SEVEN Months Ago~

Have you ever had a Never Again moment because you Thought you knew the future or maybe just didn’t take into account this life… {this story}… wasn’t your story. IT IS God’s story. Yeah, us too!

This past June a year ago, two 50 something year old adults arrived home with their ninth child (6^th from China) tired, feeling old, and saying WE ARE DONE! After all, we had followed God’s call on our family and welcomed another daughter home.

Wouldn’t it make sense to be satisfied, content, and take care of the ones God had already given us? Go back to our safe life cocooning our new one while finding a new normal. And that’s exactly what we did~

Just for safe keeping of my heart (which I know all too well) I asked to be taken off all waiting child lists and blocked many of the ways I might see another face I could love. Scott says I could love them all and he’s right.

That worked well until I went to an If Gathering in February 6-7 where God began to tear down walls I had built around my heart… A wall keeping me from China and another life to save (I sound terrible, don’t I?). Sharing truth. The walls I thought were protecting our family, my marriage, and what I thought was My Story.

The If Gathering was one of those mountaintop experiences when God spoke straight to my heart about knowing and living for Him alone. 

Key notes I wrote down were:

·      Am I enough? Am I going to stay safe? Live by sight or by Faith? What matters? Souls of People!

·      If God is real, why am I sitting here in the desert? Stop being safe and be crazy dangerous for Him

·      My life is not my own… What am I going to do about it? Run to the least of them and pray over people.

·      Faith rarely comes easily and we should expect it to be hard. Faith doesn’t mean there is no doubt and God won’t always explain Himself.

·      Let God be God (His ways are mysterious). Faith can thrive even when my knowledge is failing.

·      Faith is a process that day by day develops us into disciples… He is able to do and be for me always.

·      Unless we are willing to serve,  we can’t be prepared for God to use me {Embrace my Place}

·      Service is the key to destiny

·      Know the Word, Love the Word, and hang onto the Word of God diminishing fear giving me a spirit of Love

In the end we were challenged to choose a word we felt God was giving us through all we had heard. We each wrote our word on a stone as a testament of His promise.  I completely felt my word was Seven.

Seven?

I had my ideas and let’s just say Scott did not agree. AT ALL!

So I put all MY thoughts and speculations to rest and continued living our new normal.

I trusted Scott's judgement and if he wasn't feeling led

 then I needed to heed his wisdom.

PS. God gave me the word Seven many times over the next weeks 

but I prayed He would tell my husband too…

{More of the story tomorrow}

Joshua 6:15
On the seventh day they rose early, at the dawn of day, and marched around the city in the same manner seven times. It was only on that day that they marched around the city seven times.