God Writes Amazing Stories

God writes the amazing stories. But some parts of the story are hard because of this broken world with its many layers of sin-marred complication and confusion. All God’s stories, though, are woven with the theme of love and restoration and redemption. And He, in his omniscience and omnipotence, works through multiple hearts and situations to accomplish His work, weaving an intangible display of the power of His fingertips. He prepares and equips hearts for service, many times unbeknownst to the mind of that heart until that work is made evident...

My sister-and-law and her husband have a heart for kids from hard places--foster kids tossed back and forth from place to place. Remarkably, taking in orphans has just become a way of life for them. They see a need and rise to meet it. They’ve taken in many over the past few years, some just for respite over the weekend and some for multiple months. Most recently, they took in an eleven-year-old for about six months. With two younger children and having never fostered an older child before, they were unsure of the supposed-to-be temporary situation. But they ended up falling in love with him and were heartbroken at having to leave him in Louisiana when they took a job out of state.

“We’re trying to find a home for C,” she said to me at a family reunion in the spring. “If we don’t, he’ll probably go to a group home.”

Gary and I had never really thought about fostering or adopting before. We’ve had friends who have both fostered and adopted, but it was just never something we felt a call to pursue. We wouldn’t say no to it if we felt like God put it in our laps, though. And that’s what we felt like this was. When she said those words, I felt an internal churning--a gentle nudge from the Holy Spirit to say yes. 

God had been working on me. Over the past couple of years, God has worked, through great difficulty, to create some space in my life, some space to be open to new things. Strange as it sounds, I had actually had thoughts thoughts of, “What if we were to foster?”, months before this opportunity arose. My mind began to explore the idea. God had planted a seed.

The day after that family reunion, we were at lunch with Gary’s family, and his sister mentioned it again, this time with Gary present. “We’re going to check with all the foster families we know to try to find a home for C.” She wasn’t directing the statement at us--we weren’t even foster certified. But Gary looked at me when she said it with a “what about us” look.

Later on we talked. And talked. And talked. How would it affect our own kids? What would this look like longterm? How would we work out all of the little details? A lot of these questions we didn’t have an answer to. We only had one answer, after days of prayer and discussion with the kids, the one we felt was from God--the answer was to say yes in a sea of unanswerable questions.

So he came to live with us. And it was hard. And it was messy. And I felt ill-equipped. There was lots of conflict between C and my kids, he being right in the middle of Ella and Dutch’s ages. Constant comparison and arguing and assertion of rights and roles ensued. Our semi-peaceful house was turned into a daily battlefield. I constantly asked myself, “What is the right response in this situation?” What was right was so unclear. My internal instinct to protect my own children often collided and clashed with my desire to love and support C, who often seemed an enemy to them. I teetered between being fair and objective and wanting to teach my children to respond with unselfishness and grace to wanting to stand in opposition to the one threatening their normal. Families are meant to be together, husbands with wives and children with parents, and any time this unit breaks, there is no easy answer. We’re dealing with sin-covered circumstances, and the water is murky.

Heightened situations like these can bring out your best and your worst. It sharpened my prayers and dependence on God’s word and wisdom. But it also exposed my selfishness and my human nature--my need to die to myself on a daily basis, to take up my cross and follow Him. Some days I did; some days I didn’t. I asked God to help me to speak life in all situations. Some days I did; some days I didn’t. God, thank you for your grace. And I asked God to help me love the many-times-enemy of my children and to pray for him who persecuted them. They were, by no means, blameless in these conflicts, though, making discretion even more difficult. Again, sometimes I did love; sometimes I didn’t. But God’s grace is always there to cover a multitude of sins, to embrace and make wrongs right.

As we stumbled along, we saw glimpses of God’s hand at work--slow growth, little victories, moments of a miracle in the making. C grew in perseverance, in struggling through hard things and not giving up. He grew in becoming more adaptable in social situations. He grew in trying new things and in gaining confidence in who he was. He grew in his knowledge of and relationship with God and how God could use his life. And my own children, especially Dutch, grew in grace and leadership. 

A few months in, during a period of my extreme internal conflict, my brother-in-law called Gary, saying that they really missed C and felt like part of their family was missing. They wanted him to be part of their family forever. This was an answered prayer. When you say yes, not knowing what the end will look like, it’s a little scary. But this was how God was using us, to keep and invest in C for a time until he could be reunited with his family.

The next couple of months, as they were getting foster-certified in their state, we worked things out with case workers and lawyers for him to be able to move. We also talked with C and just kept living life with conversations that were just plain real and void of Hallmark movie moments.

About three weeks before his scheduled move, we spent Thanksgiving with my in-laws in Arkansas. So here we were, our two families together under one roof--the lines of who was foster mom or aunt or dad or uncle or sister or brother or cousin blurring. And it was kind of beautiful. I give a little; you give a little. You step in; we take a step back. “Here are C’s shoes.”...”Is he riding with you?”...”Did he get a shower?”...”Can he have another piece of pie? Are you okay with that?”...As we all sat in the living room during those mostly rain-covered days, an uncanny weaving-together of families emanated. Evanescent in quality, scarcely perceptible, but visible to those with spiritual eyes--these seams sewn by God Himself--through a boy discarded by his own family but redeemed by two families who brought their two meager coins, the little they had. A boy made in God’s own image, created for a purpose. Reminding me of how we who were once lost and dead because of sin are adopted as God’s own children, sons and daughters of Him. These are the moments I have to grab hold of and put words to--that I have to name and testify--the power of His fingertips using hearts that will say yes.

