Hanging on to Hope
Do you ever have one of 'those' days where you have to work hard to cling to hope, instead of looking down into the pit of what could happen if things don't change? This week has been a battle to embrace rest on the bedrock of Hope.
(six of the seven kids are my step-children and four of them are adopted from different nations, and the other two are my husband's biological children. Accept for our youngest who's our biological three-year-old, the older six are all 12.5 to 17.5 years old.) We've got a lot of hormones, communication, and conflict resolution training occuring around the clock in our home. This is commonplace for those of us with teens, but to add the reality that we only have the older 6 every other week and their mom has a different set of rules, expectations, and morals is another layer of our "mix." One of our kids has had an extra tough week; this means there's been a lot of loud outbursts directly or passively directed at my husband and I as we've sought to love well even when it means we hold this child to safe, healthy, and reasonable behavior expectations. This week in particular has been extra hard because he hasn't wanted to resolve 99% of the conflict he's induced and won't acknowledge his part in any of it. It's hard to teach someone to have remorse for their words or actions; it's even harder to require someone to say sorry when they don't care about the mess they've made. Godly sorrow is something we pray for, not something we can teach all of our children.
When I was a teacher, this was easier; I would send all my students, including the bothersome ones, along to their next period. I would only have to deal with an uncooperative teen for an hour or two at max. Now I have teens who live with me, that I call my kids and I will have relationship with them for the rest of their lives. I want healthy relationships. I want healthy kids with healthy hearts. God, I need you more than the air I breathe. Remember that old song? It's true.
I need His eyes to see, His ears to hear my kids, and His heart to love without reservation.
I was reading Hebrews 4 this morning in The Passion Translation (Have you read this translation? It makes the Bible come alive, at least for me). I've read this chapter over and over, but something new stood out to me: Resting in confident faith is an invitation from God. You and I have been invited to choose rest. And not just any rest but (Hebrews 4:1):
God has offered to us the same promise of entering into his realm of resting in confident faith. So we must be extrememly careful to ensure that we all embrace the fullness of that promise and not fail to experience it.
His realm of resting involves confident faith.
The God of all the universe invites me, invites you to real rest-- the rest where we can fully embrace His promises to us so that we don't fail to experience them. This sounds like the the deep rest where you can sleep through any storm like Jesus did in the boat, believing confidently that God is going to care for all my needs despite what I see and feel. It's the kind of rest that elminates the anxiety that step-children are going to need serious counseling after having been through the traumas of rejection, living through Haitian earthquake in an orphanage, adoption, and a tragic divorce. This is the kind of rest that even though a few of my adopted kids continue to act out obnoxiously out of orphan and poverty mentalities, God is going to guide my husband and I each day in how to love them into the fullness of their hearts' healing. This God-rest reminds me that Jesus is for all 9 of our hearts' wholeness and fullness, no matter what we've been through; that he is the restorer of the breech and he redeems time and every place the enemy has sought to steel from our hearts and our relationships with one another.
He is the God of rest, confident rest.
I love the next verses, too, because they remind my spirit-man where to find my Hope. Hebrews 4:2-3:
For we have heard the good news of deliverance just as they [the Israelites] did, yet they didn't join their faith with the Word. Instead, what they heard didn't affect them deeply, for they doubted. 3For those of us who believe, faith activitaes the promise and we expeirenc the realm of confident rest! For he has said, "I was grieved with them and made a solemn oath: 'They will never enter into the calming rest of Spirit.' God's works have been completed from the foundation of the world..."
I'm not a bible scholar, but what I hear from these passages is that there is a call to believe in God's promises so that I can enter into God's rest. I can confidently trust, with faith that He will follow through because he not only knows the end from the beginning, for me and my family, but He has also completed all things-- which blows my mind in the area and concept of time. But God is outside of earthly choronos time (another topic for another day). If I can confidently trust that God will follow through and use me as a step-mom who laid down my life to serve a family who needed a mom and I keep my focus and recognize my source of all I need to give away comes from Him, I will be able to rest.
I will rest because I will know He has this-- this momement of time, this child, this circumstance... whatever it is, God has it and He is trustworthy.
My truth for today: I will accept God's invitation to believe with confident faith that God has this today and He is faithful to see my family and I to fruition in all areas of our life that need His healing touch.
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