God is Working on Me

My world has kind of been rocked by the same themes over and over lately. I am too comfortable in the world I live in. I am not relying on God, because I am self-sufficient. I need to be uncomfortable. I need to push myself. We are called to be in the world, but not of it, I feel very of it. This theme has been knocking around in my head and heart since last fall. Little by little it keeps morphing, growing and the flame is being fanned.

A few things I have been reading have really been challenging me in these areas. And they all say the same kind of thing. If you believe what you say you believe, your life should look really different. How different?? What am I going to do about it? Who will come along with me? These are the questions I am grappling with.

Katie Davis (read her blog from the beginning, it will literally change your life!)

Crazy Love, by Francis Chan (Pastor in Simi Valley, CA)
Just Courage, by Gary Hougan (Founder of International Justice Mission)
Radical, by David Platt (Pastor in Alabama, the sermon series is hyper linked to his name)

In that process I have been fighting with God. Fighting about what I want and don’t want. Many of my good friends from college have been adopting kids into their families. All of them have biological kids of their own or are able to have children biologically, but each has felt called to “care for the widow and the orphan” as we are commanded to do in the bible. This is a mandate that we are given over and over throughout scripture, yet I have never thought of it on a personal level except that we should give money to the poor, specifically programs that help parentless children.

Every January our pastors take a Sunday to focus on life, as we near the Roe v. Wade anniversary. Each year we are given staggering numbers of the unborn who are never given a chance. This year I was particularly struck as the pastor spoke of infanticide in other countries, where babies not born of the appropriate gender or with any kind of imperfections are left outside in the freezing cold to die. And the church, the people of God, bring them into their families, care for them, love on them and raise them. The church is God’s loving and warm welcoming hands. Why aren’t we doing this? We are the church.

I have had many conversations since then with many of my adopting friends. Again, I hear this message of our role as the church to care for the orphans. We, the church, are called to do this.
I am the church, therefore, I am called to do this. I don’t need to wait for the voice of God to say “Sandra, you need to adopt” to know that I am the church, and this is what the church is called to do.

But here in lies the problem. I don’t want anymore kids. I knew before having kids that I only wanted 2. I knew after having my 2nd I absolutely only wanted two. I am grateful each day that they are getting older and more independent. I often feel like a failure as a mom. I don’t like when I lose my patience, when I snap and scream. I don’t like the idea of how much that has already scarred my children. I don’t like feeling like there is never enough of me to go around and everyone wants my attention all the time and I just want some time to myself, in my own head, with my own thoughts. How can I possibly add someone else into that mix?

But, here is where the battle comes in. If I say I love Jesus, and I will follow him, I am saying I will give up whatever is asked, I will go wherever I am led. How then can I say Lord, I love you, I am yours….just don’t make me raise another kid? How can I give him everything but hold back this one thing? It has been a difficult struggle.

My prayer is that God would change the desire of my heart. If this is what he wants for me, for my family, then I pray that he will change my heart. That he will make me want this. So that instead of begrudgingly bringing a child into my house, my home, my family, I could do it with enthusiasm, and excitement.

I’ve thought about the later-in-life kids in need thing being more my style. I was taken in by a family from church my senior year of high school. It was a gift I don’t know what I would have done without. I love the idea of doing that for someone else. When my kids are older, if they have a friend that is in need of a loving environment, we can open our door, and set a place at the table for them. But to have to think about going through the toddler stage again…it’s distasteful to my mouth.

I think for me the idea of forever seems like more than I can bear. For the first time the concept of Fostering is appealing to me. Maybe that could be my thing. Maybe I could love on kids for the in between. But could I really? Could I get attached and have that child move-on, knowing the life they are moving on to may not be that great. Could I do that over and over without pieces of my heart being torn away each time?

What will the effects of all this be on my kids? Unlike most of my friends, I don’t have the “need to convince my husband” battle. He is already on board. If I said let’s do it, he’d be signing whatever paperwork we needed to fill out. But he isn’t home with them all day. Every day. So the weight of it does fall to me. He spent 60-70 hours/week working in the fall and 80-90hrs in the winter. Is this the time? Is this the family? If not us, then who? We are the church.

My friend Sarah says it really well, “Maybe not all Christians are called to adopt, but all Christians should pray about whether or not they are.” We are responsible to act out our love for God by obeying his commands. We are to be a fresh cup of cold water. We are to be the loving person who responds to a fatherless child in the night. These kids have nothing. We have so much. “To whom much is given, much will be expected.” We have been given so much! God says that a lot of us are going to show up at heaven’s door and he is going to say he doesn’t know us. I don’t want to be one of those people.

I have to trust that this world is not the one where we are supposed to fixate on comfort and entertainment, leisure and pleasure. Though our culture tells us that, the bible does not.