I had so many mixed emotions about starting a blog. Aside from wondering when I would write any post with having six children, homeschooling, and fundraising to bring our son and daughters home (notice all posts are written and posted early in the morning hours), I felt a conflict about giving a window to only a glimpse of what was occurring in our lives. After all, with a glimpse through a window you can only see what is right there in front of you and maybe a little bit more if you press your face against the window and truly strain to see. I wondered who would actually strain to see more? With just a glimpse through the window you might see a big family (to some), a family that seems busy enough or full enough already, a family that should be content enough and not add more. (All things we have heard already.) Honestly, that isn't even a window view, that is the view standing outside a frosted window in the cold. There is actually so much more beauty here, beauty you not only see but feel when you actually step inside.
Originally I sat this blog to private. It wasn't what I really wanted to do in those couple days before I changed the setting, it however feel like the safe thing to do in regards to being judged. Anyone that asked to join the blog if it was set to private would at the very least have to know me and know that I love Jesus if they knew me at all. It felt a little more assuring that they would then be able to factor that love into why we were doing what we are doing. If it happened to be someone that knew me well, they would also know that my desire is to deny Him nothing, even if I don't understand exactly what He is asking of me. The idea of total strangers reading as I share how I know that it was God speaking these children to us, that felt more than uncomfortable. Part of it was not knowing should I say "and then God said" or "I felt as God was saying"... there were just no words that felt adequate to explain in a way that it would give more than that window glimpse. I wanted the words that would pull the window out of the frame so you could just climb in and see what He was doing so I didn't feel like I had to prove I heard what I heard, or convince anyone that I knew what was being asked of us. Not that it was or is my place to convince anyone but when you are walking in a promise so sweet (even when tears, seeking, and surrender brought you to that promise - many times the tears getting there make it all the sweeter) you sometimes just want there to be rejoicing with you as you walk in His promises and not so many "yeah right" looks.
I love sharing what God is doing in our lives, in my life. I get so full of joy to have His name spoken and his promises poured out. I don't however like trying to explain it... I just want to dance in it, walk in it.
Recently I read The Strength of Mercy with my children for our devotion time. It was incredible - truly!! The words I seem never to have to explain what is happening when I know God is asking, she simply describes with - "He spoke to my heart". Is that it? I think that is exactly the words I have been searching for! There are audible in my heart moments when I hear specific things my Father is asking me... I hear it or I feel it however it is, these are words He is speaking right to me, to my heart!
This book was incredible for so many reasons. There were countless times that I could relate to the accounts of this true testimony within the book. When God first spoke to her a promise, she needed a moment to understand what He was saying, she didn't run straight to her husband with it. I did that when I heard God speaking these girls to us. I didn't get fully what He was asking that evening, but I needed to understand more before I could even think to speak. It wasn't that I wanted to keep it from him. It was a time of processing and understanding, questioning and submitting to what I was being asked, searching my heart and surrendering. There were moments so clearly God directed in the book, He said there will be a woman by the road, the teenage daughter repeats what God told her and .... yes there stands a woman at the side of the road later that day. I love those moments... those moments when I am asking "did I hear you, is it just me" and then there is no mistaking because He shows up in that moment just as He said He would!
Another part of this book I loved is that the daughter had seen Her mother listen to God's voice and obey even when it didn't seem to make sense. From that example, that true conviction lived out of obedience, that daughter knew the Shepard's voice when He spoke to her heart - even as a teenager. I pray that my children will also remember watching my desire to obey Him as they have grown up. Even in this adoption they have come to me with things they feel God is speaking and I love that they know His voice already. I love even more that He has been so good to show up to them when they come excited to share. He hasn't left them wondering if it was truly Him. The morning I felt God ask "If I told you I buried a treasure so deep in that field (child) that noone else sees it, would you trust me and go for it?" I was sure I knew what He was asking and suddenly the fear wasn't as great as the promise. We started school with devotion and as we begin, I realize the lesson is about the man that finds a treasure in the field and sells everything to buy the field! (Mathew 13:44) I ran when shared with the kids that morning what I heard, so when my son opened up the devotion and began to read - every one of us felt God assuring us in that moment. His assurance to just trust Him is so loving!
