gloriously ruined

Well I'm almost 7 months into my experience of being a first time mom. No diapers, bottles, spit up rags or baby weight to lose. Instead, it's been a whirlwind of teenage mood swings, social workers, therapy appointments and school suspensions. If this were a story I was writing, I'd choose the infant. But it's not my story. I can't ever make that clear enough, I didn't chose this, this didn't chose me, God is working this together. He's the only possible way this story may one day have a beautiful, shiny ending. For many years I was building a 'life wall' using bricks that were completely average looking. Doing my best to set them all straight, using the perfect amount of mortar surrounding each block so it would be even and pretty to each eye that gazed upon it. That wall is absolutely worthless, because I was building it for the kingdom of me. There's another Kingdom and the God of that Kingdom builds glorious cities with the most beautiful bricks and stones. His walls aren't built for the same damaging reasons that mine are. They are carefully crafted to point eyes and hearts to the Creator of this entire universe. They may involve pain and hurt, yet they sparkle because they have an eternal element to them that can not be lost or stolen.

So we don't look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.

So back to the mom thing. I've been a mom for 7 months, my daughter has been a kid for almost 14 years. 14 YEARS! This chick has way more experience at being a kid than I do at being a mom, can you see the disadvantage I'm at? Yeah, I've learned SO stinkin' much but even now I'm not prepared for this. Do you want to know what I think the biggest struggle is? The hardest part in all of this is lacking affection. I didn't have 14 years to grow to love this child. I didn't experience the "I'd give my life for you" moment that most parents feel the first time they lay eyes on their screaming newborn. I know as well as anyone that love is more than a feeling... but I keep praying that the Lord will shape my heart into a heart of compassion. A heart that looks ever so similar to His beautiful, loving heart.

When you foster and love a young person whose entire being has been so damaged, don't think that you can come out the other side with clean hands and a whole heart. To love them, you must enter into the pain and rejection. You will feel it yourself. You will tell yourself that you don't deserve to be treated like this. And then you will hear His voice, "she didn't deserve it either."

Someone once used the term, "gloriously ruined." My life plans have been ruined, gloriously.

A Salvation Story

It’s Friday and that’s a pretty good reason to celebrate but there is a much bigger party happening this weekend and I want you to know about it! I want to tell you a story about a very special group of young ladies. These girls are very dear to my heart yet that doesn't compare to how precious they are in the sight of our God. He’s loved them from the day they were conceived. He’s known them from the beginning of creation. He thinks of them daily and pursues them with His everlasting love.
But when she was born, the eyes of her heart became darkened by lies. She wasn't able to recognize His love because she was taught that love was a lie. She’s accepted pain and rejection as a way of life learning to defend herself by building vast, thick walls. She has a Creator but she knows none of the benefits of knowing Him intimately.

Until now. Lately He has been working on her heart, preparing it. She couldn't see it, of course, but she could feel. Sometimes it felt like hurt, other times there was a gentle and tender feeling she’d never felt before and maybe she was a little confused. But she liked it. She had certain adults in her life that were teaching her about Jesus and how His love was different than anything she knew. She wanted it so badly. Then there was the heart of another one of the girls who also heard about this great love. She felt that she wanted it but what if it rejected her like everyone else has, what if it failed? No, that’s too much pain, she’ll build another layer to the walls around her heart.

This is where this story becomes great. I can’t wipe the smile off my face. This past weekend God invited eight young ladies on a camping trip to the Blue Ridge Mountains in Bedford, Virginia. He hand-selected them, knowing the tender state of each of their hearts, He knew they were ready to trust Him. They went and heard the message personalized for each of them. They heard the message that neither height not depth, not anything else in all creation, can separate them from His loving presence. This salvation was presented to them as a gift that they could chose to believe and receive. Their faces beamed as He captured their hearts and gently made them white as snow. Each one made a decision that evening to become a brand new person by putting their trust in the only one who could save them from their sin. They felt unique and special as they learned they were finally a part of a family they would never ever have to leave. Though invisible, they are now clothed in garments of salvation, their faces radiant in His robes of righteousness. Shantia, Princess, Shameeka, Anyah, Anaijah, Amirah, Jade, and Demi are no longer orphaned, but welcomed; no longer fatherless, but cherished eternally.

I wanted your hearts to be able to rejoice alongside ours as the party in heaven continues! We are so excited to see decisions made and ask that you would be in prayer for each of our girls. God can use them in mighty ways in their dark world. Pray also for us leaders as we look forward to this privilege of being able to disciple the girls. Pray that we will not grow weary and lose heart and that we would be diligent in completing this race set before us. 

Katie's Courage

I read this blog post by Katie Davis and I think you should too :) - kissesfromkatie.blogspot.com

--------------------------------

Just one little bird.

