When the gift wrap doesn’t match the gift

Nothing beats the anticipation of Christmas for a child. Long hours awake, dreaming of that perfect gift that you’ve spend the last few months (or maybe year) dreaming about. The one that will just set everything right in your life. You know it, it is the one that has been on your Christmas for what seems like a lifetime. It will be perfect. You’ve built it up in your mind on how it will look under the tree on Christmas morning. It will be in a tightly wrapped box about 12 by 12 with a perfectly placed box right on top. It will be right there front and center, all attention on it. The wrapping paper will be themed to the gift, you’re sure of it! And if you’re like most kids imaginations, your parents will have a spot light installed the night of Christmas Eve just to shine on this gift because it is THAT important!

Christmas morning you wake up to find the tree FILLED with gifts under the tree. But to your disappointment, no spotlight, no 12×12 box, no bow. Have your parent’s forgotten? “Surely they read the list I gave them, 18 times!” you think to yourself. You spend the next few minutes convincing yourself that Christmas must go on and maybe just maybe your parents hid the gift. Christmas continues as it does each year. Great gifts, wonderful family time and laughs abound. Just when you think it is all over your dad pulls an extra large box wrapped in newspaper from the back of the tree and hands it to you. You fake gratitude because Christmas is over and there is no way this is THE GIFT. Its not neatly wrapped, there is no bow, and this box is WAY to big. With tears in your eyes you look at your father and say, “Thank you, but I think I’ll pass on this one. I’m going to take my other new gifts and go play in my room.” And you walk out.

Now in most American households, that is not how the story would end. The parents would convince the child to open the gift even though the outside isn’t an indication of what’s inside and once the child opens the gift, he sees it IS THE GIFT he’s been longing for. It is the one he put on the list 18 times. It is the one he’s stayed awake pining for. Because after all, His Father knows his hearts desire and wants to bless his child.

Sometimes this happens in our spiritual lives too. We spend our time and energy praying for something. Maybe its a job promotion. Maybe its a loved one to come to the saving knowledge of the Lord. Maybe its just a simple prayer of a mother for her child. Whatever it is. As we spend time in prayer for it, we can easily fall into the trap of building up the gift wrap in our minds. We just know how its going to turn out. We have it all figured out.

Our loved one who is running from the Lord is going to come to us one day and say, “I think I want to go to church again, will you take me.” So they come to church with a smile on their face, the worship is on point, the message is the BEST ever and then the alter call is made. Your loved one stands with tears streaming down their face and runs full speed to the alter. At which point the lead pastor lays hands on them and they are saved, set free, and delivered from ALL that has a hold on them. They walk out a different person and begin to walk their lives perfectly as the Christian you know they are! No mistakes, no setbacks, no troubles for the rest of their lives.

Now that’s a pretty picture you just painted.

But what if their ‘come to Jesus moment’ looks more like a dark hotel room at 3 am, with a line of their next hit ready on the counter with a radio DJ saying something profound that the Lord uses to get their attention. Your loved on fights on their own for several more days, weeks, or even months and you aren’t even made aware of that initial moment until you get a phone call around 5 am from a blubbering person crying out for help. That isn’t what you envisioned. “This isn’t what you and I had planned, Lord, so surely this isn’t that!” So because it wasn’t wrapped up in a nice bow for you, you don’t help. But God just delivered this person to your doorstep and He wants to use you in their salvation and deliverance. Gift wrap doesn’t matter.

What about the old testament church? They had knowledge of a King, coming to save them. Their perception of this king was that he was going to save them from the Roman empire. He would mount up a large army and take out the Romans. What they never imagined was that he would come as a baby and he wanted to save the Romans, just as he wanted to save them.

So, what expectations have you put on the Lord? When you pray do you allow the “how” to be left up to God, or do you suppose you have the “how” figured out already. Praying with the “how” in mind isn’t allowing God to move. It is saying to God, “I know you can do this, but I’m going to do it this way, so what you have to say or do for me is irrelevant.” Did you know you are making God irrelevant in your prayers by doing this? [ouch – this one hurt me as I typed it]

Scripture says in Matthew 7:7 “keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you.” The Lord wants us to ask him for things. That much is clear. He wants to bless us with the best. He wants to make us more like himself. When we take the “how” of our prayers away from him, we are taking away His power to move on our behalf.

Are there things in your life that you have prayed for in the past and when the answer presented itself, it looked different than how you thought it would be? If you answered yes, it’s time to stop attaching the “how” to your prayers and let God do his job. He may want to use you to answer that prayer and he may not. He may just answer it in a way that you can’t even think or imagine. It may come wrapped in newspaper, but what’s inside is the best thing for you! Let the Giver be enough. Let Him be the how today! Let’s take all pre-conceived ideas off of our prayers and watch the goodness of God work!

It was worth it…

I wanted to share a quick thought.

