I am an unworthy servant and a grateful recipient of God's grace and love. I am nothing without Christ. I strive to be more like Him and less like the world.
Rebelling Against The World.
I was going to do put this at the end of my last post, but when I saw how long it turned out I decided to do a separate one.
On Friday, my family traveled up to Stafford, Virginia to where my mom’s brother lives for a surprise sweet-16 party for my cousin, Rae, whose birthday was last Wednesday. It was such a sweet time. I love spending time with my mom’s family because since she’s the oldest, I’m the oldest grandchild of 15 and have 11 little cousins and they were all there. It’s so fun spending time with them all :) I got to play dolls with my 4-year-old cousin which I haven’t done in years and had forgotten how fun it is! :) We went to a skate center and went rollerblading for Rae’s second non-surprise party which was with her friends. (The surprise party was just our family.) I love my three uncle’s on my mom’s side. My mom’s 2 brothers are absolutely crazy and were cracking us up all weekend, especially when my uncle Leonard embarrassed Rae by dancing to Single Ladies in the middle of the skating rink and when he and my uncle Bud got on the Karaoke machine.
Today had a little bit of a different tone. Aaron spoke to us this morning during Switch Sunday and shared all of his prayers for us. I find myself clinging onto every word he says to us now since our time with him is drawing to a close. We’ve got just about 2 months left until he leaves and we are all certainly trying to make the most of it. We had a surprise party for his birthday on Wednesday night which was a really sweet time full of laughter for anyone who was there. These last few weeks, God’s given me a desire through Aaron to set myself aside and be Jesus to the world around me and proclaim His name with boldness, sharing the gospel at every opportunity.
Later this evening, we prayed over a sweet girl in the youth group who lost her mother last night. Seeing the peace and the knowledge of Himself that God has given her is so inspiring. I pray that when I walk through the Valley like she is right now that God supplies me with the same strength and comfort that He is giving her. I have always had a hard time imagining what life as an unbeliever would be like, but I really cannot imagine how hard it would be to lose a loved one and not have any hope!! I can only imagine the utter sorrow that those people experience. I am so thankful for God’s grace in my life and for a Father to lean on in the darkest moments.
Reading Psalm 23 tonight, I understood it in a new way. When I was in elementary school, we had to memorize the whole chapter for Awana. My mom taught me a song to help me remember it, but because of that, whenever I think of Psalm 23 I immediately sing the song and until tonight I had never really thought about what the words meant. For example, I finally realized that it says “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” I had never realized that there was a separation between the two phrases. I remember being confused as a child thinking “‘The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want?’ That doesn’t make any sense…why wouldn’t I want the Lord?” It’s kind of embarrassing that I never went back and thought about that until now. I love the “aha!” moments in life, and this was certainly one of them. There were several things in the passage that I finally understand now that I have a deeper understanding of Christ Himself. It was just cool how that passage now has a totally new look in my mind.
Between it being the last Basic Life for Pastor Aaron and hearing about Kristen’s family, tonight was certainly filled with many tears. But I am thankful for the growth and love for God that is stimulating from all of this. As I prepared to share my testimony before the Kenya meeting this afternoon, I was reminded of the song “Blessings” by Laura Story. It was a song that I listened to several times during the weeks after Reno left. What if Your blessings come through raindrops? What if Your healing comes through tears? What if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know You’re near? What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise? The more I get to know God, the more I look at the world and wonder how they can be content in their filthy messes when we have such a beautiful Maker who gives us a purpose! Though pain is not enjoyable at all, I thank God for the passion for Him and ministry to the lost that He has given me through all of this.
And I wouldn’t change a thing,
I’d walk right back through the rain;
Back to every broken heart
On the day that it was breakin.
And I’d relive all the years,
And be thankful for the tears I’ve cried with every stumbled step
That led to You and brought me here.