She’s up when the stillness of 5:30 nudges me awake and I struggle to peel back heavy eyelids. She’s up and she sings. I wonder how she can even tell that it’s almost morning. I wonder why she sings yet. I tip-toe to the coffee pot and flick on barely enough lights as to not wake my children, and this is my quiet time and I briefly just wish that one little bird would be quiet.

“It’s not light yet. Shhhh. It’s not light yet.”

I lift my eyes from the worn pages of Isaiah and my gaze falls on Sarah’s notebook, left haphazardly on the table after yesterday’s writing assignment. She wrote that I was brave. That I had courage. But as I sit there in the dark, I think that I am not.

I miss my friends. I know where they are, and that it is better, by far, than suffering and sickness, but I wish they were here. I miss Betty’s smile as I wiped her forehead and the way her weak hand felt in mine, her fingernails hot-pink. I miss the still, quiet hours by her bedside and the way her eyes understood even if her ears did not. I miss Katherine’s laugh, loud and audacious and when I see her children smile, I see her, and I wish the ending had been different.

And I see Sarah’s words on the paper, “Our sick friend lived with us for a long time and my mom was brave and took care of her. I saw her praying for her and I know that she was loved and cared for. My mom kept her, and she had courage.”

And I cry, because I do not feel courageous. I feel downright defeated sometimes. Maybe courage is not at all about the absence of fear but about obedience even when we are afraid. Courage is trusting when we don’t know what is next, leaning into the hard and knowing that it will be hard, but more, God will be near. Maybe bravery is just looking fear in the face and telling it that is dos not win because I have known The Lord here. I have known The Lord in the long, dark night.

The little bird sings loud in the dark. And slowly, the sun peaks over the horizon.

At school I ask Joyce what her definition of courage is, and she says, “to have faith.” Maybe that is just it. That we still tremble, but more than that we have faith. That even though we feel uncertain, we press into a God who is so certain, so sure, so steady. He carries us, He lifts our heads. And His unfailing love and comfort becomes our courage and our hope.

It is days later and it is raining. The huge drops pelt our tin roof so hard that we can hardly hear a thing, but as the rain slows, I make out a familiar noise and I laugh. It is the same little bird that cannot contain her song too early in the morning. I wonder where she is and how she can keep singing in this storm. I wonder why she sings. But the rain slows to a trickle and the sun peaks from behind the clouds and suddenly all I can hear is her glorious song.

“To have faith, “I think. And I wonder, does she sing because she knows the sun is coming?

And I want to be just like that little bird.

Hope is a crazy thing, a courageous thing. That little bird, she feels the sun coming, knows with certainty that it will come, even when she can’t quite see it yet.

We live in a world where innocent people suffer and good friends die and stories don’t have the endings we prayed for, and the pain and the hurt, it is everywhere. But the Joy and the Hope that we find in our Savior? It is everywhere, too. I do not have all the answers; in fact, I don’t have many at all. But this is what I know: God is who He says He is. And in the hurt and the pain and the suffering, God is near, and He is good, even when the ending isn’t.

And I can sing, because I know what is coming. I can hope, because I know Who is coming.

In the dark of the night, I have seen His face, and I have known His promises to be true, and I know the Light is coming.

And I want to be brave enough to hold out the hope of the Gospel to a world that is hurting and alone and afraid. Not a hope that is the absence of pain or heartache or suffering, not optimism disguised as hope that waits for the best-case scenario or happy ending, but a Hope that is the knowledge and full assurance that our Savior is on His way.

It’s not light yet, but I know Him, the One who is the Light.

And so in the dark, I will sing.

Glory

"There are a thousand ways to magnify Christ in life and death. None should be scorned. All are important. But none makes the worth of Christ shine more brightly than sacrificial love for other people in the name of Jesus. 

If Christ is so valuable that the hope of his immediate and eternal fellowship after death frees us from the self-serving fear of dying and enables us to lay down our lives for the good of others, such love magnifies the glory of Christ like nothing else in the world."

                                                               John Piper in Risk is Right 

this quote was very attractive to my soul. God has brought me to a place where my deepest desire is to serve Him by sacrificially laying down my life for the good of others. I pray that will be a large part of my witness to God's goodness.

but what does he mean when he states, "such love magnifies the glory of Christ like nothing else in the world"?

GLORY - what is glory? i've read it, heard it, sung it, and probably taught the word, but I think the meaning is far too lost among us. probably because it is a God word.

in another teaching, Piper speaks more to the glory of God.

"I don't know of any truth that is more fundamentally pervasive than God's zeal to be glorified, which means for us so to think, so to feel, and so to act as to make Him look as glorious as He is."

"let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven" Matthew 5:16

the goal of my life should be so to live that when people know me well enough, they will say 'God is glorious.' not 'marissa is glorious'.

a few projects

A few 'before and after' pictures from projects I've been working on lately (and not so lately).