While running sound this past Sunday for our church service, nothing out of the ordinary was happening at the time. I was engage with Papa God and just loving it in his presence and a random thought came across my head. Typically when I get random thoughts like these, they are “God thoughts.” You see God and I have conversations in my head all the time. Its usually in the silent place of my spirit where I hear him best. On this particular day, that was no conversation happening, just this realization/revelation…

“It was worth it. The miscarriages and knowing what it is like to lose children, was worth it, if it means sitting with another grieving mom as she deals with a loss. It was worth it if sitting with her and empathizing with her means she keeps her faith because I did. It was worth it if it means one more believer doesn’t loose heart because she sees the strength you’ve given me through it and then she knows she can get through it too. It was worth it to know that my loss may just save another grieving mother’s life.”

You see our lives are not our own. And while the feelings and hurts of this world are so real and so intense sometimes…they are temporary. What is real and lasting is the relationship we’ve built with Jesus and how he loves us through things. He never left me when I was miscarrying and he hasn’t left me now. His plan for me haven’t changed as a result of either of my losses. And I’m coming out stronger than I went it. My ashes are being made beautiful! And if even a piece of this beauty can shine on another and help her through one of the toughest times of her life…it is worth it!

Tears in a bottle

Psalm 56:8 “You number my wanderings; Put my tears into Your bottle; Are they not in Your book?”

There is this misconception (at least in the American Mindset) that Christians don’t suffer. The belief is that Christians, the instant they become a Christian are exempt from or somehow removed from the bad stuff that happens. The thought is that Christians have it all together. Like when Christ died for our sins and redeemed us to himself that it wiped away all heartache, hardships, and hassles from our lives. It did…but not this side of heaven.

You see the problem is that we still live in a fallen world. We still deal with fallen people. We still aren’t perfect. And we still have flesh on. Scriptures puts its this way, “we are in this world, but not of it.”

It is the “not of it” part that allows us to operate (or gives us power to operate, whether we chose to exercise this or not) outside of the walls of this world. What this means is when we come up against something, we have power to overcome. We have a friend to walk through it with us. We have a comforter to comfort us during the hard times. We have this special thing that allows us to know that it will be OK, even in the hardest of circumstances.

When I went through my most recent miscarriage, I was devastated. With all the infertility struggles we’ve had in the past, I always told God that if I got pregnant again, I don’t even want to know about it unless its going to last and end in a baby. I thought we’d come to an agreement. I thought we were on the same page. So when, at 43 I found out I was pregnant again, after 10 years of negative tests, I thought that it was our miracle baby. This one was going to be the one that tells the world of the goodness of God. This one was going to cure cancer! This one, after 10 years of nothing was surely it!!! We had even just come through a season of Blessings in regard to the possibility of expanding our family. We’ve become licensed to foster-to-adopt and our home was prepared for another one. We thought, how “like God” to allow this to happen! How great….until it wasn’t. I miscarried at 9 weeks pregnant. This one hit SO MUCH harder than the first time. We were devastated because not only was this little life inside me gone, but it seemed as if the hope of what we’d spent the last year preparing for was gone as well. Our world (for the moment) was shattered!

BUT GOD…

You see, God doesn’t leave us in despair. He doesn’t leave us in the pit. He sets us up on the rock. He redeems ALL THINGS. Through the years of life, I’ve gained enough knowledge and gotten to know God enough to know those things. But in the moment when everything came to a screeching halt, those things were hard to find. That’s why he collects our tears. He holds them so close, so that He can pour them over us, mixed in his love, compassion, and mercy like a healing salve.

So, Christian, hear me. It is OK to be hurt. It is OK to mourn. It is OK to cry. It is OK to struggle. We all ride the struggle bus from time to time. But what we have to understand is that we are not meant to stay there. We are not meant to drown in the deep of our sorrows. God, if we allow Him to, will pull us out.

During the moment when I realized I was having a miscarriage, John said to me, “Whatever you do, don’t walk away. Don’t loose your faith in God. He is still working.” If I was honest, I don’t remember him telling me that. It wasn’t until a few days later that he told me again. I don’t know that I was even considering walking away, actually. Maybe “taking a break” of sorts, but not walking away. The best thing I did for my faith and my family was get us to church that weekend. And with what little faith I still had, I stood in the back of the room during worship and sang to a God that I knew was good, even if it didn’t feel like it in that moment. And with tears streaming down my face through the whole service, I laid myself down (in a spiritual sense) before him and worshiped anyway. And in that moment, something happened in the Spirit that I can only describe as a building moment. Just as in John 11 when Jesus wept with Mary and Marth over the death of Lazarus, I know He wept with me too.

That day in church, that was about 9 months ago. I know the timing because my baby was to be due right about now. And while I don’t have a baby to hold, I do have a renewed strength and a renewed joy and a renewed hope that only God can give. And I think the one reason why I’m coming out of this season with hope…I didn’t let the hard times run me down. I didn’t let the lies chase me out. I didn’t let the heartache take over.

I worshipped anyway!

(A lot of what I’ve learned recently has been pouring out here. Read Writing in the “to” season for some insight on how I fought this battle and you an too.)