My 20 year old granddaughter is pregnant and not married. My heart hurts for her. I pray for her. I cannot imagine how she will be able to do this alone.
Her 22 year old sister is also pregnant. Although she is married with a 2 year old, she struggles. Both she and her husband are in a program to overcome their addiction to alcohol.
Some days I look at them and shudder. Some days I think I don't want to live to see the pain this might bring.
But then there are other days when I see a glimpse of eternity and I know that I know that I know, God is at work in ways that I cannot possibly see, or understand, or even fathom. I am caught up in a divine plan, watching it unfold and waiting with breathless anticipation for Him to show up and show off.
When my oldest granddaughter called a few weeks ago to tell me she was pregnant, she said, "Are you mad, Nanny? I was afraid to tell you."
She said that because for months I'd been after her to get her pills refilled. In my human mind, having another baby, at this particular point in time, seemed like the worst possible thing for her.
But God has been teaching me much these last few months...much indeed!
And so when she told me she was pregnant, I simply said, "Honey, here's what I know....God is God and I am not. He knows what He is doing and I do not. If you stay sober, another child is a blessing. If you do not, it will be a tragedy. But I am trusting God, sweetheart, and He will not fail us."
When the Israelites saw the giants in the Promised Land, they came back and told everyone, "Yes, it is a great land, flowing with milk and honey, just as God said it would be. But there are enemies! Huge enemies! Numerous enemies! We will all die if we go in there!"
They were calculating on whether they would be victorious or not by looking only at their numbers, their stature, their abilities. And they made a huge miscalculation, when they failed to take God into consideration.
In fact, His response to them always makes me want to cry, “How long will these people despise Me? How long will they not trust in Me despite all the signs I have performed among them?” Numbers 14:11
Doubting God is despising God.
My eyes are on the Lord, not my grandchildren. My mind is fixed on His strengths, not my weaknesses or theirs. My heart is clinging to His faithfulness, not our faithlessness.
What do you need to trust Him for today? What is too big for you today? What is too hard for you today? What is making you want to scream out that you will die if you have to go through this today? What is making you doubt God is enough for you today?
Let me pray for you now, may I? Lord, today we come to You, knowing You have everything we need. Precious Father, our weaknesses overwhelm us. Our problems threaten to end our lives and those that we love, but we will stand in faith knowing that whether or not we ever see You move, You are at work. You are for us and not against us. You will strengthen us to endure. Our trials and temptations can make us perfect and complete lacking in nothing. Father, we can't do this, but we know You can and Father, this time we are going to let You! Amen
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Monday, January 23, 2012
Real life hurts
“You and Papa really should come to dinner this Friday night”, she said just a week ago, “she needs you”.
The words, “she needs you”, suddenly had only one possible meaning to me.
“Is she pregnant,” I asked, not really wanting to hear the answer to my question. No, God, no, not this, I thought. The silence that followed told me everything I needed to know.
There it was, the truth. The truth I’ve heard far too many times in my life. An often ugly truth that seems to shout, “Your life is over. There is no hope. You’ve gone too far now.”
“You’re pregnant,” the nurse said, to me in 1971, when, as a 19 year old college student, I first heard those, heart stopping, life ending words for the first time. I hope I can still find the father, I thought. After all, I didn’t know him well.
I did find him and just 4 days later I married a man who was 11 years my senior and an almost complete stranger to me and a year later, we were divorced.
But my life didn’t end, it just had a very hard, strange and sad beginning with many more starts and stops until Jesus found me, in 1983, as I was writing out my suicide note and He offered me life instead of death.
“Mom”, my 17 year old said on my birthday in 1989, “I’ve got something to tell you, but I’ll wait till you get home. I don’t want to ruin your day.”
“You’re pregnant, aren’t you, baby”, I asked, choking back the tears, somehow knowing in the deepest recesses of my heart what the truth was, even before I asked.
The father of her child left and soon married another young woman. My daughter had her darling baby girl and soon married a man she barely knew, 11 years her senior. They divorced 9 years later.
And her life didn’t end either. Although she’s had many twists and turns and detours, she’s found a new beginning and what we thought was hopeless, wasn’t.
“Nanny, when can I come over this week? I have something I want to talk to you about in person,” this precious, then 18 year old, first born granddaughter asked in 2008, with a trembling voice she was trying desperately to conceal.
“Sweetheart, this can’t really wait, can it? You’re pregnant aren’t you,” I asked.
“Yes, Nanny,” came the dreaded words, “I am, but don’t be sad,” she said.
And although we thought she’d gone too far, she hadn’t and she hasn’t still, even though for months on end now, her life has been one huge- drama, one scary- roller -coaster -ride, one real-life-house- of-horrors.....sin is like that you know, taking you places you had rather not go. But we can’t really ever go too far when He is right beside us through it all. Nothing, after all, can separate us from the love of God.
