When you feel a sting of pain this Mother's Day...

Our bedtime talks. "So did anything make you sad today?" The floodgates opened. Sobs so deep her shoulders shook. "I miss my Mommy in Ghana." Thankful that I have been graced for this moment right here. I knew what to say. Words that the Lord has whispered to my own heart time and again. Our every longing, every ache in this life is really just our hearts crying out for heaven. For the day when broken families won't exist. And we won't ever have to feel this kind of pain again. This day is a blessing for many. But sometimes life breaks you, and sometimes Jesus takes you DEEPER when all along you had expected to go higher, and for some, this day brings a sting of pain. For the sons and daughters who are growing up without the mothers who carried them in their womb and birthed them. Because families are broken. And adoption is only a bandaid. And sometimes days like this re-expose the wound. For the woman who has grieved through the turbulent waves of infertility, and this is a dreaded day that suffocates her and sends daggers through her heart. For the day I complained about the piles of laundry and God flashed Dawn Grooters in my mind and whispered "she would love to be doing Kael's laundry again"...for the mothers who have experienced the loss of a child and will never again feel the same on this day. For the single moms who've been abandoned by their husbands and never expected to be doing this parenting thing on their own. For the woman chained to the regret of her abortion. For the birthmothers who have given up their children in love and will never get to see them again. For those whose mothers have passed away and this day just brings more heaviness and more grieving. For the Momma who feels like she's messed up just one too many times and feels unworthy of receiving honor on this day. Yes. Stingers. This Mommyhood thing is the highest of callings. And sometimes I think that's why it can hurt so much. Learning myself that OUR BROKENNESS DOES NOT DEFINE US. God does. Let Him remind you who you are today. ❤️

For the Momma who is feeling just a little too imperfect today read this:
http://www.aholyexperience.com/2014/05/why-mothers-day-is-really-just-for-the-birds/


For the Momma who needs to be reminded of her worth today watch this....with some kleenex nearby:



For the Momma who needs a change in perspective today watch this:

15 Keys to Parenting: What No One Tells You

Oh mommas.  This post by Ann Voskamp is SO beautiful and SO real.  I can't even take it.  I've read it four times today and am still digesting it.  One of my favorite lines:

I didn’t know that you kids would birth me deeper into God and I didn’t know that you’d drive me crazy and I didn’t know how you’d drive me to the Cross.

Here it is: http://www.aholyexperience.com/2014/04/15-keys-to-parenting-what-no-one-tells-you/

For Everything A Season

In case you’ve missed us on Instagram….well….we’ve had A LOT going on over the past months….like this…

And this!!!!!

Yes, that’s right….a sweet little blessing joined our crew on February 3, 2014. Jacoby Jeremiah Sullivan. And you can be sure that he is receiving no shortage of attention around here!

I cannot possibly recap in one blog post the rich moments and fullness of hearts that Jacoby’s little life has given us. The days with him are bright and warm…like unwrapping a gift from the Lord each and every day. We cannot stop kissing him and snuggling him and talking to him in our silly high-pitched baby voices that lure out his smiles. In fact, I am having to discipline myself right now because I want to post so many more pictures and write so much more….but…..

For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven. |Ecclesiastes 3:1| 

I am at peace in discerning that there will be a season for writing again….and now is not that season. Now is a season for feedings by night and staring into baby blues by day. A time for an intense study of my 6 children…for the revealings of who they are. Dropping everything just to be with them. This is the season for learning that. A season for being chisled-changed-molded-sifted, and trusting deeply the Lord’s word to me that, “It will turn out beautiful. You’ll see.” Even when I can’t see. A season of in-depth lessons and inward reflections that WILL burst forth into written words. But now is not the time.

I must say, I do miss writing. I mean really writing. The kind of writing that takes days and long hours and investments of prayer and the fervent waiting and hoping to hear that still, small voice whispering my hand along. The kind of writing that takes piercing quiet to unravel the meaning of thoughts and happenings and lessons and events. I came across the perfect words that explain why I love writing:

“Writing is a way of opening our eyes to see what we otherwise do not see. This thought struck me so forcefully one day that I paused and wrote: 

I know not how the light is shed,
nor understand this lens.
I only know that there are eyes
in pencils and in pens.” ~John Piper~ 

Yes. I feel it too. Writing is the way I come to see. There is no shortage of material. In fact, I have more beautiful and messy things to write about now than I ever did before.  The notes tab on my phone is jam packed with loads of unfinished, unprocessed thoughts…just waiting for their time to come to life. And I believe they will. I feel that the Lord will give me a season of writing again, which is why this blog stays up. But for now, perhaps amidst a post or update here or there, I will be thankfully…..FULLY……savoring the precious gifts within this season….one of which is the sweet little baby in my arms. This is a time to rejoice and keep and heal and build up and intensely EMBRACE….so I will.

My Battle with Anger and Rage

I thought parenting was going to portray my strengths, never realizing that God had ordained it to reveal my weaknesses. ~ Dave Harvey

God has been writing this post in my heart for about the last 6 months (just take a glimpse at how long it is and you won't doubt that for a minute!). A recent sermon at my church on ‘using anger wisely’ really sparked me to know it’s time! It’s time to share about how the Lord has been disciplining me in this area, and how He has helped me to ‘get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger…’(Ephesians 4:31).

I was relieved to learn the truth in that recent sermon that anger in itself is not sin. God created us in His image. God gets angry. Jesus got angry (Mark 3:5; John 2:13-17). God can use anger for good and for His Kingdom purposes. Anger can spur us to rebuke evil and sin, call out lies, stand up against injustices, and boldly proclaim the truth, all of which bring honor and glory to His name. And as I believe the prophet Jeremiah revealed, anger in the form of zeal can be the fuel that allows us to prophesy with passionate conviction, in full confidence of the Lord’s messages that He would speak through us….

I am ridiculed all day long; everyone mocks me. Whenever I speak, I cry out proclaiming violence and destruction. So the word of the Lord has brought me insult and reproach all day long. But if I say, ‘I will not mention Him or speak any more in His name,’ His word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot (Jeremiah 20:7-9).

There is such a thing as righteous anger.

But we humans can take anything that God ordained to be used to glorify Him and His Kingdom purposes and instead turn it into something evil that becomes sin.

Anger in itself is not sin. It’s what comes after our anger, how we manage it (or don’t manage it) that can entangle us and give the devil a foothold in our lives (Ephesians 4:26-27)….and worse, destroy those who are in our line of ammunition. And for us moms, many times, that becomes our children.

It is my own children’s sin that provokes my anger. When I observe their self-centeredness...thinking/acting like the world revolves around them, direct disobedience to authority and disrespect of authority, self-seeking attitudes…it’s those kinds of situations (and many more) in which my anger starts knocking down the door. I’ve heard the ‘advice’ before to not get offended by your kids’ sin. For myself I consider that hogwash. Of course I am going to be offended when they sin! I am their mother. A wise son brings joy to his father, but a foolish son grief to his mother (Proverbs 10:1). I have a responsibility to train and instruct them in the way they should go. It is repulsive, offensive, and grieving to me when they depart from the way of life. I was SO thankful that in his sermon our pastor pointed out that our children’s sin should make us angry. He noted that the opposite of anger is apathy….the man who is angered by nothing cares about nothing.

But, all that said, herein is where my problem lies: my anger triggers a physical reaction inside of me. I can literally feel a rush of adrenaline begin to rise up in my chest ready to explode. It’s like a power surge. If you plugged me in at that moment I could give electricity to the entire town. You can imagine what this gives way to when in those moments I am supposed to discipline and shepherd my children in love. What instead often comes out of me has been something so ugly, so dark, so sinful, so shocking, that it absolutely repulses me. RAGE. Impulsive actions. Venting my anger. Allowing words that destroy, cut down, and dishearten to come carelessly flying out of my mouth - instead of words that shepherd, encourage, and lift up. And all of that, stemming from anger. In me, anger turns into rage.

