Breath of Grace

Somewhere in the middle of all the crazy, the noisy, the messy, the overwhelming, You are there.  You find me, still small, too small for all this day holds up for me to manage, and You offer me Your strength.

Treading hard to keep my head above the rush of current that sweeps me up into moments of relentless trying-hard, You fill my lungs with Your breath of grace.  I inhale the fragrance of Your life poured out so that Your Spirit in me is my strength.  You didn't mean for me to ever try to face the swells alone.  You know I can't.  So You have made a way for me.

Why, so many days, do I press hard through deep waters and carry the weight of this life without You?  Why do I sometimes let my heart feel overwhelmed in the middle of days You've already promised to spend with me? When will I get this grace and faith and peace walk right?

"When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you."  Isaiah 43:2

You are patient with me, Lord.  You never complain when I need You to teach me the same lesson over and over.  You see the tender heart You gave me.  You know its limitations, and You so gently cover me with Your faithfulness.  You quiet the storms in me with Your sweet voice.  You lead me through the days I fight to conquer on my own, and You love me even in my stubbornness.

I don't deserve You, and You give Yourself to me still.

Please teach me to how to live each of my moments in the fullness of Your grace, to let Your peace and love flood my life, so that all I have to give out is grace.  The burdens I struggle to surrender, the dreams I don't know how to let go of, please help me uncurl my fingers from around those things that I hold onto more tightly than I do Your hand.

Show me how to raise up little lives in Your grace alone and by Your Word and Your Spirit.  I know I have to be good at recieving all this from You if I'm going to be good at giving it to them.  Thank You, Lord, that You give me what I don't deserve.  Thank You for all You've entrusted to my care and promise to help me do for Your glory.

Thank you for helping me breathe in the fullness of Your grace.

"The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus."  1 Timothy 1:14

Substance of Things Hoped For

We've been back for almost three weeks, I think, and I haven't really posted anything about our trip to Ukraine.  Please let me say I'm sorry about that.  So many of you gave your time, bought gifts, made generous donations, prayed faithfully, and I promised to keep you posted, and I haven't done well with that at all.  And it's not because I haven't thought of it.  I've actually thought of little else.  It's just that I haven't been able to sit and write without crying.

There is no way that I could have ever known how deeply personal, how intensely emotional and how heart-stoppingly overwhelming this whole experience would have been.  I knew it would be unforgettable.  I knew I would cry when I first met Sasha.  I knew that when my eyes fell on his face in a crowd of people, I would mark that instant as a gift from my Father in heaven.  I knew our friends Oksana and Ania would be amazing.  And I knew it would be excrutiating to leave all of these people behind and return home.  But I didn't know how much this week would level my heart and bring me to a screeching halt and render me wordless (wonder of wonders).  I didn't know I would feel like I was leaving home and saying goodbye to my children both times I boarded the plane.  Truly, I could not even speak of this week without floods of tears (on airplanes, in airports, even a week later in the grocery store parking lot!).  So I just haven't known how to put all this into words.

But I need to try.

You have all been part of what God did in our family while we were in Ukraine.  So I will begin to try to put into words the indescribable goodness of God we experienced in our trip to Sunshine.

This exact moment, it was a gift from the hand of God.  Each of our moments are.  But this one, it's one I can mark to the second.  Capture in a photo.  Keep tucked in my heart. A perfectly ordinary-looking moment containing the invisible substance of an answered prayer.  

And I recall that "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen." (Hebrews 11:1) This moment.  This walking out the doors of an airport amidst throngs of strangers and also amidst long prayed-over friends.  This is the substance of things hoped for in my heart.  This is what faith looks like...

Guest-posting at Project HOPEFUL's blog today. Come on along!

This morning I've been given the opportunity to share a little about our visit to the orphanage in Kiev where the children with HIV or and other medical needs live.  It was truly an answer to prayer to have this open door, and another answer to prayer to be able to take photographs.  There is so much to tell you about our trip, but today, I'd love to have you come on over to the Project HOPEFUL blog with me!

"A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling.  God sets the lonely in families."  Psalm 68:5-6

Sort of on our way!

We're just about at the Boston airport. After a trying-not-too-cry-too-much round of goodbyes at home, we are finally on the road. I woke up early, and there were already several middle of the night texts on my phone from Lia, while she was in her bed, promising to pray for us and to take good care of Sage (sniffle!). I kissed my babies goodbye, and little Sage (who typically prefers to save her kisses for Daddy) tole me, when I asked for one more, "But Mom, I alweady DO DAT!" So I laughed, and it was a good distraction from crying, and I kissed Lia another one and scooted to the car. Love those girls. And love our guy, who we didn't get to kiss goodbye this morning but who we'll see soon!

The week's been crazy. We're at the airport, so I'm gonna run, and I'll keep you all updated as we go.

Love and prayers that you all are doing well!
Off we go!

Living an Answered Prayer

This morning I did my usual routine.  When the alarm went off, I hopped up, ironed my husband's clothes, and then I climbed back under the covers while he showered and got ready for work.  As I was waking, I felt impressed upon to look at 1 Thessalonians.  I walked Selden downstairs, got his lunch and kissed him goodbye.  I stood, waving in the doorway, as I have for years.  And I still could hear in my spirit that I needed to sit down with this particular book of the Bible.

When I leafed through the pages, I saw my small handwriting and a date, 4/16/11 in the margin.  What I'd written was "Prayer for going to Sasha and Sunshine."  Some portions of Scripture were underlined:


"How can we thank God enough for you in return for all the joy we have in the presence of our God because of you?