And now, just days ago, I learned that her 19 year old sister is pregnant.
It doesn’t get any more real than this. It doesn’t hurt any worse than this, this carrying around burdens I carried myself eons ago.
I’m hurting. I’m reeling. I’m almost 60 years old. I’m tired. I’m tired of this same sin ripping apart the lives of the young, vulnerable women in my family, who are really only looking for love, but in all the wrong places and faces.
Let me be completely honest, there are days when I want to throw up my hands and say, "Girls, I'm done! Now you all just figure your lives out and get it all together, but I'm done with this mess. Let me know when you decide to live right and grow up!"
But a few days ago, in the middle of the mess, He showed me that He came to save the LOST, to heal the SICK and to feed the POOR and that for now, this is my ministry. It is my own dearly loved, flesh and blood who need me, and serving them is my privilege and my high calling right now and I need to quit being overwhelmed by it, and learn to embrace it and to walk in it.
That’s it. Just show these precious girls Jesus in all that I do and say, day by day.
Over 2 thousand years ago, another young, unmarried teenage girl was told, by the angel, that she was pregnant with the Son of God and that her relative, even in her old age, was also pregnant, “for nothing is impossible with God.”
Yes, Lord, nothing is impossible with You, may I remember that now, especially now.
Aren’t we all Mary’s in a way, asked only to give birth to Jesus, day by day, in some small way? Aren’t we, as believers, filled to the brim, in our hearts, with the Son of God and asked to carry Him and to give birth to Him in this dark world just a little each day? Aren’t we asked to feed the poor and isn’t it true that soul hunger is just as deadly as body hunger and isn’t Jesus really the only morsel of Bread that can truly satisfy a hungry heart?
And if we don’t give birth to Him, don’t let Him live His Life through us, don’t give Him away to the hungry, aren’t we aborting life, the only True Life there is? Isn’t that the Life we should really protect with all our might?
It is hard though isn’t it, this birthing of Jesus? The labor pains of trials leave stretch marks forever, as our tiny, self-centered hearts are stretched and strained past all human boundaries, but isn’t that the goal, to bust us out of our self-life, to give the Spirit life and breath outside of us, with no restraints whatsoever?
“Hail favored one, the Lord is with thee,” the angel said to Mary, but oh, my friend, the same is true for you and for me. We are favored! He rains down grace on us day in and day out and we can expect Him to supply all that we need in these trials, because, the Lord IS with us and nothing is impossible with Him. Nothing.
Mary humbly responded to the angel’s news by saying, “Behold the bond-slave of the Lord; be it done to me according to your word.” Lord, may I respond in like manner to the news of yet another pregnancy.
Lord, I do not like where my granddaughter’s sin has led her, or her sister, or her mother, or me. But, how foolish I am if I only wallow in this and fret over this and complain about this. No, this is the perfect time to let You do what only You can do in them and in me. So Lord, do more than I ever asked for or imagined, will You? Be with us, favor us, Lord, like You did Mary. Let your divine, unmerited favor rain down on us in the person of Jesus. Let the sight of You, walking towards us in this storm, overwhelm us far more than the storm itself. Lord, may I respond to You, as Mary did, Lord, look at me, I’m poor and pitiful, but I AM your bond-servant, free to go, but choosing to stay with my Master, my All, my very Life. I let go of my plans and dreams now to cling to Yours. May I walk in complete trust in You. I will wait to see You work on our behalf IN this and if I die before I see it, I WILL praise You with my last breath, believing that whether I ever see it or not, You ARE good and You are good ALL the time.
The words, “she needs you”, suddenly had only one possible meaning to me.
“Is she pregnant,” I asked, not really wanting to hear the answer to my question. No, God, no, not this, I thought. The silence that followed told me everything I needed to know.
There it was, the truth. The truth I’ve heard far too many times in my life. An often ugly truth that seems to shout, “Your life is over. There is no hope. You’ve gone too far now.”
“You’re pregnant,” the nurse said, to me in 1971, when, as a 19 year old college student, I first heard those, heart stopping, life ending words for the first time. I hope I can still find the father, I thought. After all, I didn’t know him well.
I did find him and just 4 days later I married a man who was 11 years my senior and an almost complete stranger to me and a year later, we were divorced.
But my life didn’t end, it just had a very hard, strange and sad beginning with many more starts and stops until Jesus found me, in 1983, as I was writing out my suicide note and He offered me life instead of death.
“Mom”, my 17 year old said on my birthday in 1989, “I’ve got something to tell you, but I’ll wait till you get home. I don’t want to ruin your day.”