You didn’t know I had it in me did you? Yeah, me either. The fullness of this wasn’t revealed until I became a parent….and the full fullness wasn’t revealed until the past 6 months when I became a full-on mother of 5. But the other thing is that this sin is so easy to hide. Moms can hide it at play dates or on the playground or at family gatherings. But get us home alone with our kids and you’d see it all in full view. I know the devil would have me to believe that I am the only mom who struggles with this. But in my current bible study group, as I’ve become transparent about warring against this sin of rage, instead of being met with dead silence and crickets chirping or seeing judgmental looks of condemnation, I’m hearing “hallelujahs” and “amens” and seeing heads nodding yes. So, I’ve come to realize that it’s not that I’m the only one struggling with this. It’s that this is a widely un-talked about topic within the church….especially among women. It feels shameful and awful to share these things as a mom….especially to other moms. For one, our worldly culture so desperately tries to invite us to compete with each other and compare to one another. To put on the ‘I’m a good mommy mask’, keep our failures to ourselves, lest we show that we don’t measure up. It’s safer to keep these ugly things hidden and to instead share recipes and talk about potty training strategies. Second, isn’t the word ‘rage’ a long ways off from defining the essence of Mommy? I am supposed to be the warm, cuddly, gentle, sweet, patient, maternal one, aren’t I? Aren’t those the traits that are supposed to come naturally to moms everywhere?  Yes I felt those things when my children were infants.  But slam with me an 11 year old, 7 year old, 6 year old, 5 year old, and 2 year old and oh, how my inner nature begs to differ. Now I see what other natural traits are in me, and it ain't pretty. Yet, as a Christ-follower, I know the King I follow. He opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. God would rather have me bow down low in my failures, humble myself and confess that I need Him, and use my transparency to encourage and help others going through something similar. I hope this post can be that for someone.

So on with my personal struggle. I got to a point this summer where I was so sickened over this sin of rage in my mommyhood that I wound up in the closet (the only place in the house I can lock the door and receive peace and quiet) crying out to God that I was so weary of wrestling with this.  I told God I couldn’t do it anymore, and that it was like I had no power to stop myself. In their misbehaving times it was such a huge release to vent at my kids and respond on impulse, yet moments later I would feel awful condemnation and guilt over what I had just done, needing to apologize and ask for their forgiveness - only to know and expect that an hour or so later it would be happening all again. How can I lead and instruct my children out of their sin, when all they see in those moments is mine? The end goal of self-control wasn’t even on the radar. It was like I was stuck in this cycle of living in defeat. The devil had created a dominion of rule in this area over my life. I would wake up in the morning and say to myself “Ok. Today I am not going to lose it. I am not going to blow up on my kids. I am going to stay self-controlled and take deep breaths. I will not allow my anger to become rage.” But I’d fail by 10am, and the devil would be right there, snickering in my ear, confirming my deepest fear – that I was an incompetent, unfit mommy. “What kind of mom does that.” “Your kids don’t even want to be around you.” “They’re going to grow up to hate you.” “Your child doesn’t feel loved because you’re a terrible parent.” “They think you’re mean.” They’d go over to the neighbor’s house to play and the devil would whisper of my neighbor, “They wish she was their mom.” I had all of that and more rolling through my head as I talked with God there in the closet, trying to understand if I was going to be plagued with this the rest of my life. I told God that this sin repulsed me and I hated it. It was shocking to me that this vicious thing was living inside of me. I was becoming so grieved over it. I didn’t want it anymore. I even asked Him why I had to struggle with this sin. Why couldn’t it be some other sin that wasn’t as ‘horrible’? In my calculations it seemed that it would be a better idea if He just took me on up to heaven right then. I could not continue battling on in defeat….I was losing heart. I asked Him to rescue me from this body of death. I was ready to shed this earthly dwelling full of sin and yuck and get on with heaven. My plea was so honest and urgent that I fully expected that He may just shoot me right through the roof on up to glory in that moment. Didn’t happen. So I asked Him for a word of encouragement that would enable me to go on fighting this battle. I closed my Bible, and left the closet.

Later that day, in order to complete my ‘homework’ for a bible study I am in I was walking through verses in Hebrews chapter 11. As I often do, I started skimming around the surrounding chapters to catch more of the context. As I did, my eyes zoned in on Hebrews 12 and once I started reading I couldn’t stop. This is what I read:

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before Him He endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider Him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And have you completely forgotten this word of encouragement that addresses you as a father addresses his son? It says,

“My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline,    
and do not lose heart when He rebukes you,
because the Lord disciplines the one He loves,    
and He chastens everyone He accepts as his son.”

Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline—then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of spirits and live! They disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in His holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it (Hebrews 12:1-11).

Oh. Well that put things into perspective. I have not struggled against this sin to the point of shedding my blood as Jesus did…I’ve only shed a few tears. I can struggle and war against this more. And who else but God could lead me to a passage of scripture that spoke the exact words I had cried out to Him about…Lord, I’m weary, I’m losing heart, please give me a word of encouragement to help me press on. Those exact words were in that particular scripture. Only my King can do that….speak to my soul in such a personal way….and right on time. And God reminded me of something that I had been hoping to walk around and avoid instead of go through….His discipline is painful. He and I have places we need to go, promised lands to claim and enter, and this sin cannot go with us…..it was time for Him to expose this sin, rebuke me, and start the sifting process. In the end, being trained by His discipline would grant me the rescue and peace my heart was longing for, but for now I was still in His training grounds….ugly as it felt at the time.

In that set of scripture I had definitely received the word of encouragement I had asked for. But I still had one lingering question in my mind:

What am I supposed to do, practically, in those moments when that anger rises up in my chest as if it is a rush of adrenaline, an electric power surge, ready to explode?

Am I supposed to suppress that feeling? If so, then how do I suppress it? What practical steps am I supposed to take in order to deal with that anger that boils up,up,up, just waiting to make its appearance as rage? We hear verses like in your anger do not sin (Ephesians 4:26), and be self-controlled (1 Peter 5:8), and be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry (James 1:19-20)…..well, ok…..but how practically do you accomplish that when the physical uprisal inside of you is screaming to do the opposite? With many other sins the answer is to avoid the temptation in the first place….to actually flee from it and run the other direction. But my trigger is my kids. I can’t just flee from them every time they misbehave. :) So what do I do practically in those moments?

God would give me the practical answer that week in my bible study.

The study I am doing is called ‘Believing God’ by Beth Moore. On this particular week I was working through page 25 in the workbook which had nothing to do with anger, self-control, or the like, but actually was a message about faith being a quality of the fruit of the Spirit. However, in the author’s commentary, two sentences stood out to me like a sore thumb and spoke directly to my condition:

When we are yielded to the Holy Spirit’s authority, His personality fills us and eclipses our own. When we’re not yielded, we grieve the Holy Spirit and operate from our carnal (sinful) nature.

