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Life Unresolved

LIfe is filled with things that are unfinished and uncontrollable.  

I don’t like that.  I’m a finisher.  I’m a fixer.  

Lately I’ve been waking up with the same sort of heaviness over my soul that I remember feeling for the first time when my dad was dying of cancer and I was a young woman.  Before my brain could even think about what was going on in my life or in the day ahead, my heart and soul told me that all was not well.  I had to learn how to surrender that sorrow to the Lord every morning so that I could get out of bed and face my day in college.  It felt impossible sometimes but I learned the discipline of surrender at that time like never before.  I had to keep going to class and I wanted and needed to continue to LIVE even in the midst of my father’s slow and painful death.  My heart often didn’t know how to process the joy of being in the spring of my life when my father was facing the winter season of his own.  I felt emotionally conflicted every single day.

Lately because of the literal weight of the world right now, I feel the same pain.  I long for the time before the world changed when everything wasn’t so heavy, confusing, and complicated.  I want to not have the constant weight of making health decisions for my family, wondering if my children will be allowed to grow up in a country where they are free, and grave concerns about the growing economic crisis our country faces.  And…..a thousand other things. Personal things.  Things my friends and family are facing.  Things my church is wading through.

The Lord highlighted this scripture for me this week and it has equipped me to face my days.

“Return to your rest, my soul, for the Lord has been good to you.” (Psalm 116:7)

Sometimes I can’t quite get my spirit to immediately embrace, “This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it.”  That feels like too much to ask first thing right now.  However, I’m learning that I can focus my heart on the truth that the Lord has absolutely been good to me in my life.  I can focus on the truth that He is the same yesterday, today, and forever.  I can remind myself that “the Lord is gracious and righteous…our God is compassionate…and He guards the inexperienced.” (Psalm 116)

I haven’t passed through this part of history before (I’m “inexperienced”).  No one has.  It feels heavy and honestly impossible sometimes, as I can see how the enemy is using circumstances to manipulate people into being deceived, discouraged, and divided. I can rest in knowing that my gracious, righteous, compassionate Father is guarding me through my days as I look to Him.  

I have to pull the “NOT today, Satan” card out and recognize where many of the attacks are coming from.   I have to reset my focus on the ONE who reigns victorious every minute of every day for every single generation…..even when things don’t appear as I would hope they would.  

Sometimes my struggle is laying it all down at night so that I can fall asleep.  Surrendering my personal pain and worry about things in my own life, as well as handing back the worries of the world to Him as I somehow manage pick them all back up throughout my day, is a choice I’m consciously making.  Other times, it’s that weight first thing in the morning I have to wade through.  My husband needs me to walk in victory.  My children need to see peace reigning in my life.  My friends and other people I encounter need to see the joy of Christ.  I don’t want to live with a soul that is continually downcast.  That is not living!  I’m fighting for joy, hope, and peace!

My recipe lately has been so simple:  

“Return to your rest, my soul, for the Lord has been good to you.”

It takes me ‘taking my thoughts captive and making them obedient to Christ,” but through prayer, I’m finding victory one step at a time! (2 Cor. 10:5). I have to spend some time dwelling on His faithfulness!

Father, you are so faithful!  You have brought me through losing my father, infertility, failed adoptions, conflict with others, financial burdens, illnesses, wayward children, caring for my mother as she battled dementia, and on and on and on. Is there anything too hard for the Lord? (Gen 18:14). No, my soul, there is not.  Return to your rest. ❤️🙏🏻❤️🙏🏻❤️🙏🏻. 

Your Father is mighty to save!  I’m praying for you, my sisters.

(I’m offering a retreat in my home or via zoom this Saturday 9/25/2021. If I can encourage you, please join me.☺️. Details on the blog side bar)

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But as for me, I will always have hope…..

Twenty years ago on 9/11 I found myself in an airport terminal in Russia with a cab driver anxiously trying to communicate to me that I absolutely must follow him to view a tv screen nearby.  He kept pleading with me, “You, American?  Come!  Kamikaze, airplane, TV, come.”  He all but grabbed me to help me understand the urgency.

