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... 

In the "Now"

I love my children, both of them, dearly.  I want nothing for them except the best.  I want more for them than I have ever had, and more for them that I could even give them...  And then, one of my children asked me the question that I never wanted to have to answer.  It is probably one of the hardest questions a parent can be asked.  This was a question that would essentially require a one-word answer, but not this time.  I could never answer this question with only one word. 

"Don't you want me to be happy?" was asked. 

My knee-jerk reaction is to say "Of course, I want your happiness, above all else I want you to be happy..."  But then I have to realize that more than immediate happiness, I want for my children long-term happiness, long-term joy, and long-term success.  I want these things so much more than any short term "now" happy.  So I have to find a way to answer this question without upsetting too much the balance of happiness versus frustration.  My next thought is "I want your long-term happiness and long-term success WAY more than I want you to be happy right now.  And if ensuring that means that you will be unhappy for a short season to be able to have a lifetime of joy and success, well then strap in my friend because it is gonna get a little bumpy!"  But instead I just say "I do want you to be happy now, but your long-term happiness and success are so important to me too!" 

I am torn as any parent would be.  I wonder if this is how Jesus feels about me sometimes?  I wonder does he gets as frustrated with me when I "want happiness now" instead of waiting a while.  Is it hard for Him to sit back and tell me "NO" when I pray because he knows that what I ask for is a "now" prayer and what he has in store for me is so very much better and grander down the road, even though it will require me to be, perhaps, a little frustrated, or a little put out in the "now".  I also have to wonder how hard it must be for him to say "no" in the first place.  I know I often want to say "yes" to my kids to things in the "now" but I know it is best to put it off for a while in order to teach them some lesson of sorts, and often I have to fight myself to do the right thing.  I wonder if Jesus has to fight it too?  I wonder if he wants so much sometimes to give me what I want, only to have to choose not to in order to help me learn, or to save me from myself later down the road when that "now" thing would have had some damning consequences.  How great is HE!!!

I am so blessed that Jesus does tell me "NO" sometimes, I don't want to hear it usually, but I need to know that he has something better planned for me than what I think will make me happy "NOW!"

Perspective

How can I get a new perspective?  I read books, and blogs, and talk to my friends and mentors.  But still I see black as black and white as white, that is until I open the pages of my BIBLE.  That is when the colors of the rainbow show themselves to me...  I see Joseph's coat of many colors.  I see the red dust that was brushed off the sandals of the disciples, I see the the blue waters of the flood and the green leaves of the olive branch.  I see each and every color and can now get a perspective.  It is not about what I see or how I see it, it is about what Christ experienced and how we have been saved through HIM.  How awesome the colors are before my eyes... 

I have now my new perspective and it is creeping into everything I do and say.  I am humbled that by His Spirit I am able to effect changes in myself and be a positive example to others.  I read the parables and the stories.  I have read from the Old Testament and the New.  I like to read the Psalms and the Proverbs as I glean so much from them.  I am so thankful that I have an instruction manual for my life - and I am double thankful that it allows me to have a new and fresh perspective each time I open the covers and allow Christ to speak to me through it!

New Vision

This year I learned a lot about myself and GOD during my fast for Lent.

I gave up something that was hard for me, but it was the best thing I have done for myself in a long time.  I gave up a huge time-killer.  I gave up Facebook Applications. 

After Lent was over I spent Monday and Tuesday evening trying to play "catch-up" with my apps.  This was an exercise in futility.  It seemed impossible!  At the end of the evening last night I realized, that it was keeping me from doing some of the more important things I should be doing.  So I think I will fast again.  From time-wasters like FB and TV and mindless surfing of the internet.  I realized that I get a much greater joy in looking into myself and spending time blogging, thinking about things that happen in my life and trying to approach them in a different way - to see them differently, perhaps a little more clearly, but certainly from a different perspective.  That is what Lent was about for me this year I think.  Many things that I had a certain "thoughts" about, were revealed in new and different ways.  Some were heart warming, others were heart wrenching.  Ultimately though, I think God gave me the gift of new vision.  This new vision is all at once fantastic and wretched.  I love seeing anew just how my kiddos think...  It is such a blessing.  The down side is that I also seem to be more aware of some of the negativity and "sin" icism...  I realize that you can't even watch commercials on the TV any more as many are just completely inappropriate for kids to be watchin...  Maybe that is more than a good thing, perhaps it is a God thing as well.  When we made the decision in our home to watch TV as a family, and only watch that which we can all watch - it really cut down on our TV watching all together.  There are so many things we should be doing instead like reading and spending time with GOD in prayer and in effortless conversation with HIM and each other.  When we can turn on the radio and listen to some uplifting spiritual music and just get moving, get our to do lists checked off and complete our daily requirements.  I find it to be so freeing!  I am challenging myself to again not do the FB applications, but also to spend less time watching TV and more time hanging out with my family and living LIFE!  Now that spring has sprung, perhaps we can find some fun things to do outside, and away from all the time-killers. 