God spoke to me so clearly through those two tiny sentences. I have been governed by my feelings rather than the Spirit. When I allow my flesh to choose the reaction, I am smothering the Holy Spirit’s personality that wants to work through me, and I am instead choosing to operate from my own sinful nature. The practical answer in those heated moments is to YIELD/PAUSE right in the middle of the moment and submit and wait for the Holy Spirit’s response to invade me. I began to get a vivid picture of my afternoon drives to Ankeny which happen daily. One of the first parts of my route is merging onto the interstate. Many times lately I have been so lost in thought that I am literally gunning the gas pedal along the on-ramp while completely tuning out the yield sign to merge onto the interstate. More than once I have almost been knocked over by semis flying by that don’t have enough warning time to switch lanes before they see my car right there and merging….because I haven’t been observing the yield sign. I’ve just been gunning it right onto the interstate without thought. Hmmmmm. This is the exact thing happening with my anger. I’ve just been gunning it….and letting it go wherever it would take me. Not even giving thought to yield, submit, and merge with the Holy Spirit, allowing Him to take me onward instead. That same week, a magazine that we receive from our adoptions called ‘Thriving Family’ actually had an article entitled ‘Women and Anger’ included in it. Of course it caught my eye because I’ve never heard anyone address the topic before! And in the article, God confirmed this idea of yielding/pausing to the Spirit. The author of the article said:

When I yell, I communicate to my family that they have the power to make me act crazy. And I don’t want my kids, my husband, the family dog or anyone else to have that kind of power over me. So, in that split second before I yell, I try to insert a pause. Pausing reminds me that God gave me emotions to experience life – not destroy it. Pausing helps me look for a little perspective. And best of all, pausing allows for the Holy Spirit to intervene in my response. ~Lysa Terkeurst~

Alright. Pause for the Holy Spirit confirmed.

Although I had finally found the practical answer I was looking for, God was going to take me even a step closer to Himself through my weakness.

You see, for weeks I tried this pause method. Some situations I could do it. But many times I would find that I would fail, even though I now knew what I should do….yield. The physical uprisal of anger inside of me was just too strong and overpowering. And coming to that reality, that now I even knew what I was supposed to do, and yet still couldn’t do it, was something that God used to give me a reality check of my own depravity...to show me my desperate need for Him. I started to see something profound: God didn’t want me in a place of self-sufficiency. Because then I don’t need Him. I was going to learn that I could not rid myself of this rage on my own. It was going to take something supernatural….His all-sufficient grace.

About this time that I was beginning to see that even with a practical method to avoid my sin, I couldn’t do it, I was now weeks further along in my bible study. And the author had put forth a challenge….ask God to consecrate our mouths...to give us a desire to stop misusing our mouths. Yet, I knew I didn’t stand a chance at that if the source, my boiling rage, was still stirring around in my chest. My misuse of my mouth 95% of the time comes as a result of giving full vent to that physical surge that rises up. I had that in mind as we walked through the homework for the day. As the backdrop for the challenge we were taken through Isaiah 6:1-8 ~

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of His robe filled the temple. Above Him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another:

“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty;
 the whole earth is full of His glory.”

At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.

“Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.” Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”

As we looked up some of the words of the verses in the original Greek, I started to see something that I never had before. The words ‘taken away’ translated into ‘removed’ and the words ‘atoned for’ translated into ‘purged’. And then it dawned on me. I had never asked God to simply touch me and rid me, purge me, remove from me, the boiling rage that would rise up somewhere in the pit of my sternum. Could I approach Him and ask Him to touch me in the sternum, just as the angel did Isaiah’s lips with the coal, and simply remove it? Let it be gone? Let it not even be part of me anymore? The next verse we were led to gave me my answer:

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are – yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need (Hebrews 4:15-16).

My faith was being stirred. Over the past 6 months I had so desperately wanted this to go away. It felt like I had tried everything, and yet through it, my insufficiencies were only highlighted all the more. I, in and of my own power, could not rid myself of this. And yet, that’s it, isn’t it? That’s the whole point of the gospel. That’s why Jesus came for us. We must learn that only God can take away our sin and heal us….we are insufficient to do that on our own. I started to get a visual in my mind. Of another who had faith to believe that if she could just touch Him, touch His cloak, she would be healed….

A large crowd followed and pressed around Him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind Him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering…..He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering (Mark 5:24-29,34).”

Her need was physical. A healing from the suffering of sickness. My need also felt physical….that yuck there in the pit of my sternum. Yet also a need for healing from the destroying work of sin…as was Isaiah’s need.

This was all it took. I went back to my closet and confidently approached His throne of grace. I can tell you that in those moments I felt so certain of what I was about to ask of my Savior. I literally, honestly felt like He had already whispered that the healing would be given to me before I even opened my mouth. I went for it. But this time, instead of asking Him to remove me from this body of death, I asked Him to physically remove the body of death from me. Not the anger. Not the zeal.  But the rage. I told Him that I had faith that He could just simply touch me, as He did Isaiah and the woman, and heal me, rid me, remove from me, the filthy, destroying work of rage.

And He did.

I didn’t see angels or a vision or anything with my eyes, or hear anything with my ears. But I can tell you that in those moments I simply felt tremendous peace and stillness. I knew that it had happened. It was a John 14:13-14 moment for me. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it. I truly had not a doubt that God had removed it.

And it didn’t take long to find out for sure. The next day a misbehaving scenario came about that normally would have sent me through the roof. I still felt anger against the sin, but there was absolutely no rush of rage rising in my sternum to fuel me into fury and impulsive actions. It was awesome. I can only describe it as a stillness resonating inside of me that I have never known in situations like that before.

It has been weeks since God removed this from me, and the stillness is still there. It has been so awesome, so relieving, so freeing, so glorifying to God in my life, that I have at times started to fret that the rage is lurking around somewhere, just waiting to crawl back inside of me and chain me up in the pit again. Even in the days it took to write out this post, it felt like the enemy was doing everything possible to squander and discredit what God had done. In my Bible study the author shared with us that if you start to feel threatened once again by a past stronghold that the enemy has gotten a lot of mileage over in your life, you should speak out against it in those threatening moments. Renounce it. Literally with spoken words. She said that for reasons ultimately known to God alone, He has ordained that SPOKEN words carry a power, authority, and effectiveness that exceed words we simply think. When we get in the devil’s face, by speaking scripture out loud – verbally removing all attachment from the sin, we intimidate the devil. Renouncing is our loaded gun against our enemy. Using my authority with the spoken word saying scripture out loud like, “I renounce the secret and shameful way of rage (2 Cor 4:2), I am not characterized by it anymore. God has removed it. As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed my rage from me (Psalm 103:12)” has enabled me to get the devil out of my face and continue to rest in my healing.

I was not sufficient to rid myself of this rage on my own.  Nine years ago I put my faith in Jesus alone to rescue me from the eternal punishment that my sin deserves. And yet, today, I have become increasingly aware of how desperately I still need Him to rescue me from my sin. Apart from Him I am nothing, and can do nothing. Every hour I need Him.

I am able to bring beauty out of the junk of your mistakes. Thinking that you should live an error-free life is symptomatic of pride. Your failures as a mom highlight your dependence on Me. View your insufficiencies as doorways to a deeper reliance on Me. In My kindness, I am stripping you of self-reliance, of confidence in your own strength and abilities. Although the world applauds those things, I see things differently. I may choose to use your weaknesses and failures to glorify my Name. I may choose to give you ‘thorns in your flesh’ to acquaint you with My grace in ways that you have never understood before. Why? For, it is only when you arrive at that dreaded place of weakness that you will discover the place where you learn to depend on My power. (Tailored from Jesus Calling and 2 Corinthians 12:9)

Jayla's Fear: The Hairy Man

Earlier this year Jennifer and Jayla started learning their recital routine for dance class. The studio is set up so that the parents sit outside in a waiting area so as not to distract the dancers or the teachers. [There is, however, a little viewing window that you can watch the dancers through.] One such evening I was sitting in the waiting area during class and playing with Jasara. About half-way through the class the girls came out to get changed from their ballet shoes to their tap shoes. As they flooded out of the studio one of the other little dancers announced, “Jayla is crying!” Sure enough, around the corner came a red, blotchy faced Jayla with tears streaming down her face. She was crying so hard that she wasn’t able to answer my pleas of, “What’s wrong?” Her classmate filled me in, “I think she’s scared of the ‘hairy guy’ that came into our class today.”

“Who is the hairy guy?” I asked.

“The guy with the big beard.”