“You’re pregnant, aren’t you, baby”, I asked, choking back the tears, somehow knowing in the deepest recesses of my heart what the truth was, even before I asked.
The father of her child left and soon married another young woman. My daughter had her darling baby girl and soon married a man she barely knew, 11 years her senior. They divorced 9 years later.
And her life didn’t end either. Although she’s had many twists and turns and detours, she’s found a new beginning and what we thought was hopeless, wasn’t.
“Nanny, when can I come over this week? I have something I want to talk to you about in person,” this precious, then 18 year old, first born granddaughter asked in 2008, with a trembling voice she was trying desperately to conceal.
“Sweetheart, this can’t really wait, can it? You’re pregnant aren’t you,” I asked.
“Yes, Nanny,” came the dreaded words, “I am, but don’t be sad,” she said.
And although we thought she’d gone too far, she hadn’t and she hasn’t still, even though for months on end now, her life has been one huge- drama, one scary- roller -coaster -ride, one real-life-house- of-horrors.....sin is like that you know, taking you places you had rather not go. But we can’t really ever go too far when He is right beside us through it all. Nothing, after all, can separate us from the love of God.
And now, just days ago, I learned that her 19 year old sister is pregnant.
It doesn’t get any more real than this. It doesn’t hurt any worse than this, this carrying around burdens I carried myself eons ago.
I’m hurting. I’m reeling. I’m almost 60 years old. I’m tired. I’m tired of this same sin ripping apart the lives of the young, vulnerable women in my family, who are really only looking for love, but in all the wrong places and faces.
Let me be completely honest, there are days when I want to throw up my hands and say, "Girls, I'm done! Now you all just figure your lives out and get it all together, but I'm done with this mess. Let me know when you decide to live right and grow up!"
But a few days ago, in the middle of the mess, He showed me that He came to save the LOST, to heal the SICK and to feed the POOR and that for now, this is my ministry. It is my own dearly loved, flesh and blood who need me, and serving them is my privilege and my high calling right now and I need to quit being overwhelmed by it, and learn to embrace it and to walk in it.
That’s it. Just show these precious girls Jesus in all that I do and say, day by day.
Over 2 thousand years ago, another young, unmarried teenage girl was told, by the angel, that she was pregnant with the Son of God and that her relative, even in her old age, was also pregnant, “for nothing is impossible with God.”
Yes, Lord, nothing is impossible with You, may I remember that now, especially now.
Aren’t we all Mary’s in a way, asked only to give birth to Jesus, day by day, in some small way? Aren’t we, as believers, filled to the brim, in our hearts, with the Son of God and asked to carry Him and to give birth to Him in this dark world just a little each day? Aren’t we asked to feed the poor and isn’t it true that soul hunger is just as deadly as body hunger and isn’t Jesus really the only morsel of Bread that can truly satisfy a hungry heart?
And if we don’t give birth to Him, don’t let Him live His Life through us, don’t give Him away to the hungry, aren’t we aborting life, the only True Life there is? Isn’t that the Life we should really protect with all our might?
It is hard though isn’t it, this birthing of Jesus? The labor pains of trials leave stretch marks forever, as our tiny, self-centered hearts are stretched and strained past all human boundaries, but isn’t that the goal, to bust us out of our self-life, to give the Spirit life and breath outside of us, with no restraints whatsoever?
“Hail favored one, the Lord is with thee,” the angel said to Mary, but oh, my friend, the same is true for you and for me. We are favored! He rains down grace on us day in and day out and we can expect Him to supply all that we need in these trials, because, the Lord IS with us and nothing is impossible with Him. Nothing.
Mary humbly responded to the angel’s news by saying, “Behold the bond-slave of the Lord; be it done to me according to your word.” Lord, may I respond in like manner to the news of yet another pregnancy.
Lord, I do not like where my granddaughter’s sin has led her, or her sister, or her mother, or me. But, how foolish I am if I only wallow in this and fret over this and complain about this. No, this is the perfect time to let You do what only You can do in them and in me. So Lord, do more than I ever asked for or imagined, will You? Be with us, favor us, Lord, like You did Mary. Let your divine, unmerited favor rain down on us in the person of Jesus. Let the sight of You, walking towards us in this storm, overwhelm us far more than the storm itself. Lord, may I respond to You, as Mary did, Lord, look at me, I’m poor and pitiful, but I AM your bond-servant, free to go, but choosing to stay with my Master, my All, my very Life. I let go of my plans and dreams now to cling to Yours. May I walk in complete trust in You. I will wait to see You work on our behalf IN this and if I die before I see it, I WILL praise You with my last breath, believing that whether I ever see it or not, You ARE good and You are good ALL the time.
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