building at Grand Valley State University. It was God.  I have no idea how long it was posted, but I was the only one to reply to it.  Once I started working there I fell in love with the children and adults there and convinced Frank he needed to work their too! They were thrilled to have a guy to help with some of the adult guests.  And then God did this amazing thing in both of our hearts.  We both fell in love with the guests that frequented the respite center!  We really loved working there!  The money wasn’t great, and it was in an “interesting” part of town, but we loved it!  Another example is when we have struggled by our children’s sides, and continue to struggle some days, with dyslexia and learning difficulties.  Through those experiences and years of occupational therapy we have gained not only insight but an amazing OT friend, Denise, who also happens to specialize in autism and sensory issues.  There are so many more moments, but you get the idea.  All God!  Every moment! So that in this moment, He could point me back and say, “See, I have never left.  I have been orchestrating each moment to bring you to now.  Each moment is a gift with my fingerprint on it so that in this moment when you feel so far beyond yourself, you can see I have been there, and I always will be, preparing you and equipping you for the destiny I have planned for you and the battles you will need to fight to get there.”

Honestly, I have been processing and pondering all this for months.  I am still working on wrapping my brain around it all, but a month ago, I feel as though God began to open the floodgates of understanding for me.  As I attended our church’s annual women’s conference, I drew in what several speakers had to say and, you might say, the light bulb came on.  One dynamic woman of God shared about the widow who had only a little flour and oil left and was going to make some bread for her and her son and then die because of the famine.  When Elijah asked her to make him some bread she had a choice.  She could eat what she had and die, or she could hold it with an open hand, sow it into the call of God on her life, and never run out, always have enough, and not just survive, but thrive! Now, she didn’t know in advance the effect her obedience would have.  She had to step out in faith and give all that she had to the Lord first before she became completely aware of all the blessings God had in store for her.  She could have missed it.  If she had held on tight and focused more on the little she had in her hand than on how big her God was.   Light Bulb! I was doing that.  I was so focused on how little there was of me, I had missed out on giving all of me and the moments of my life that had brought me to now to God and letting Him make it enough.  Again, I hadn’t meant to.  That wasn’t my intention, but when the storm of life howled, I mistakenly thought that holding on to the little I had was going to save me.  Nope.  I am definitely not enough to get through this storm or any other with the little I have to offer. I need God to make it more.

Another speaker made a seemingly simple statement but one that rocked my world, “God doesn’t respond to whining, He responds to faith.”  She shared how finally Hannah got out of her self-pity and remembered who her God was.  When she got out of her pity and into the power of God, her prayer became one of faith and power.  God wove this message together with a song he had been using to minister to my spirit, Giants Fall.  Again, I was looking at only the small things in my hand that I possessed. I believed that what I had wasn’t enough.  I wasn’t looking at them in faith, I was looking at them and whining, “God it’s not enough.  I am not enough. Oh, woe is me!”   What if David had looked at the stones God had had him gather and said, “God this isn’t enough.  I am not equipped. I give up.”  Light bulb!  Yep, that’s what I was doing.  I was looking at the stones, all those moments of preparation that God was in, all the “weapons” God had given me, and I was whining and saying they weren’t enough.  And guess what! On my own, the way I was trying to use them, they were definitely not enough, but anointed and empowered in prayers of faith, not whining, but remembering who my God is, how awesome He is, and how He has orchestrated each moment to bring me here, wasting nothing, those little things I held in my hand became giant slayers! 

So here I am in this moment. Focusing my eyes on my Lord, offering Him back all the moments of my life that have brought me here, for Him to use through me to bring destiny into my life and my son’s life and to take down the giants of medical diagnosis, sensory issues, and many other things trying to rob Hayden of his destiny and me of mine.  What amazes me is that once my focus shifted back to how great my God is, and to how He has placed things in my hand to offer back to Him, filled with faith, I no longer feel like I am drowning.  I feel ready to walk on water, holding His hand of course, and ready to fight the giants with the stones He has given me. 

Another wonderful speaker made this statement, “We are not fighting for victory; we are fighting FROM victory! HE HAS ALREADY WON!”  I am not exactly sure how I ended up drowning in the pity of my own insufficiency.  Lies of the enemy perhaps, or my own pride maybe (ouch, that hurts).  But I am so thankful my loving Heavenly Father didn’t leave me there.  He reached down, met me where I was, lovingly picked me up and dusted me off and is helping me start again with the understanding that HE IS ALL-SUFFICIENT and HE HAS ALREADY WON! All I need to do is focus on Him, not me, and surrender all He has given me, back to Him and He will provide beyond my comprehension and take down any giant who dares to come against the one and only true God and the destiny He has planned for His children.  HE HAS ALREADY WON AND HE IS SUFFICIENT!