What on earth was this about? I had never seen this ‘hairy guy’ before, but little did I know I was about to become very familiar with him. I looked at Jayla and asked her if that was why she was crying and she nodded yes. We got her shoes changed, grabbed a sip of water, and I walked her back into class as she reluctantly followed. That’s when I saw him. Nothing out of the ordinary honestly. It was just a young man who had grown a very thick beard for the winter, covering the majority of his face. With our family being surrounded by mostly the basketball crowd, Jayla does not often come into contact with anyone who isn’t clean shaven, or at the least they don’t have more than a little scruff on their face. Seeing this was an all new experience for her. This man literally terrified her as we walked by him and I scooted her back into the studio. As I watched the remainder of her class through the viewing window, I saw that she still hadn’t quite recovered from this encounter with the hairy man, who I found out later is part of their recital routine. He had come that day, and would be coming to their future classes, to practice his part that goes along with theirs in the recital. Well, Jayla could not pull herself back together, and kept looking over her shoulder to see if he was coming back into the studio. I also could literally see these waves of fear come over her as she let her mind go with scary thoughts and she would start crying all over again. Oh boy.

Class ended and since the hairy man was still in the waiting room, I met Jayla at her studio door. By now, it was obvious to everyone, even the hairy man, that Jayla was terrified of him. Talk about awkward. And honestly, I felt quite embarrassed. In all the different cultures and colors and appearances she had been around, how could my child be afraid of a beard?

As we packed up our things to go, I found myself offering Jayla some very worldly advice and counsel in an effort to talk her fear down. “It’s nothing to be afraid of, honey,” I said. “It’s just hair. Daddy has a beard sometimes - it’s just like that.” “That man is not going to hurt you. He’s a dancer. He’s just there to dance.” There’s nothing wrong with trying to bring in a little reality. But nothing of what I said helped her that night. We even tried our best to make light of it all later on once Daddy got home and we filled him in on what had happened. We all joked around about beards, and got Jayla to giggling a little. I figured that after she was exposed to this hairy guy a little more that she would eventually realize it was just hair. Tonight was probably the worst of it I thought. Next time she won’t be so scared.

WRONG-O.

The next week rolled around and the girls were back at dance class and practicing their recital routine. I saw the hairy guy arrive at the studio once their ballet piece started. He waited until his cue and then entered the studio to practice his part, which is rather short-lived. He comes in at the very end of their piece and the girls are supposed to gather around him and jump up and down and chirp as he pretends to feed them birdseed. This time I watched the whole thing unfold from the window. The minute Jayla saw the hairy guy enter into the studio she completely lost it, broke down, and ended up frozen in a corner sitting on the balance beam. They hadn’t even gotten to his part yet. But she was done for at just the sight of him. The class helpers huddled around her, trying to convince her, as I had, that there was nothing to be afraid of. But to no avail. Jayla couldn’t get herself to move off the balance beam until the piece was over and the hairy guy had left the studio room.

This time I was at least aware that it might happen again. And as I had observed the class helpers trying to calm her, it felt like a punctuation mark on that failing strategy. Trying to rationalize with Jayla was not going to work. In fact, my mind floated back to something I had just read in a book a few weeks ago:

You cannot reason with irrational fears. Irrational fears only submit to prayer. (Praying Circles Around Your Children by Mark Batterson).

I waited for Jayla to come out of the studio since class had ended, and she did, still in tears and shaken up. I asked her if she wanted me to pray with her and she nodded yes. We ducked into the changing room and prayed for God’s power to smash this fear.

That night, I turned to one of my favorite books, ‘Power of a Praying Parent’, and re-read the chapter the author had written titled Enjoying Freedom From Fear. I was looking for clarity on how to exactly pray Jayla through this. As I read, a little paragraph stuck out to me:

There are times when fear is more than a passing emotion. It can grip a child’s heart so strongly and so unreasonably that no actions or words can take it away. When that happens, the child is being harassed by a spirit of fear. And the Bible clearly tells us a spirit of fear does not come from God (2 Timothy 1:7). It comes from the enemy of our soul.

We can’t blame everything bad that comes up or happens to us on Satan. But I felt by the Holy Spirit’s discernment that this was an exact description of what was going on. When Jayla was in this state of fear she was frozen. Paralyzed. That’s the work of the enemy. He gets us to stop moving forward.

Once pinpointing that, I became even more confident that the power of Jesus was the only thing that was going to break down this fear. And I knew that we had authority to access this power. Luke 10:19 ~ I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy… But Jayla was not confident in this power yet. Nor had she learned how to access it. And that was my role. I needed to lead her to experience this power over the enemy. I thought back to what Jesus did when He needed to fight Satan off in the desert (Luke 4). For every attack, Jesus fought back with scripture. And we would too.

I looked up verses on fear, and there are a lot! I wound up in Isaiah chapter 41 were there are two really good verses on fear. I ended up picking this one:

Isaiah 41:13 ~ For I am the Lord, your God, who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear; I will help you.

I picked this verse for three reasons. One, I loved the imagery of it. I knew Jayla would be able to visualize God taking hold of her hand to help her. When the scary thoughts started coming in, this would be a good picture to have in her mind. Two, I loved that it used the exact word fear. I know that this hairy man will not be the only fear in Jayla’s life. Looking further down the road, my hope is that whenever the word fear comes up, it will trigger this verse in Jayla’s mind. Three, I loved that this verse teaches God’s character. When you are scared or afraid, God can be trusted. So, it’s not just giving a command to not fear. It’s stating why: Because you can trust in God’s power to help you.

That night I introduced this verse to Jayla and I told her it was going to be ‘her verse’. I said we were going to practice it and pray it and talk about it until we knew it by heart. We walked through the hairy man scenario that would come up again next week at class, and I talked her through the application of the verse - highlighting that she could trust in God’s power to deliver her from this fear.

The night of the next dance class came, and this time I prayed for Jayla right before we left for class. We rehearsed the truths that we had been talking about the past week. We called on the power of Jesus to break down this stronghold. And we blasted Jeremy Camp’s “I Will Trust In You” on the car ride there.

And wouldn’t you know it……..that night the hairy man didn’t come to recital practice! Interesting move by the Lord I thought.

The next week, we went through the same preparation scenario, but I must emphasize that this did not feel like going through the motions. There is POWER when you pray through scripture. There is CONFIDENCE when God’s truths take up residence in your heart. In fact, I felt my whole perspective about this hairy man situation changing. This wasn’t just an annoyance. This wasn’t just another situation as a parent that would leave me feeling caught off guard and flustered. This felt purposeful. Working through this with Jayla (with Jennifer right alongside and also learning these truths for the first time) felt intimate and full of life. I felt a high in getting to lead Jayla to this awesome confidence of being able to trust God in the midst of fear. In fact, one night during that next week I actually found myself thanking God for all this hairy man trouble. Yes, Satan was capitalizing on Jayla’s weakness, and no parent ever likes to encounter that. But I had a revelation on the flip side. My continual prayer as a parent has been that God would help me to guide my children to know Him and to know His word. And here God was giving me the opportunity to do just that - it was just coming in a way that I didn’t expect. It wasn’t packaged up all organized and prepared while we sat sprawled out in the living room for family devotionals – our conventional teaching grounds. It came huddled in the corner of a ballet studio, paralyzed in fear, with a tear-drenched face. Via a beard.

I should mention this: there were at least 10 other class times that we could have signed up for at the dance center in which Jayla would have been part of a different recital piece (none of which included this hairy man). I don’t believe in the fate of coincidences. Therefore, I believe that God is Sovereign and placed Jayla in this exact dance class, on this exact day of the week, at this exact time, so she would get this exact recital part that included this hairy man so that God could teach her about His character. That He can be trusted. And in so doing, He was also answering my prayer and giving me the mommy role of leading my daughter to encounter His truths. God was drawing me closer to my girls, and all of us closer to Him because of it. No matter how this all would end up turning out, that in itself was totally worth it.

