Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Declarations

Thank you for allowing me to share my recent struggle with you. Ever since I brought it out into the open, I have been feeling vigorous strong movements from Zoe again and a real sense of peace and well-being. Thank you for continuing to lift us up in prayer!

I feel the need to continue to fight back and make some strong declarations. I hope and trust that you will join me in speaking these things over my life and over the big things you're dealing with in your own lives.

God is good. I do not believe that He "took" my Nicholas and Olivia. We live in a fallen world that is subject to free choice by imperfect people inclined to sin. The Scripture refers over and over again to how that has even affected creation. We live in a world of natural disasters. Wars. Children who get sick and die. That doesn't change the truth about who God is. What it does do is push me to run to the only One Who can save us. Friends, there is no one or no thing out there that can save you other than Jesus Christ and His sacrifice to end the curse forever. Without the hope that He brings, there is only despair, because we certainly do not have it in ourselves to fix a darn thing on our own.

God is love. Perfect love casts out fear and leaves no room for it. If you do not know the perfect love of God, seek to really know it with all your heart and mind and strength. Once you have a revelation of how much God loves you, your perspective changes dramatically. Think about how a child will rail and fuss at a parent when the parent makes decisions from a higher perspective. All the parent wants is trust from the child that they know what they're doing and that they're making decisions out of love for the child. Until the child lays down what they want and looks to understand what is going on, the child continues to have an unfair perspective of the parent and what the parent is trying to do. God cannot do anything outside of His love, for He is love.

God is sovereign. God is still in control. But, for the time being the Enemy of our souls has been allowed free reign in this world because we let him. Every time we make a decision out of self, every time we succumb to temptation, every time we seek something of the world over the Kingdom, we let the Enemy win. And in God's infinite patience with us, He lets us continue to make the choices we make because He wants us to turn to Him in love and not as robots. Friends, do you know that you can lean on God's sovereignty by laying down your efforts and turning those mountains in your life over to God for Him to move? He is mighty to save!

I know the circumstances of my testimony don't line up with what you would expect from these declarations. Well, if God was so good and so loving and so sovereign, why did He let my children die? I have sought to know Him well enough to get to the point where I don't need that question answered yet. If He can't tell me now, then I don't want to know because I don't have the capacity for the answer. But I do know there is nothing else, no one else, who can satisfy and so I cling to the only One who saves.

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Fighting

I've realized recently that it was easier to believe that Zoe will be strong and healthy earlier on in the pregnancy, when vigorous movements were common and the due date was far off. Now that we're in the final month and she's getting bigger and running out of room, I've fought anxiety each time movements don't seem to be as strong. I've also fought thoughts like "God took your other two, what will stop Him from taking this one" and "Whatever lessons needed to be learned from Nicholas and Olivia, what if they still need to be learned from Zoe?" and "God can really make an example of you this time if Zoe is sick too".

The key word is fought. I will not receive those thoughts. I will stand and fight. I remind myself that I don't deserve a "bad" outcome, but I don't deserve a "good" outcome either. God's grace is not about deserving or earning. There's nothing I can do or say or fast or pray to earn God's favor. It is a free gift, mine to receive.

I can trust. I can seek a deep understanding of God's goodness and His unfathomable love for me. I can immerse myself in the power of His Word and remember He is an amazing God who loves to come into situations where the odds are against us and show Himself mighty to save. I know that just believing in something doesn't mean that it will happen. But I do know that my job is to believe, and rest in the truth that God is sovereign, and that He is love.

God is love. When we take up permanent residence in a life of love, we live in God and God lives in us. This way, love has the run of the house, becomes at home and mature in us, so that we're free of worry on Judgment Day—our standing in the world is identical with Christ's. There is no room in love for fear. Well-formed love banishes fear. Since fear is crippling, a fearful life—fear of death, fear of judgment—is one not yet fully formed in love. (1 John 4:18, The Message)

Father God, please give me a deep revelation of your love so that there is no room in my life for fear.