Post 3 - Gods Love - The love of God is greater far...

In the deepest recesses of my absolute being something inside me cries out simply this: "Dear God, please let her be mine."

I'm living, right now, every moment as a gift and am jealously guarding them not wanting to lose time, precious time, numbered time, with Precious. I've loved children before. Loved and returned them back to their original owners. One time before I looked at one child as different, the bond was different, stronger than it had been with some of the other kids I'd fostered. But the time came and I let her go.

I didn't get into foster parenting to adopt. But every once in awhile, someone comes along to change that.

Before I ever met Precious in NICU, before I donned the yellow surgical gown and washed my hands, there was something deep inside me that was anxious to get to her. There was something that said she was mine and that I was not where I should be when I finally received news she was being placed with me and that I could visit her at 8pm when the visiting hours re-opened. On my very first visit, driving to the hospital, I looked down at my speedometer and discovered that I was going 85 miles per hour. I wouldn't have been able to tell you why except that she was in a scary, foreign world to me called NICU and that I needed to be there.

I stayed late that night, holding, looking, feeling the scary symptoms of things I'm not allowed to name.
She came into my home, and I rocked her, and held her, and she was mine.

I loved her before I knew her, and I wouldn't even be able to tell you how that was even possible.

But a couple of weeks ago I finally loved her enough. I began to love her the way she deserves to be loved by me.

I've prayed for every child in my home, and I have prayed for Precious.

But I've also prayed for every childs parents and I have not prayed for the parents of Precious. And finally, a couple of weeks ago, with anguish of heart I prayed that prayer. I prayed it earnestly. Sincerely. I prayed for Gods perfect will in their lives, that the enemy attacking their lives would be bound and the chains holding so tightly onto the parents would be broken.

Even now, it hurts to even type those words. I want to cry.

But there was something in praying it, and finally being able to mean it, that released me. It released in me the joy of knowing that I am doing every single thing I possibly can for this intensely precious and wonderful little being that God so .... wonderfully, graciously... amazingly.. put into my home.

Precious is my here and now, but God is my eternity. I will love God more than I love her. I will obey Him, and serve Him with all of my being even when it contradicts what my heart that loves her wants to do. I will desire Him more than I so deeply desire her. And after releasing MY desires for her and placing them in Gods hands and praying HIS desires for the situation I discovered that I am loving her with GODS love, rather than just my own. A concept I've heard another preacher (Matt Chandler) talk about before but never quite grasped.

So tonight as I held her and softly patted her back, I whispered in her ear over and over again "I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you." and part of my intelligent mind said "Maybe I should be saying "Jesus loves you" so that she'll grow up hearing those words as well?"

And I realized... with a bit of amazement... that I'd told her just that.

Post 2: Gods Love - Restrained to rest.

I hate being restrained.

I'm not a freak out claustrophobic type person at all, but if you pin my arms my whole body goes into stress mode. So I need to keep in mind while I'm writing this that I'm not talking about physical restraints.
But tonight, in church, Precious was determinedly fighting sleep. She'd lay her head on my chest then shift to look to the left, look to the right, pick her head up and look at me, lay it down again then start the whole process over again.

This carried on until I did something that I hate to do - probably more because of my own feelings of how much I'd hate it - I restrained her head. It wasn't hard, I simply placed my hand on the back of her head and when she tried to pick it up and look the other way she wasn't able to.

She struggled for maybe 10 seconds. Then she laid her head down and fell asleep.

And I began to wonder, in what ways has God restrained me so that I would rest? What options has He shoved out of my reach, oppressed me financially, or overloaded me with OT at work so that I couldn't have more things to do, fiddle with, distract myself with, instead of just resting in Him.

I was talking with my bother today about how I see Gods love in how I feel about Precious, and then to make her unhappy for a few seconds, seconds that she didn't understand were for her benefit, for her gain, for her health... I began to wonder how much of my life, my problems, and my burdens were for a blessed benefit that I'll never have the intelligence to look back and understand.

Oh how He loves us.

Post 1. - Gods Love.

I honestly don't know if I can pull 50 out of my hat. I said I could do 50 because Gods love seems like something you should be able to write 50 posts about, but when I said to myself "What would the first one look like" It looked like this:









I felt a challenge to see if I could actually do it so if it flops it flops. But the 1st post finally came to me the other morning and so I'm writing 1 post.

I came home from a long day of work, that was immediately followed by a CPR/First Aid class that is a requirement to maintain my foster license. I trudged into my home where my sister-in-law would be waiting with my Precious, and discovered their whole family there having a devotional time together. I laid on the floor to listen in and consider drowsing.

In the time, I discovered that they'd gone downstairs to one of our neighbors (my brothers family lives right next door to me on the 2nd floor of a quad plex- a bldg with 2 houses upstairs, 2 houses downstairs). The downstairs neighbor direction below them, "J", is a single mom with 2 toddlers. She seems completely stressed out and while I've offered to help many times, she's never taken me up on it.

But on this particular day, my brother and his wife went downstairs and told her that God had laid her on their hearts and they wanted to help. What can they do? She didn't know but she began crying just because it touched her that God cared enough to send someone to her like this. (As a piece of back story, her children are named after two prophets, and she is a regular church-goer and active worker in her church.)

After some conversation my brother and his wife left her and wandered back to their home. And I wondered... What came of this? My fear is that nothing came of it. J will sit in her home with her two children and never say "I could use some help Tuesday night". But she will, temporarily, enjoy a bright, pretty moment where she feels Gods love. And her situation will not change.

As I threw my two cents into their devotional time about how we're like that with God - He says He loves us and we go OH HAPPY DAY and we think we're saved but we never take Him up on His offer to change our situation. He wants to effect our lives, carry our burdens, change our hearts; He wants to lead us into things our minds can't even imagine, but we stop at "He loves me" and then wander away.

I've been told twice, by very earnest people, that they were in love with me. I've had 3 separate people talk about how they wanted marriage with me. (The disparity in those numbers is not lost on me either.) But none of them said to me that they loved me and then went away. Quite the opposite actually. These people became the most profoundly difficult people to shake. Gifts, letters, e-mails, showing up on my doorstep, my workplace; once words like "I love you" had been spoken there immediately followed an active pursuit. Their lives, their day to day routines changed. My life changed as well because there was no simple "He loves me!" and I was able to walk away and carry on the way I was. They all wanted something from me. And they wanted to give me something in return. Probably the worst thing I could have done in those moments is walk away and go AWESOME! He loves me. See you later!

The morning after the devotional I was thinking about how God wanted to give me something beyond "I love you". And all I could think of was "Ask, and it shall be given you, Seek and you shall find, Knock and the door shall be opened."

My brother and his wife said Gods "I love you" to J, but for her to take advantage of it she needed to ask for something. They offered physical help, and she needed to say "here's where I need it". She had to ask. She likely won't.

But Gods promises are true and His love is profound. He'll say "I love you" but it's up to me then to begin asking, seeking, knocking. To take advantage of His love. To use it. To find Him in all the ways He's just waiting for me to find Him.

We say I love you quite often and nothing comes from it. God says I love you quote often and nothing comes from it. But He wants me to enter into that love and not just look at it and smile.