The night of the next dance class rolled around, and this time Jayla asked me to pray with her beforehand. I loved that she came to me requesting it.

Once at dance class I watched the girls practice through the window. Jayla kept looking over her shoulder to see if the hairy man had made his appearance yet. And about halfway through, he showed up to practice his part. This time, when he entered the studio Jayla was able to keep going with the routine right up until the very end. That’s the part where all the girls are supposed to gather around the hairy man while he pretends to give them birdseed. About that point the fears made their way in. The tears started and wouldn’t stop. And Jayla once again found herself off in the corner, knees-a-shakin’ until the hairy man’s part was over and class was done.

As Jayla walked out to me in the waiting room, defeated and sniffling through her tears, I felt something different. I wasn’t mad or frustrated with her failure or thinking “well, so much for that scripture stuff! It didn’t work!” Instead I looked at her and felt a tremendous peace. The peace of knowing that we were on the right path. I knew God was going to come through`….in His time, when we had all learned what we needed to.

I steered Jayla into the changing room to talk with her. For the past few weeks I had been reaffirming to her over and over again that she could trust God with this fear. This time, I felt the Holy Spirit spin things differently and it came out something like this: “Jayla, the enemy of your soul does not want you to trust God. He’s against you and he’s against everything that God wants for your life. The devil wants to scare you so much that you can’t do this dance. Because if that happens, and he scares you so much that you can’t do it, then God won’t receive glory in this. And that is what the devil wants. He does not want God to be glorified in your life. But, if you can trust that God is big enough and powerful enough to help you, then other people will be able to see how God worked in your heart. You would get to tell them that you aren’t afraid anymore because you trusted God. And that would bring God glory, and you would be able to punch the devil in the face.”

Sometimes you just need to call it like it is, and the Holy Spirit in me had said Jayla was ready to hear it.

For the next 3 dance classes, the hairy man didn’t show up to practice. Each week we felt ready and prepared as we rehearsed the truths about God that we were learning, memorized her verse, and exposed the deceiving work of the enemy warring against us. Each week Jayla would wonder, “Is the hairy man going to be there tonight?” And each week that he didn’t come I could sense her relief.

Then the next week came. By this point I hadn’t been watching through the window for weeks because each time the girls started practicing their routine the teacher would call the parents into the studio to watch. On this night we got the call to come in and be the audience. We got settled in the studio as the teacher was busy prepping the music and the girls took their places. And then. In walked the hairy man. BUT. Something had changed. HE WAS CLEAN SHAVEN! Let me tell you, I totally did not see this coming! And Jayla didn’t either. She saw him come in and did a double, triple, quadruple take which finally turned into a full out stare down. I could see her mind was in complete shock. The hairy man now just looked like your normal, everyday, clean cut dude. There was barely any time to let it sink in as the music started and their routine began. And Jayla danced FEARLESSLY. At the end she got right up to the now-non-hairy man and chirped away during the birdseed part and finished the routine without a trace of shakiness or tears. Then, they practiced their finale piece which the now-non-hairy man practiced with them on this night. There is a part where they all chassѐ in a big whirlwind of a circle together and Jayla ended up right next to the now-non-hairy man, just inches from him. And she just looked absolutely confident. Beaming from ear to ear.

As class ended my mind was beginning to question was this real victory? Why would God have had him shave off the beard before Jayla was able to fully face the fear head on? I was still thinking through it all on the way back to our bags when Jayla came running up to me, bursting with excitement, and blurted out loud as can be, “Someone in hell is mad tonight!” It took me a few good seconds to get through her bluntness and realize she was talking about the devil and how she had just squashed him! And that’s when I knew. I looked at her face and I knew. She was stating her triumphant battle cry. This was victory. Because it never really was about hair. It was about what was going on in her heart. FEAR verses TRUST. And the opportunity to learn how to rely on God to get from one to the other. With a little shaving cream and a razor God made good on His promise that we had been rehearsing day in and day out: ‘I will help you’. It was in this way, taking the basis for her fear away, that God came through for her. And in so doing, she gained confidence in Him and experienced firsthand that she has access to His power over the enemy, which was a goal of this opportunity all along.

We rejoiced and squealed and recounted the victory the whole way home. And this past weekend Jayla completed her recital piece that included the former hairy man...without a hitch. :)

And when the next fear does pop up we will now have some God-evidence to fall back on. We will get to say, “Jayla, remember when God….”

Christian & Momma - Front Page Material!

Celebrating Mother's Day: The Meaning of Mom

By Misti Crane

The Columbus Dispatch

Sunday May 12, 2013 10:25 AM

Women don’t often talk about what motherhood means to them, the way it shapes their souls and their days, uncovers feelings they didn’t know existed. We asked nine central Ohio women to choose a word that describes what motherhood means to them...

‘Blessing’

Late last month, Mandy Litzke rounded up wayward kids and kept an eye on travelers fresh off flights landing at Port Columbus.

After a full day’s journey from his native Ghana, 15-year-old Christian walked past security to the cheers of 15 brothers and sisters he’d never seen in person. They pulled him close, said they loved him and piled in the family van to introduce him to his new home in Plain City.

Mandy and her husband, Dave, each had a daughter from previous marriages and have made it a mission to welcome children whose families can’t or won’t care for them.

Their adopted children range in age from 4 to 18 years and have come to the Litzkes from Liberia, Guatemala, Korea, Ghana, Armenia, Hong Kong, Haiti and Vietnam. Many have disabilities, including four who have Down syndrome.

There are eight bedrooms in the Litzkes’ house, a 20-foot dining table, a playground out back.

“It’s happy, organized chaos,” Mandy, 42, said.

She said she feels called to these children by her Christian faith.

But her story is more complex than that. She was a toddler when her stepfather killed her mother and left her an orphan, she said. When Mandy was 6, she moved in with a Georgia family who eventually adopted her.

She knew as a girl that she wanted to give a home to children without one.

“They’ve been through so much and taught us so much about being appreciative of what we have,” she said.

“It’s a blessing.”

My Sunshine

They keep me on my toes. They are mirrors to my soul. They are always watching me and ready to imitate me. Therefore, they are my high calling. They are reason to listen to my loud, worldly thoughts less and be attentive to the Spirit's whisperings more. They drive me to rely on my Savior for power, for wisdom, for inward changing, for renewal, for revelation, for mercy, for perspective.They are quick to forgive, light-hearted, and full of dancing and laughter. They love freely and trust deeply. They are my daughters, and I want to be more like them.

 

 

 

Parenting: It’s Never an Interruption

I wanted to share the below article I came across written by Paul Tripp.... 

 

Parenting is all about living by the principle of prepared spontaneity. You don't really know what's going to happen next. You don't really know when you'll have to enforce a command, intervene in an argument, confront a wrong, holdout for a better way, remind someone of a truth, call for forgiveness, lead someone to confession, point to Jesus, restore peace, hold someone accountable, explain a wisdom principle, give a hug of love, laugh in the face of adversity, help someone complete a task, mediate an argument, stop with someone and pray, assist someone to see their heart, or talk once again about what it means to live together in a community of love.

What you do know is that Scripture gives you the wisdom that you need and your always-present Messiah gives you the grace that you need to be ready to respond to the moments of opportunity he’ll give you. Along with this, you and I must remember that our Lord loves our children more than we ever could and his commitment to their growth and change is more faithful and persevering than ours could ever be. Because of this, in his grace and love, he’ll manufacture moments that expose the needy hearts of our children to us. He’ll faithfully employ the little moments of everyday life to expose to us and our children their need of rescuing and forgiving grace. And he’ll not do this only at the moments which you feel are appropriate and when you feel most prepared.