I just pray that GOD will reveal Himself again in a fresh, new way just as he has done for me before.  I pray that I will stay focused!  I pray that I will find peace!  I pray that I will know HIM more! 

If you are reading this, please pray for me too.

I am changed...

I am changed. 

I went to the Good Friday service at church tonight.  I watched the drama of the first Good Friday and I saw it with new eyes tonight.  I saw it through the eyes of a mom.  Oh how my heart mourns for Mary.  How hard it must have been for her to watch her son, THE SON, be crusified, murdered.  I can only imagine that she must have been down on her knees praying to GOD and perhaps a little angry with HIM.  I can just hear her cry out, "God what are you doing to our SON?  How can you let this happen?  Help him, don't you love him?  HELP HIM!!!!"  It was prophecy...  It was written...  It was necessary. 

Her son, THE SON of GOD, had long ago left the home of his mother, and he cleaved to his Bride, the Church.  HIS church was not that of the saved, but the sinners.  His church had no lumber or nails, no roof nor walls.  His church was the Church of the meek, of the hurt, of the sick, and of the lost.  He knew this all long before the wheels were set in motion.  He knew He would shed His blood to cover the sin of a fallen world.  He died on that tree so that we could live. 

He knew all of this...  But Mary...  what did she know?  She knew that her heart was broken and that she would never be able to hold her Jesus again.  She knew that Jesus was God's son and that God had called Jesus home.  She knew the pain that so few know, that of a mother who has lost their most prized possession, their child.  She must have wanted to take his place.  She must have begged to GOD, please I will gladly die for HIM - for my son, for my Jesus.  It must have been so hard for her to take her first breath after He took his final.  I can imagine that her legs must have been numb.  She must have felt as though the blood was drained from her body and her heart was stopped.  The anger she must have had, the hate she must have felt, and the emptiness that must have consumed her. I can only imagine what Mary felt.

And when it was all over, there on that cross hung the lifeless body of her first born.  There was a crown of thorns atop his head, that beautiful head that she must have kissed a thousand times over.  Where once his eyes shown with love, mercy, compassion, and determination, there was just a swolen mass of hollowness.  The robe she made for him, that she might have wanted back to have something of His to hold on to, it was being fought over by the very soldiers, those very men were casting lots to see who might have it.  There were nails pounded into his hands and feet, the very hands that fed and loved the hungry and unloveable, and the feet that walked so many miles just to share the GOOD NEWS of GOD.  There on that tree hung the lifeless body of her Jesus the man, and my Christ the Savior. 

I am changed.

Sometimes it just feels so right...

It is not every day that I get to spend time with my son.  Mostly just on weekends, and mostly just a little bit of time here and there.  Tonight as I was driving home with him in the car, I was struck with how easily the conversation flowed.  There were moments, sometimes long moments, of silence, but in general it was just so easy to talk to him and listen to him.  I find myself smiling when he starts talking...  Sometimes he doesnt even realize that he has been jabbering away for half an hour without coming up for a breath.  Other times he is as silent as he can be, just rolling his eyes at me, his mother.  I also find that there are times when all the rest of the house has gone to bed and in the quite and stillness of the house, he and I will sit up chatting, he asks me questions like "how do I get this guy at school to leave me alone" and "how do I get my ex-girlfriend to want to get back with me"?  It is these times that I must say it is such an honor to be his mom.  I am so happy to be able to be someone he can come to and ask questions.  I am so blessed that God chose me to be my son's mom.  I enjoy answering his questions, and hearing things like "Mom, you just dont know how hard school is these days!" and he is right.  School and peer pressure are probably harder today than  they were when I was a teenager, but then again, I am sure it felt just as hard to me then as it does to him now.  I try to give him good advise, and mostly I just try to listen.  I try to hear his heart to make sure he knows how much he is loved and how I would do just about anything for him.  I hear his struggles, and I am thankful that all the years of loving him, and building a foundation for him, it is paying off.  I know he is seeking Christ's guidance when he remembers to.  I wish he remembered more often, but I will allow God to be the one to make that change in my son.  I have raised him well, and I believe that with all of my heart.  I do not agree with his decisions, or the way he acts sometimes, but in the emulance of Jesus, I still give him Mercy and Grace just as the SON has given them to me.  Tonight, as my son was getting ready to go to bed, he walked into the office and without provication, he said, "G-night Mother, love you."  Sometimes it just feels so right to be his mom...