Lastly (though there was so much more to this book that I love), this account ends with the reminder that He weaves every last thread together. I won't give away the ending, PLEASE go read it. The ending can literally leave you waiting to breathe. A time I remember clearly experiencing seeing how intricately these threads He weaves are woven, was during one of the times we hosted. We were rehosting a 13 year old boy who was living in an orphanage in Ukraine. There was a young girl who was 14 also from Ukraine, the family that was going to host her suddenly could not the day before she was scheduled to arrive. We said we could host her. It was unfamiliar ground as our oldest daughter was not a teenager yet. It was such a nervous experience. She watched as the Yevgeni, our host son, called us mom and dad. She looked at the translator and quickly told her to tell us she didn't need a mom and dad. I saw her studying us on the trip back, and when we stopped to eat. The next morning I heard running down the steps. As I turned the corner to see which of my children were barreling down the stairs, it was Olena . She threw her arms around me and told me she loved me. She called me mom just like that! We left to go hiking as a family. It took us so long to get out of the house. The drive was over an hour. We started up the Thousand Step trail. Somewhere along the hike my husband sat down and some of the children begin setting down too. A young man and young woman stop and start asking the kids if they are doing okay on the hike. I shared that the children didn't all speak English and about hosting. How big is God that this brother and sister turn to the children we are hosting and start speaking in Russian to them. Seriously, if only I could give you a better glimpse. Olena was suppose to be hosted with a family in New York. She ended up coming with us as a back up family to a tiny rural town in PA. We are on the side of a mountain in a little town over an hour from our home, we are hiking much later than we wanted to start - and there he placed on this mountain in the forest this Russian-speaking sibling pair that could talk with our host children. Nadiya and her brother invited us to their Russian Church which was also about an hour from where we were hiking. All day I thought about how big God was to do all that. Then the day came we visited their church. Olena kept looking around and saying very excited in Russian that she saw five friends (out of 200-300 people at the church). My husband kept smiling and reminding her that she was in America and she didn't know anyone here. At the end of the service a young man in front of us looked at us a few times and then returned with four other people. Olena smiled so big. Why?? The five people standing there in front of us were the five friends she kept saying she saw. They were in fact five people that had ministered at her orphanage over six years ago when she arrived at the orphanage at eight years old! They loved her so much like Jesus that she could look over a sea of faces and know that she knew them! Oh, how God loved her that He took her from Ukraine, it seemed like she was suppose to be with a host family in New York but he puts her with us in a rural Pennsylvania town, we end up on that mountain, he puts Nadiya and her brother there, they invite us to their church.... Seriously this could have happened hundreds of other ways. Oh but HE loves us!! This spoke to our hearts, the hearts of Nadiya and her brother that obeyed and simply invited us to church right on the mountain, His love spoke to the hearts of the men and women that were standing there staring into the eyes of the young woman that had been a scared little girl newly orphaned the last they saw her six years ago and didn't think they would see again. And it spoke to Olena, a child that had believed she was forgotten in that orphanage many times. God loves her and He brought her all the way preparing every detail. And how He loved us to even let us be a part of that! The ending of this book, The Strength of Mercy took me right back to that place of remembering. He takes care of EVERY last detail!
I trust that we will see that example of perfect love again and again throughout this adoption. Even yesterday, as we traveled four hours to pick up a shoe donation for our shoe drive from a ministry I heard about two years ago. (In Ian's Boots - please look them up. https://www.facebook.com/InIansBoots They lost their young son in a sledding accident. When they got to the hospital, they were given a verse their son had tucked in his shoe. From their great loss, they started this ministry!) As we turned the corner into the parking lot for this donation of shoes, I suddenly realized - God you are weaving the threads again. Two years ago I had no idea as I listened to a family member share about this ministry that this same ministry would be pouring out in giving through a shoe fundraiser to help bring our children home. Ian's life would be woven into the legacy of the new life God has for my children. I had no idea that the loss of their son that led to the beginning of their ministry would be woven into bringing my son and daughters home. But God knew.
Reading The Strength of Mercy gave me a new way to speak what I have already known and just wasn't sure how to put into words. God speaks to our hearts! I know His voice! I have heard Him even when He has whispered to me! What can be done in the strength of His Mercy? (Taken from the book page 132) "Much is written in the Old Testament about the mercy seat, the sacred place in the tabernacle where God dwelled. Each year on the Day of Atonement the High Priest entered the Holy of Holies, seeking mercy for the sins of the people. Today, because of what Jesus Christ has done for us, we can daily enter into that sacred place. His mercy is available to us moment by moment . The strength of His mercy looked down upon humankind and saw certain death and destruction. The strength of His mercy moved His heart to reach out to adopt us as sons and daughters. The strength of God's mercy took Christ to the cross on our behlaf. His strong mercy triumphed over judgment. Through His mercy and sacrifice, He made a way for us to come home. Just as He has rescued us, we are called to stand in the strength of His unconditional love to embrace the homeless children of the world. He is calling us to redeem lives crushed by the circumstances of their birth. He is calling us to save them, to lift them out. And then, like the Father has carried us, we must carry them in love, with the strength of His mercy...and bring them home."
There is a moment in the book when the woman is speaking to her husband who hadn't heard what God was speaking to her yet and doubted what she heard. She said "You are my husband. I will submit to your decision. But the sad thing is, if you are wrong -- if God really does want us to do this -- we will never know this side of eternity what could have been. To me there is nothing more devastating than to miss what God has, what He wants us to do." It would be so much more than devastating for sure... we NEED to make sure that we know His voice, that we can hear it even in the midst of busy days or tired nights. We need to know not only when He speaks but also when He whispers. And we will know, because He speaks to our hearts!
I love this song... It speaks just where hearing Him and walking in obedience to His voice will take us.
And if you haven't read it... read The Strength of Mercy!