Let me give you an example. We had planned a day at a local theme park with our children. I was anticipating a day of familial amusement park bliss. You know, I was hoping that on this day my children would be self-parenting and if God could throw in a fully sanctified wife that would be cool! Well, we get to the park and are getting out of the van and one of my children said, "Dad, may we have something to drink before we go into the park?" It didn't seem like a dangerous request. I opened the cooler, which was full of soft drinks, and all of my children sighted in on the one can of soda that they all knew was the best. Immediately, global nuclear war broke out. They were pushing and shoving, grabbing and pulling, throwing ice at one another, saying unkind things and hitting one another's hands out of the way. I couldn't believe it, we’re not in the park yet and my day was already ruined!

So I jumped in and said, "Do you want to fight? We don't have to pay all this money for you to fight. I'll take you home, put a cooler in the backyard with one can of soda in it and you can fight forever!" Soon my children aren't fighting anymore because they're watching the crowd gather as I lose it in the parking lot of the theme park.

Let's analyze what's going on in this moment and what's happening inside me. What's going on is that a God of grace is taking a mundane moment of daily family life and using it to do something wonderful for my children and for me. He's making the condition of their hearts visible in order to produce concern in me that would hopefully result in awareness and a desire to change in them. But I'm not at all encouraged in this moment with what God is doing. You see, I'm not angry in the parking lot because my children are sinners. No, I'm angry that God has exposed their sin, and because he has, I have to forsake my agenda for the day and parent them! It all seemed a huge imposition; a hassle that I just didn't want to deal with.

But the reality is that if your eyes ever see, or your ears ever hear the sin, weakness, rebellion or failure of your children, it’s never an imposition. It’s never an interruption. It’s never a hassle. It’s always grace. God loves your children; he’s put them in a family of faith, and in relentless grace he will reveal their need to you again and again so that you can be his tool of awareness, conviction, repentance, faith and change. And because in these moments he asks you to forsake your agenda for his, this opportunity of grace isn’t just for your children, it's for you as well.

But my problem is that there are moments when I tend to love my little kingdom of one more than I love his. So I'm impatient, discouraged or irritated, not because my children have broken the laws of God's kingdom, but the laws of mine. In my kingdom there shall be no parenting on family vacation days, or when I am reading the paper on my iPad, or after ten o'clock at night, or during a good meal, or... And when I'm angry about interruptions to my kingdom plan there are four things I tend to do:

1. I tend to turn a God-given moment of ministry into a moment of anger.
2. I do this because I’ve personalized what isn’t personal. (Before we left for the amusement park that day, my children didn't plot to drive me crazy in the parking lot).
3. Because I’ve personalized what isn’t personal, I am adversarial in my response. (It's not me acting for my children, but acting against them because they’re in the way of what I want).
4. So I end up settling for situational solutions that don't really get to the heart of the matter. (I bark and order, I instill guilt, I threaten a punishment and walk away, and my children are utterly unchanged by the encounter).

There’s a better way. It begins with praying that God would give you new eyes; eyes that are more focused on his eternal work of grace than on your momentary plans for you. This better way also includes seeking God for a flexible and willing heart; ready to abandon your agenda for God's greater plan. And it lives with the confidence that God is in you, with you, and for you, and will give you what you need so that you can face, with courage and grace, the parenting moment that you didn't know was coming.

[Link to article: http://www.paultripp.com/articles/posts/parenting-its-never-an-interruption]

Fullest

My arms are full. My lap is full. But my heart is fullest. :)

 

Joy Is....

Shrieks of laughter down the hallway

 

Helpers in the kitchen

 

 

A little girl who begs me to get to wash my sink full of dirty dishes….and she did them well!

 

JJ reading to me every night before bed

Watching sisterhood unfold

 

 

 

 

 

Getting to see JJ’s team secure the win that gave them the league championship! WAY TO GO BULLDOGS!

 

Getting my hair done constantly…I secretly love this….it is soooooo relaxing!

 

Watching our girls experience snow for the first time!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Weaknesses. Glaringly Evident.

Went to bed last night greatly discouraged because my weaknesses were on display practically all day yesterday as I parented my kids and kept failing miserably. Woke up this morning to read this…

Thanking God for this path of adoption and parenting, where the scenery is exhausting yet FULL of rich spiritual treasures that I would not learn without my weaknesses and frailty being exposed. God didn't lead us to adopt because we are pros at handling and responding to every situation - but rather to once again turn our wordly wisdom upside down. In God's Kingdom, weakness = strength for it is the stomping grounds where we learn to rely on HIM alone. An easier, less difficult path, would cause me to miss out on the high of watching God's character and power be revealed in my life like I have never known before!

With Everything

A few nights ago I was putting Jayla to bed – reading her stories and singing her songs like we always do. As she drifted off to sleep, snuggled up next to me in the quietness, my eyes glanced over to the bunk beds that have now invaded her bedroom. In just a few short months, those beds will hold two little girls, our daughters from Ghana. I began to think about them like I often do, and my mind began imagining little clips of what our life might look like when they are here with us. Lately, each time I do that I have been hit hard with the reality of how much my relationship with Jayla is going to change. My heart has been so heavy. I have been dwelling on the things that I will be giving up (much one-on-one time with Jayla, our close mother-daughter connection, and our sweet little moments that we have – just the two of us). In fact, it really feels like I have been grieving what is going to be lost in my relationship with Jayla. I have also felt like this adoption is going to be taking away from something that is legitimately hers – a closeness with me. I have been scared of how our relationship will change, and that Jayla is going to feel ripped off when they come.

Just two days later, I went to church on my birthday. I knew that God had something to say to me, and since it was my birthday I felt that it was going to be extra fitting and personal – although I didn’t know what that would be. But I soon found out. God was ready to challenge my heart attitude.

Our pastor’s sermon was over Mark 12:13-17 which is titled ‘Religious Leaders Question Jesus About Paying Taxes’. On the outset it doesn’t sound like it relates to my heart attitude. But, the focus of the sermon became verse 17: Then Jesus said to them, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.” Our pastor urged us to be image bearer’s of Christ, just the way that Caesar’s image was inscripted on his coins and the people had to pay the coins back to him in the form of taxes. In the same way, our lives belong to God. And how, after everything that He has done for us, can we hold back and not go all in for Him?

The conviction for me came when our pastor started talking about a song that we like to sing at our church. The song is entitled ‘With Everything’ and he shared some of the lyrics that we sing as a congregation…I’ve bolded the lines that are our responsibility:

Open our eyes

To see the things that make Your heart cry

To be the church that You would desire

Your light to be seen

Break down our pride

And all the walls we’ve built up inside

Our earthly crowns and all our desires

We lay at Your feet

….

Let hope rise and darkness tremble

In Your holy light

That every eye will see Jesus our God

Great and mighty to be praised

With everything, with everything

We will shout for Your glory

With everything, with everything

We will shout forth Your praise

After he shared those lyrics that we all stand there and sing in our church, he began highlighting how we hold back from fully turning everything over to God. He jumped off the stage and became one with the congregation as he continued his sermon saying things like “Lord I’ll give you anything, but not that extra bedroom in my house. I might need that someday, like if my mother-in-law gets sick and she needs a place to stay. I need to keep that open just in case.” And “Not my car. You see I worked really hard to have a nice car…..” And “Not the food in my pantry. Invite my neighbors over? Nahhhh…that would be uncomfortable…” After he shared each scenario and excuse, he then turned back towards the stage, lifted his hands in the air and then belted out the above lyrics in worship, “WITH EVERYTHING….” Each time he did this my heart was burdened, distraught, and struck to the core by the hypocrisy that he was pointing out. This is how we live. We stand there in church and tell God with our lips that we’ll give Him everything. Then we walk out the church doors and shrink back when the opportunities come to sacrifice our own comfort and desires in order to reach out to this world that so desperately needs to hear of hope, and peace, and salvation. Jesus didn’t live like that. He. Gave. Everything. His very life even. He took upon Himself all of our sin and shame and brokenness, and gave to us what we could not achieve on our own - a relationship with God. And in those moments, I knew exactly what it was that I was holding back from giving over fully to God, despite knowing and believing in my heart that He held nothing back from me, not even His one and only Son.

