Praying by the clock...

Tick - Tock - Tick - Tock goes the clock... with each Tick and each Tock that clock slows down until the hands just stop moving.  This is what it feels like to me right now.  I am is a holding pattern and this waiting is so frustrating.  Sleep is hard to come by; not because I run out of time, but because when I sleep I dream; and when I dream I wake up and the reality is that my vivid dreams are nothing more than a memory.  You see I have one week until I will find out what my future holds.  Just seven days until I am face to face with a new reality.  This new reality could be unspeakably horrible, or it could be positively blissful.  Regardless of the outcome, the one constant is that I will be giving all praise and glory and credit to God.  He is my salvation in the storm.  He is my stronghold.  He is my world.  I don't know where I would be without Him. 

He has given me all of the good in my life.  I know there is a possibility for more pain around the bend, but I also know that when He prunes us as painful as it is, it allow us to bear more fruit.  My season to bear fruit may not even be right away.  That's ok.  I will bear the pruning, knowing that there is something better later.  I will not let anything keep me from leaning on HIM.  HE is my foundation.  HE is my salvation.  HE is my best friend.  HE knows me inside and out and still loves me.  HE has allowed me to make mistakes with my free will.  But most amazingly of all, HE has been there to help me pick up the pieces when my mistakes are big.  HE also helps me keep the size of life's hurdles in perspective.  Nothing, absolutely nothing is bigger than HIM!! 

So as I hear the Ticking and the Tocking, I am reminded that all things come in HIS time.  I just have to keep walking one step at a time, one foot in front of the other...  and eventually the time will come.  My new reality will be just what HE had planned.  I will walk in my new reality, hand in hand, with my Abba Father.  I will be thankful to feel HIS warm embrace.  I will be obediant to HIS will.  I may wonder and even question it, but ultimately I will just accept it and praise him through my circumstance.

I pray that YOUR will be done God (but I also pray that my will and YOUR will  - could they just line up this time God?)  Father I ask that you would wrap your arms around my family and remind us of Your endless presence.  I ask that You would calm us and regardless of how this goes, I ask that You would comfort those that "loose" and remind the "winners" that there really are no winners in this.  All of us involved will loose something...  God I ask that You would comfort all.  I pray that You would touch my son.  Remind him that You are in control and only a prayer away.  Give us all the strength to keep going forward.  God if You bring my son home to me, I also ask that you would comfort his father and step-mother.  I know how much it hurts to have to give your child away.  I was ordered to do just that just two years ago.  God if Your will is for my baby to return home, then I pray for them.  If Your will is for me to be without my son, then I ask that You would place like minded Christians in his path on a daily basis so that my son would be daily reminded of You.  I ask that You would give him good Christian mentors that he would turn to for guidance and when he needs to talk.  God I ask that more than anything, You protect him from the things I cannot.  Amen.

The Difference

It is funny how things change over time.  I remember when just two short years ago, I had to take my son to the "neutral meeting spot" to drop him off, hand him over if you will, to his father.  That day was a very somber day.  I cried every day leading up to that day for at least a week and I cried every day after that day for probably six months.  When I dropped him off, he looked like such a little fellow.  Barely to my chin, he was still small.  His face was so boyish.  I remember wondering how I would live another day.  I remember wanting to just melt away.  I had spent his whole life making sure this would not happen.  And here it was, happening...  I was a wreck.  God had a plan for me.  You see I was not surrendering my whole life to HIM.  I would hand over little pieces, then take it all back...  God was going to use this tremendous hurt to bring me to my knees.  Fast forward two years...  I am still on my knees.  My son has out grown me by at least six inches, and where once he had a baby face there is now the features of a young man.  

What is the difference??  The difference is that today I am on my knees willingly - asking HIM to be in control of it all.  I am there grateful to have such a good GOD that I can come to HIM and lay my son at the alter.  I can say "OK GOD Your will be done."  And though I may not get what I have been praying for - for such a long time - I know that HE will give me what HE needs me to have.  I have learned that it is not just in the hard times that HE calls us to turn to him, it is in the everyday!  So every day I turn my family, my job, my life over to GOD and just as he reminds me occasionally that HE has this...  and each day it seems that he sends me a little GOD BREEZE so that I know HE is steadfastly in control...  Maybe someday I will get to make that drive back to the "neutral meeting spot" to pick up my son and bring him home for good - but until that day I will just keep praising HIS name and giving HIM all the glory...  it has never been anyone's but HIS from the very first day...