What he didn’t know was I was ALREADY fearful of where I was at the moment.  I had been battling infertility for years and the Lord had laid it on our hearts to “take care of an orphan” (James 1:27).  We pursued an international adoption but I had told the agency (and the Lord) I would not go to Russia.  I was fearful of going there.  The Lord patiently closed EVERY door to every country we applied to until one day, a very loving case worker explained to me that Russia would be open to us.  I very reluctantly went through that process because of all of the fears I had and my preconceived notions of Russia and its people.

After what seemed like endless months of waiting (well over a year) we finally received a referral for a baby girl who needed a mom and a dad.  We had countless miracles in  this particular adoption story (we have three adopted children), but one of the most significant was her very name.  The Lord had led me to a passage in Luke where Zechariah and Elizabeth were “blameless and barren” and my heart so identified with this couple.  The Lord impressed on me to pray specifically for our daughter by the name Elizabeth.  I had prayed earnestly that the Lord would make it abundantly clear which child to choose.  I didn’t want to pick the ‘cutest’ baby or the one that seemed ‘safest’ for us.  I didn’t want the guilt of choosing one child over another knowing that most would never be adopted.  I wanted the Lord to make it glaringly obvious which referral we should pursue.  I’ll never forget the day our case worker called to say, “We FINALLY have a referral for you for a baby girl.  Didn’t you tell me you’d been praying for her by the name Elizabeth?  Would you believe the referral that Russia sent for you is a baby girl by the name Elizaveta?”  Hot tears!  “Yes, that’s exactly who we’ve been praying for.”

So now here I was on the other side of the world, landing in an airport going to meet our daughter only to now learn that the terrorist attacks had happened and there were rumors of war and for all airport traffic to cease.  I was terrified.

“Lord, I told you I didn’t want to come here and now I’m stuck here.”  I had to fight fear consuming my heart and mind.  We had a four year old and an 8 week old son at home with my mom and sister-in-law caring for them.  I now had no idea when I would be able to return.

While many of my preconceived notions about Russia were more than accurate, we were astounded by how the people embraced us during that time.  EVERYWHERE we went, they would stop us and tell us that Russia would stand with America and they were so grieved over what had happened.  It was truly beautiful!

I didn’t sleep well while I was there.  I was shaken by the timing of our flights from the States and humbled by our safe passage.  The friend who booked our flights had changed our itinerary without consulting us. I was aggravated with him before we left but realized it was the hand of God once we landed.  Our fate and Elizabeth’s could have been drastically different.  

We soon busied ourselves with the tasks at hand which were meeting our daughter, enduring Russian court, and getting home as soon as the airports opened back up.  Our case was expedited because the judge there was fearful war would break out and we might not be able to get home.

Twenty years ago (on the 13th) we were handed a little girl who was only 11 months old.  She had a very rough start in life being premature and challenged by other health issues.  I can still remember exactly how the weight of her small frame felt in my hands as they gave her to me for the first time.  I can remember how fascinated she was by Randy because she had never been around a man.  I have permanent pictures in my mind of other children who had no hope and no future.  It was heartbreaking but I knew God had a plan for this tiny girl. He had a purpose and plan for her life filled with opportunities.  We named her Elizabeth Grace because clearly she had seen the grace of God!

Our very first moments with Elizaveta

I learned a great deal about faith and the sovereignty of God on that journey.  I began to learn there are things I will never understand on this side of eternity and I have to accept that.  I can’t understand why some die and some live.  Why some get adopted and some don’t.  Why some people are spared and some aren’t.  The Lord used that journey to teach me to stop resisting the Lord and His plans knowing that He has a plan and a purpose in all things.  I had to accept on a deeper level that I live in a sin-stained world on this side of eternity and there will always be risk, heartache, and loss…and there would always be HOPE.  There would always be evil, but there would always be good as well!  I had to determine that as for me, I would follow the Lord ANYWHERE He led trusting Him for the results whether that be safe passage or not, whether I could see down the path or not.  He abundantly proved His hands in the details of this journey and it became a spiritual mile marker in my life.