Feeling the heaviness of the impending sacrifices that are to come in my relationship with Jayla has caused me to shrink back. Basically I had been telling God, “you can have a bedroom in our house for these girls we are adopting, you can take our money to pay for this adoption, BUT please don’t mess with my relationship with Jayla when they come into our family.”

But, God wants everything. Anything less is unauthentic. I cannot go into this adoption and give these girls we are adopting my leftovers, while I strive to maintain the close relationship I have with Jayla and make that my top priority.  By having that mindset I am limiting what God can do in Jayla's life by clutching her to myself and trying to cushion her from learning to live sacrificially.  I have been ruled by fear.  I have not surrendered my hold on her and allowed God full access into her life.  And for me and this situation, there are so many verses in which God urges me to release the grip on what is so-called MINE - even my children - open up my hands and say “it’s yours Lord, with everything….”

Anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it (Matthew 10:37-39).

With God everything gets flipped. Although my flesh tells me that something is going to be taken away from Jayla once this adoption happens, the Spirit whispers the truth that I am going to be GIVING her so much more. Whoever finds his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for His sake will find it! In this adoption we are going to be pointing Jayla to Jesus, and be demonstrating the love that He gave to us.

I have a favorite blog post from our last adoption when I was going through something similar.  I needed to hear the author’s words deep in my soul again about the effect of adoption on birth children already in the family:

You are NOT taking anything AWAY from your birth children. Instead, what you are doing is imparting to them something eternal: You are expanding their capacity to love. Think about that for a minute before you read anything else. How do you plan to teach your child to love others unconditionally and in total compassion without giving them the opportunity to do so? I'm telling you now, You CAN'T.

My biological children have a greater capacity of love in their hearts than I could ever impart to them by just giving them a safe Christianity, by maintaining their status quo, by simply modeling "godliness" as parents (as if that's the end-all be-all for a Christian family). My kids...all of them...have lived out self-sacrifice and understand (because they live it!) that laying down one's life does not steal anything from us. That is the lie of the devil, who would have us believe that sacrifice is not worth it; that there is nothing for us in return; that God doesn't really mean what He says when He said to His followers that "anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. [Because] Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it" (Matthew 10:38-39).

Do you really believe that? That whoever LOSES his life for Jesus's sake, for Jesus the Orphan's sake, will actually FIND it? Ask yourself honestly. Because you might answer YES prematurely. I have no doubt that you might believe it for yourself, but do you really believe it for your children, too? That if they "lose" their "place" in the family that Jesus will instead impart to them LIFE? REAL life??? [From the author of http://wehaveroom.blogspot.com/]

Yes, Jayla and I are both going to have to learn to ‘lay down our lives’ as we know it for our brothers and sisters (1 John 3:17). That is the demonstration of love that we have from Jesus, and if our family claims to follow Him, then we must walk as He did - take up our cross, and die to ourselves. There will be sacrifices. But they are so small in comparison to what Jesus has done for us, and in comparison to the gift we have of eternal LIFE.

There is no ongoing spiritual life without this process of letting go. At the precise point where we refuse, growth stops. If we hold tightly to anything given to us, unwilling to let it go when the time comes to let it go or unwilling to allow it to be used as the Giver means it to be used, we stunt the growth of the soul. It is easy to make a mistake here, “If God gave it to me,” we say, “its mine. I can do what I want with it.” No. The truth is that it is ours to thank Him for and ours to offer back to Him, ours to relinquish, ours to lose, ours to let go of – if we want to find our true selves, if we want real life, if our hearts are set on glory." — Elisabeth Elliot

'Give Them Grace' - In Action

I am still slowly reading and digesting the book that I mentioned in my post on Monday: 'Give Them Grace: Dazzling Your Kids With the Love of Jesus' (By Elyse M. Fitzpatrick and Jessica Thompson ). I knew the opportunity would soon come to do some of this ‘dazzling’ and I didn’t have to wait long….

On Tuesday morning it was about 11:30am. We had just finished up lunch and I was packing up our bag for the pool. As the kids were waiting for me to finish cleaning some things up they had turned the TV on and found that one of their current favorite movies was playing on the Disney channel – 'Let It Shine'. The movie was about ¾ over and they’ve seen it at least twice already. About 10 minutes later once I was ready I announced that it was time to go to the pool and that they could go load up into the car. Justice and JJ immediately protested, asking if we could stay home until noon so they could watch the last 20 minutes of the movie. I then explained to them that I really wanted to get to the pool right when it opened because we had to leave by 3pm that day (rather than our usual 4pm). I also mentioned that this particular movie was on constant re-run on the Disney channel right now, so that they could surely catch it again soon. Justice said, “Ok, I’ve already seen the end anyways,” and he proceeded to the car with the bag, along with Jayla who had already gone out. However, JJ got very upset and began some major hollering/crying that escalated into what us parents would call a full-out ‘temper-tantrum’. He expressed through his venting that the part coming up in the movie was his favorite part, and that he didn’t want to miss it, and he resisted heading out to the car.

Now freeze for a minute. At this point, I knew that JJ had completely lost his self-control and that it was my responsibility to use this as a teaching moment and discipline him. However, this is how lazy I’ve gotten: I actually pondered just giving him a ‘talking to’ in the car, on the way to the pool because I wanted to get there right at opening time, and nothing was going to stand in my way! (Geez, and I wonder where he gets his selfishness from!) I was literally thinking: The car is already packed, Justice and Jayla are already out there, let’s just let this one slide…. But then, with the recent ‘high’ from the insights of this book, and the recommitment I had made in my heart to TAKE THE EXTRA TIME to shepherd my children, I realized this was my moment to start.

So, I told JJ to head to his room and I would be in. He knows the drill. He knew he was ‘in trouble’, and he complied, sobbing all the more. I quickly ran outside to tell Justice and Jayla to play in the driveway for a few minutes until I was done talking to JJ. Then on the way back in I prayed that God would speak through me and penetrate JJ’s heart with truth.

Now, freeze again. I first want to tell you how I normally would have handled this prior to reading this book. It would have gone a little something like this:

I would have asked him, “JJ, what was wrong about the way you just acted?”

He would have said something like, “I didn’t listen to you and I lost my self-control.”

He knows the right answers because we have gone through this scenario time and again, and we try to ‘label’ behaviors and responses with the same words that the Bible uses. [So, for example we call a temper tantrum a loss of self-control] From there I would have tried to draw out the heart issue by asking him, “And what was going on in your heart when you decided to act this way?”

We then would have talked about how in his heart he got angry when he didn’t get his way, and I would have retraced with him how he decided to vent his anger and then wound up losing self-control over his emotions – all because he didn’t get what he wanted.

At this point I would have then, in plain words, given him wisdom on what the Bible says about self-control. One of the verses I would talk with him about is Proverbs 25:28. I wouldn’t have quoted it word for word, but rather would have said something like, “A man without self-control is like a city whose walls are broken down.” Then I would have asked him if tonight when we go to bed if we should leave all the doors and windows to our house unlocked and completely open. He would say, “No,” and when asked why he would be able to generate the right thought along the lines of it not being safe because then just anybody could come into our house. I would try to help him to see that having self-control is the same as locking or guarding our house. That when we ‘lose it’ we end up doing foolish things that we regret and in addition are practically inviting attacks. In the end, this will lead to consequences.

So, we would have talked along these lines and I would tell JJ that he has to learn to keep his self-control, and that it is mommy and daddy’s job to hold him accountable. Then we would proceed with discipline (we follow what is outlined and explained in the book Shepherding a Child’s Heart – by Tedd Tripp) and then I would have prayed for him, that God would help him to have self-control the next time he is in a similar situation.