Night and day we pray most earnestly that we may see you again and supply what is lacking in your faith.


Now may our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus clear the way for us to come to you." 1 Thessalonians 3:9-11

And there, in the quiet of the morning, I open God's Word, and I see His faithfulness.  I see my prayers spilled out in my own handwriting, and I realize I am living in the midst of His answers to my heart's greatest longings.

A Growing Season

Over a year ago, I did something dangerous.  I don't recommend you try this at home, unless you're ready for what will happen afterward. Over and over, throughout the winter of last year, I prayed that God would stretch me, take me out of my comfort zone and bring me to rely on Him alone.  And He has.  And He is.

"He must become greater; I must become less." John 3:10

In so many ways, God is stripping away what is me, what is comfortable.  I can look a short ways behind me now, and I see how very much I have always relied on myself.  If I couldn't see the end of the road, I would typically not step foot on it.  But in God's answering my prayer for more unleashing of faith and total reliance on Him, He is calling me and my husband to step out into new places and agree to do more than we could possibly do on our own.  It's a beautiful, raw, unbridled faith-testing, this going into the unknown.  Each step along the way, God is using His Word as "a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path." And He is bringing precious travellers alongside us.

My eyes are opening daily to more and more need.  It is everywhere, in this broken world we call home for now.  The love of Christ for the orphan has taken root in my heart, and over the course of a few years of learning about what the Word of God says about orphans and what my responsibility is to them, I am digging deeper and deeper into the dark places of our world, asking the Holy Spirit to really let me see.  At one time, I lived in my own world, enjoying my own "stuff" and giving my tithes and doing nice things as long as it didn't cost me my own comforts.  I can't see what Jesus sacrificed for me, and see the hurting world around me, and continue to live for myself, though.  It just isn't possible.  Christ poured out His own blood for me, and I have never been worthy of what I cost him.  How can I possibly see those needs around me and not consider them worthy of a cost to myself?

"But the king replied to Araunah, 'No, I insist on paying you for it. I will not sacrifice to the LORD my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing.'" 2 Samuel 24:24

God is revealing to my heart that there are many types of offering I can make to Him.  My praise in the midst of trials.  Money I set aside for something for me that I can instead use for someone else.  Being afraid to fly over the ocean and getting on the plane anyway, to go where the Lord send us. The willingness to miss my babies for a week to shower a boy we consider family, and who misses his parents every single day of his life, with the love of a mom and dad.

What started as a heart for adoption, a heart for the orphan, is being grown into a heart more burdened by the brokenness in this world... into a heart that knows more about human trafficking and that many orphans wind up in sex slavery all across this planet and even in our nation, because they are easy victims of evil people in a hugely profitable industry... a heart that knows kids watch their parents die of AIDS, sometimes curled up beside them as they succumb to the horrible death AIDS inflicts on its victims, and then wind up heads of households at age 10... a heart that knows there are little babies and children living in this world with HIV who have no family and are considered nothing more than what, in our Lord's time, people considered the lepers - filthy, outcast, throw-away people, and that is not who they are or how God considers them... and I now know these kids can actually be adopted and with meds we have access to here, can live a normal life span.  I am now aware that as my kids splash their summer days away in swimming pools and lakes, there are whole communities dying slowly from lack of clean water.  I know there are little children with empty bellies, and they all have names and faces and stories.  And God doesn't desire my guilt at having health and having food on the table and clean water to splash in, because it is the Lord who blesses us with these things.  But He is clear in His Word that I have a duty, and He has given me a desire to act. 

"Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; maintain the right of the poor and oppressed. Rescue the weak and needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked." Psalm 82:3-4

"Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy."  Proverbs 31:8-9

Recently, as I'm drawn more in love with the children in our world and in our own country who are orphans, God is not allowing me to be content living with blinders on.  I can feel my heart seeking out more understanding, and I'm asking God to give me His eyes and His heart and His strength.  

As we prepare to go on our first trip to Eastern Europe, we ask you would be praying for us.  The Lord is so faithful to guide us in the direction of His will.  It's a huge gift from the hand of God Himself to be able to look our Sasha in the face and tell him he is worth the travel and that he is loved by us and by the Lord.  That moment, and all the moments we will spend in his company, are an honor which I am humbled to be able to receive.  There is not a single person on this earth I would rather meet than our Sasha.  Not one.  (There's not an 11-year old girl on the planet who wants to meet Justin Bieber any more than we want to meet Sasha!) I cannot tell you how moved my heart is that God is giving us this opportunity. Wow... am I ever going to be crying tears of joy!

I'd like to also express my deep thanks for all those (some I know well and others I've never met) who have invested of their time, prayers, finances, energy, and words of encouragement to us.  We are going on this mission and bringing you all along in our hearts.  We could not do this were it not for your participation, and God is using every single thing you are investing to not only bless us but to make a real impact on the children and caregivers we will be with this month and on children we are working toward supporting in the future.  Your gifts are going to have eternal impact, and I am honored to watch your hearts in action.   

Please pray that we would be able to accomplish all the Lord intends for us to do.  The trip has grown by His grace into one that is allowing us opportunity to work on behalf of orphans in a number of different ways.  I'm seeing how small my faith has always been, in light of what I'm learning now about growing in my faith to the point that I press in hard toward the unknown and the too-big and the I-don't-know-how.  

"Do not despise these small beginnings, for the LORD rejoices to see the work begin!" Zechariah 4:10

Interviewed on Project HOPEFUL's Blog Today

You've heard me share about Project HOPEFUL and a little about my new role as their Maine Associate, and today I was invited to be interviewed on their blog.  Come on over with me...