God writes amazing stories. This one’s not over. It’s in the making. 

The Next Hard Thing

Every stage of life has its own hard season. You overcome one challenge just to realize another will follow it. As I’ve gotten older, my mind has naturally begun categorizing and naming those seasons of adult life by their most prominent features: Curry Creek, the Farm, Grad School, the Exodus, and the New Normal. In each season I remember at one time or another feeling like I just couldn’t make it, but God has used each season to make me just a little more like Him. Each difficulty has stripped away a little of me and left me with a gift.

Curry Creek was the subdivision Gary and I lived in during the hard and wonderful years of surviving early marriage, having babies, and forging friendships with other couples. We grew up during this phase: basically, we learned what it meant to be adults and how to not be selfish. Life was busy and loud and fun and infuriating. And slowly along the way, I learned to trust God to be in control and to bow to my own self-interest over wallowing in self-pity. Marriage taught me that God can be trusted even when His ways don’t make sense--my gift was proof of his faithfulness. Selflessness and humility changes hearts, especially your spouse’s.

The Farm was much different. Stranded in a remote and deteriorating house in the middle of four hundred acres of corn and soybean fields for two years, I learned contentment. There was too much quiet and lonely, but it drove me to my Creator. When no one else is around, you learn to listen to the One who is. He showed me the beauty of kaleidoscopic sunsets over geometric cornfields, flocks of geese on a gray and sullen, puddle-filled day, river wide and surrounding. I learned to count my reasons to be thankful. My gift was gratitude.

Grad school was where I longed for quiet. In a new and demanding teaching career and graduate school all at the same time, and for three years, I grew weary of the busyness and constant going. At my many tear-filled moments in extreme conflict over the commitment I had made and whether or not this decision was best for my family, I learned to look to God as my sustainer. I was in a constant state of feeling like I was not enough--as a mom, as a wife, as a teacher, as a friend. I was stretched so thin. So I looked to the One who was enough, and he held me up. My gift was learning dependence and perseverance. 

The Exodus is what I call the three-year time period in which the vast majority of our closest friends moved out of state or out of our lives for some reason or another, leaving once more a quiet space in my life. When everything dear to you is taken away, it has a way of producing otherwise-impossible perspective. How dear to me was God? Was He my everything--my first joy? What was I doing with this one life I have? Was I using it for Him? It was time to step up. My gift was intentionality and renewed purpose, and through that new relationships.

The New Normal is where I am currently. It’s where I’m open to what God has for me--even when it’s scary. It’s listening to God in a new way. It’s saying yes to whatever he calls me to. It’s a life that’s void of plans and more like walking with my eyes closed. Right now, we’re fostering a child--it’s a situation that just kind of fell into our laps. Had you asked me a year ago if we had plans to add someone else to our family, I would have laughed. I had no idea we would be in this situation. And to be honest, it’s been hard on our family--and messy times--broken people trying to love each other well in a difficult situation. Lots of conflicting feelings--and a dichotomy of joy-filled moments followed by awkward tension. And then there’s the not knowing what tomorrow will look like, or the next day, or the next. There’s a wrestling with God--not my will but your will in this day, in this moment. I’m still waiting to open my gift this season, but I can peak into the box. It looks a lot like the ability to say yes to hard things.

The Maker

The Maker

The maker stood in his workshop, stooped over his table. Ever so tenderly, he finished uniting together the pieces of the form. Thoughts rushed through his mind as he imagined what his making would become, how all the intricate details of his choosing would be displayed. One part which reminded him of the sea—the sparkling blue calm and the effervescent tide. Another of the oak—the deep, rich brown embodied in flowing mane.  Some of the stork, with stark white, lengthy limbs. And on the inside, a passionate fierceness. He breathed something almost of himself into his creation, imbuing it with some ethereal quality and imparting the very love that he had within himself. The maker took off his spectacles and gently wiped the fingerprints from the glass with his garment. Then he returned them to his nose and examined his creation one last time. He was transfixed. Captivated. The warmth from his face shone like the sun as he gazed upon perfection that reflected his own image. And he thought to himself, “It is very good.”

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She wasn’t thinking. She was just feeling. It just happened because he made her feel loved and mattered and not alone. And then she panicked at the consequence. A life. But what about her life? Fear gripped her, and she felt more alone than ever. The counselor tried to come to her, but she resisted. Scared, she pushed him away. She didn’t trust him. And she kept her growing secret for as long as she could. And the heartbeat made her heart stop cold. And the pushing from within made her push the counselor further away. The guilt was too much. Time was growing short, so she just did it. She numbed her mind and did it. Separated. Isolated. She did it.

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The maker watched in agony and horror as his creation was torn apart. Nauseated and grief stricken, he looked on as his handiwork was ripped limb from limb.

“No!” he cried out in pain—from the deep pit of his stomach. It was as if he felt every tear himself. “No, no!” The crushing and the ripping of tissue and bone were sharp knives in his side. The extermination of life. Annihilation. Massacre.

He mourned as he pined over what would never be. All the planning and the deep affection that he had poured into his making—destroyed. In one instant. There would be no crawling to walking to running and playing to growing and maturing. It was finished.

The parts were laid out to examine. All were there, but separate. And he wept.

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The maker brought the pieces, bloodied and broken, back to his workshop. He sobbed over them, tears falling like rain over his beloved. Then the healer carefully began mending and reviving the life that he had loved and still loved. The life with the soul that was part his. He restored it, not just to its former stature, but to a glorified form that he marveled over all the more.

And he said, “Today, you will be with me in paradise.”