Again, that is the way I was doing things prior to reading this book. But I’ve felt for awhile that something was missing, specifically in my dialogue with my kids during discipline. Combine that with my recent laziness and ‘let it slide’ mentality, I found myself just hollering commands at my kids when they were misbehaving to get them to stop. Prior to our getaway, I had identified that this was not purposeful, and not how I wanted to parent, and asked God to help me to change. While reading this book, I definitely identified what has been missing. I am sure you will also be able to pinpoint it as well after reading the following excerpt of a similar scenario displayed in the book. I know this is long, but you’ve gotten to the best part now, so keep reading! Here is an excerpt from pages 57-58:

One day, when Wesley was four or so, Jessica remembers sitting in the park with a new friend we’ll call Catherine. Catherine was new to Christianity and new to our church. Like all moms do at parks, she and Jessica began a conversation about raising their children. The conversation turned to the subject of discipline. Jessica was trying to biblically explain to Catherine how important consistent, loving discipline is. She talked glowingly about how beneficial it had been in little Wesley’s life.

But then, when it was time to leave, Wesley decided he didn’t want to go. Apparently, it was against his plan for eternal happiness. So he threw himself to the ground in the parking lot and had a fit. Jessica felt humiliated. Everything she had just said to Catherine about the benefits of discipline was flying right back in her face.

Jessica struggled with her own works righteousness (a term explained earlier in the book). She felt fearful and angry. She struggled with her desire that her new friend think well of her and her parenting methods. She wondered, What does she think of me now? What does she think of my son? She started making excuses, “He normally doesn’t act that way.” By the time she got Wesley buckled in the car, she was consumed with her own failure as a parent. I do exactly what the Bible says. Why isn’t God helping me or changing my child? I’ll never talk about parenting to anyone ever again!

If Jessica had remembered to parent in light of grace, she could have responded differently. Knowing the character of her heavenly Father, she could have remembered that every time something unexpected happens, it is God once again approaching her in love to show her the glories of the gospel and the beauties of grace. She could have been reminded that spanking doesn’t transform the soul; only Jesus Christ does. When she saw Wesley lying there throwing a fit, she could have seen a picture of her own heart. She could have heard the Lord remind her that this heart of a rebel is just like her own…..Then Jessica could discipline Wesley with these words (I combined pages 21-22 and 58 to give you the full response below):

“Sweetheart, I will discipline you now because I love you, and you must learn to control yourself. When I tell you that it is time to go, we must leave. I know you didn’t want to go, but when we don’t get what we want, it isn’t okay to start screaming and throw yourself to the ground. There are two things you must understand: first, you were being unsafe. God has put me in charge of you, and he has told me to keep you safe. When you lie in a parking lot with cars around you, you could get hurt. So, when I tell you to come, I am doing what I believe will keep you safe. Second, when you don’t get what you want, you are not allowed to start screaming and crying. You are sinning against God and against me when you disobey and complain. I understand that you didn’t want to leave the park. I know how difficult it is to show control when you don’t get what you want. God tells us to be self-controlled, Wesley, but you can’t. That is the bad news, but that is not all the news there is. The rest of the news is so exciting! You can’t have self-control like God is asking you to, so you need a Rescuer to help you. And the really great news is that God has already sent one! His name is Jesus!

Do you know what Jesus did when he had to go somewhere he didn’t want to go? He told God that he would do whatever God wanted him to do. He did that for you, and he did that for me. The place he didn’t want to go was the cross. He knew the cross was going to be hard, and it would hurt him a lot. But he did what he didn’t want to do because he loved us.

Jesus knows that there are times you are angry and selfish. But he has loved you in spite of your sin. And because of this, Welsey, because of Jesus alone, because of what He has already done for you, if you believe in him, you will grow to have self-control more and more. But you’ll never be able to do this on your own.”

After sharing soul-comforting words like those, Jessica continued with a time of discipline and prayer for Wesley that would grant him faith to believe that the Rescuer he needed loved him, would forgive him, and would help him to have self-control.

I bolded the parts that really hit me.

What I have been missing in my dialogue, is giving my children the grace of the gospel. Yes we talk about this grace outside of discipline moments, for example during our family devotionals, but I have never worked it into my words during discipline. Basically, during discipline I had always been pinpointing the bad news, (i.e. telling JJ that he doesn’t have self-control) and then loading on a command/a rule: he needs to get it. But, I haven’t been telling him the good news - the beautiful gift of grace - that Jesus loves him in spite of his performance or lack thereof(sin). The grace dialogue above expresses that God’s love for us is not dependent on our works/obedience (i.e. whether we can keep our self-control or not) but rather rests on the obedience and sacrifice of Jesus alone. Where we fail, Jesus has already succeeded and the point is that we would recognize that and our need for HIM!

The author explains it this way (pg. 36 ):

This doesn’t mean that we don’t teach our children God’s law (rules/commands). We are commanded to do so but not to make them good. We are commanded to give them the law so that they will be crushed by it and see their need for a Savior. The law won’t make them good (i.e. me telling JJ that he needs to have self-control). It will make them despair of ever being good enough, and in that way it will make them open to the love, sacrifice, and welcome of their Savior, Jesus Christ.

Yes, give them God’s law. Teach it to them and tell them that God commands obedience. But before you are done, give them grace and explain again the beautiful story of Christ’s perfect keeping of it for them. Jesus Christ was the only one who ever deserved to hear, “You are good,” but he relinquished his right relationship with the law and his Father and suffered as a lawbreaker. This is the message we all need to hear, and it is the only message that will transform our hearts.

And once this heart transformation begins to happen our actions follow suit if we’ve come to genuine repentance. If we do end up obeying God’s commands, the right motivation is because of a love for God and trust in his gracious plan and power. We’re not working/obeying to earn God’s blessing. We work/obey because we already have it! [more thoughts directly from the book]

JJ had been showing me over and over with his actions and emotions: “I can’t! I can’t keep my self control.” And I had essentially been answering that with: “Oh yes you can, and you will. The Bible says you have to, so you can.” But I should have been answering his “I can’t” with a resounding – “You’re right! You can’t! But let me tell you about what Jesus has done….”

Now, back to JJ’s scenario. After he had cooled down, I went to talk with him and I tried out this new explanation that included grace. It wasn’t word for word from the excerpt I have in blue above, but the main parts were close. Immediately he realized that what I was saying wasn’t the usual “you need to have self-control!”. I am not kidding, he started off hanging his head and looking at the floor, but as I spoke of what Jesus had already done for him, he looked up at me, and looked so relieved that it made me start crying! It was like this huge burden had just come off him. I wonder if he was wondering what happened to the mom that usually swept right in ready to aim a rule/command at him. Before, the rule/command was always the primary part of what I taught him. This time, I still told him that God expects us to have self-control, but I DRENCHED him in the truths of grace – that although he really struggles to keep his self-control, there is hope because he, JJ, is the exact sort of person Jesus loved to be around and came for. The good news of the gospel is for sinners, like him and me.

From there I continued with a time of discipline - as outlined in 'Shepherding a Child's Heart' book - and time of prayer for JJ.  And you know what, by the time we were done, over 20 minutes had gone by and there was no way that we were going to make it to the pool by opening.  But I didn't care anymore.  By the look I had seen on JJ's face when that burden came off, I knew God had given me confirmation that taking the time to shepherd my children was LIFE giving to them.  And every mom desires that for their children.

Wow has this book spoken such a fresh perspective into me! Until my children fully grasp the love and obedience and sacrifice of Christ on their behalf, only then will I be able to observe the heart change (and eventual behavior change) that is genuine and real.

Have I mentioned I am only half way through the book? :)