The verses we prayed over Elizabeth was Jeremiah 29:11-14: For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back from captivity.

❤️Elizabeth, twenty years later we are thankful the Lord gave us safe passage to claim you as our daughter and bring you home where you could have a mom and a dad and a future and a hope.  Our prayer is that you call upon Him, continually pray and seek Him with all your heart, and then follow His plan for your life.  He has beautiful plans for you. We love you!  ❤️

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I Lift Up My Eyes……

Truth be told, I’ve had to really fight being discouraged over the last year or two.  My mind has been clouded with confusion as angry voices screamed through the media I chose to consume.  The focus and purpose of the noise has varied based on what the current crisis was but I often found myself caught up mentally and emotionally in the rising and falling of a roller coaster-like rhythm in my days…and I hated it.

When I was newly married, I lost my father to cancer and then immediately fought the ugly battle of infertility and lost (or so I thought at the time.). I was so consumed by the constant rising and falling of my own circumstances that I felt utterly exhausted and out of control.  I can remember one night after a failed adoption attempt ripped my heart to shreds, I stayed awake most of the night pacing in my den.  I was desperate.  I knew that despair would absolutely consume me if something did not change.  I remember reading my Bible and pacing the floor praying out loud in desperation to my Lord: “I can’t live like this anymore.  I can’t be on this roller coaster where my heart rises and falls with circumstances for the rest of my life when there is so much I cannot control.  I’m desperate to find my joy in Christ alone, Lord.  I understand that happiness is based on circumstances and those will always change, but my joy can be set in the One who is the same yesterday, today, and forever and that is what I need to be able to breathe, to be able to survive.  I don’t want my heart captive to wanting anything or anyone more than Christ.”  That night I probably looked a lot like Jacob wrestling with the Lord. (Genesis 32)  I knew that I needed my Father to change my fickle heart and to be completely consumed by and content with Christ alone.  

I can honestly say I was never the same after that long night.  The twins we tried to adopt were gone, my father was still separated by death from me, my womb was still empty, but I was forever changed.  The Lord allowed me the grace to cling to him despite my circumstances and He changed me forever.

Over 25 years later, my circumstance are vastly different.  I have six children now and the things that break my heart and cause anxiety to rise within me are not the same issues I dealt with all those years ago. Today, so much of what concerns me (and attempts to consume me) are global or national issues, issues of health decisions, concerns over the future my children may have to navigate, etc.  I’ve been sorely tempted to despair.

“But as for me, I will always have hope; I will praise you more and more.” Psalm 71:14

Each person has to choose for himself from where his hope will come. Will it be based on leaders in our world, promising economics, ‘guaranteed’ health?  

As for me, “I lift up my eyes to the mountains-where does my help come from:  My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.  He will not let your foot slip-he who watches over you will not slumber….” (Psalm 121)

My God sees.  He knows.  He made it all.  He holds it all together in His hands.  He never sleeps.  He will not let my foot slip as I look to him through eyes of faith.

It is very tempting to get caught up in believing that there is a particular leader or a particular answer to a health crisis that will be the end of all of our problems.  That is utter foolishness.  

“Surely falsehood comes from the hills, commotion from the mountains, but the salvation of Israel is only from the Lord our God.” (Jeremiah 3:23)

Lord, open my eyes to the truth that I am surrounded by falsehood and commotion that is not of you.  Convict my heart when I am turning the eyes of my heart to look to anything or anyone for hope apart from you.  I recognize that I’ve been tempted to look to other things for security, joy, and hope and I’m left empty, confused, and frustrated every time.  Lord, my salvation is only from the Lord my God.  I’m thankful that my eternal destiny is secure because of what Christ did for me on the cross.  I’m also incredibly grateful that you didn’t leave me here to navigate this side of eternity without help or hope.  You are my salvation in every crisis I will face.  You will order my steps and guide my mind and heart as I look to you to clear the falsehood and commotion from my mind.  I lift up my eyes to you alone, Lord.  You are WORTHY!

“Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.” (Psalm 20:7). 

Lord help me not to put my trust in ANYTHING or ANYONE but You!