I’m not really sure how to start this blog post. I have so much that I want to say, but I don’t know where to begin! I guess I’ll start with the most biggest my news concerning my family right now. Ever since Reno returned to Latvia, we have been communicating with him. It was hard talking to him at first. Right after he left, I could still hear his loud, joyous laugh echoing throughout the house and I heard his sweet voice calling my name on occasion. Hearing his voice through Skype brought tears to my eyes the first few times we talked to him…just another reminder that he wasn’t with us. After those first rough weeks, God filled me with His peace. He constantly reminded me to trust in Him and I got to the point where I didn’t even need to remind myself anymore and I just quit worrying about our future regarding Reno altogether. I am not saying that I didn’t think about Him and that I was anxious to see how God would work everything out, but all my worry subsided. I even got a little feeling that I felt reluctant to share with anyone, and actually didn’t share at all until talking with my mom yesterday. I just had this feeling like I knew that we were going to see Reno again. Over the next few months, I never cried about him being gone. Maybe part of it was just that I hadn’t seen him in a while, but I felt this silent assurance that I didn’t need to worry about anything because he would be coming back. This was something I wanted to share with my mom but refrained from doing because I knew how hard of a time she was having with Reno being gone and how anxious she was to have him back. I thought if I told her and it ended up not being true that it would just make it harder for her when God clearly showed us that He had other plans for Reno.
About a month or a month and a half ago, my mom emailed Reno’s sister (who actually isn’t his sister; she’s his foster mom’s daughter. She speaks English better than anyone else in the family) to see if she and her mom would let Reno come and stay with us for the summer. We wanted to do it apart from a hosting program so that we could spend more time with him. We got an email back a week later that said that they didn’t really want Reno to be adopted, but because there are so few opportunities in Latvia, especially for children like him, his family needed for him to be adopted so that he could get a good education. (I posted a copy of that letter about a month and a half ago…click here if you want to see it). After that, my Dad suggested that we pay for his education in Latvia so that he could continue to live with his foster family and we could pay to bring him here during the summers. They didn’t want us to do that because of Reno’s abusive mother. She still has contact with him and they were afraid that because of Reno’s kind and giving personality that he would give her money if she asked for it, which they didn’t want. After further communication, we found that it wasn’t just Reno’s mom and sister that wants him adopted so that he could have good financial opportunities; Reno wants to be adopted so that he can get away from his mother. We also found out that Reno isn’t allowed to leave the country apart from with a hosting program so it wouldn’t work for us to bring him here on our own, anyways.
My mom worked out a plan with my dad and then later with Reno’s foster family. They agreed that we would give Reno the opportunity to be hosted by another family, and if he wasn’t hosted by the end of April that we would host him for the summer. A few weeks ago, my mom got the call she had been dreading. It turns out that in eagerness to get Reno hosted and adopted, his family had enrolled him in another hosting program. A lady in Pennsylvania saw his picture and wanted to host him in the interest of adopting him. She called my mom and asked her questions about him, which was really hard for her. She said she just wanted to tell her all of the bad things :), but she told her the good too. The lady told my mom that her family was trying to decide between hosting Reno or another boy and his brother. She said she’d try to call back by that night with their decision because her husband was leaving the next day to go out of town. She never called.
We have checked the hosting program lists everyday to see if Reno has been hosted. A couple of weeks ago, my dad told my mom that he didn’t think that we should host Reno even if he wasn’t hosted by another family. Of course, my mom was extremely upset about that. But for the first time, she totally let go of the whole thing and started praying for another family to host Reno. A few days ago, New Horizons sent out an email to all the families that hosted in the winter semester whose child hadn’t been hosted yet seeing if they were interested in hosting their child again. My mom replied to the email saying that we were interested if there wasn’t another family that stepped up before the deadline. The lady replied and said that there was some paperwork that had to be done by May 4th so if we wanted to host, we needed to decide now. My parents talked about it, and Reno is now OFICIALLY coming back this summer!!!!! He flies in on June 28 and our whole family is really excited!! I am praying that while Reno is here, God makes it perfectly clear what He wants for Reno and our family as far as adoption goes. My mom is more excited than any of us because these last few months have been the hardest for her. On the way home from my cousin’s birthday party in Virginia yesterday, my mom and sister were talking about this and I told my mom that I thought she should think of this only as Reno coming back for a few weeks rather than an opportunity to convince my dad that we should adopt him. I told her not to totally let go of everything and not expect it to go beyond the few weeks that he’s here. God knows what the future holds and if Dad’s mind is going to change about adoption, GOD is going to be the one that causes it. There’s nothing that any of us can do. This is what I’ve been praying for myself and what I will be praying for the rest of my family.
“Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.
Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.
We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.
By oppression and judgment he was taken away. Yet who of his generation protested? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was punished.
He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.
Yet it was the LORD’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the LORD makes his life an offering for sin, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand.
After he has suffered, he will see the light of life and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities.
Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.”
Isaiah 53
(Source: spiritualinspiration)
