Hurricanes, Kittens, Mountains and Plundered Treasure

Warning: This post has no real news. It is just my rambling thoughts as I struggle to wait for news. You could end up reading for a very long time and still have no idea what I’ve said. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. :)

It’s strangely quiet here. After a whirlwind of activity last week – and for the three weeks preceding that – this week everything is strangely quiet. It reminds me of being in the eye of a hurricane. I have to admit this place is as much of a struggle for me or more than when everything is happening all at once. You’d think I could just enjoy the quiet and welcome the rest, but that doesn’t happen when the child of your heart is still missing!

In this place of no visible activity, I have felt a bit like a caged animal – wanting so badly to do something to “stir the pot” and keep things moving myself. Yesterday I had had enough with the silence. No phone calls. No emails. Nothing. And it was driving me absolutely nuts. I was cranky and short with the kids and unable to find any peace. I left the house alone to run to the little supermarket nearby for some milk. It was good to get out of the house and clear my head a bit. As I drove, I began to pray and ask God to help me in this place too.

On my way home, I was driving on the highway and I saw a little kitten darting down a driveway towards the oncoming traffic. I slowed, but didn’t know if the oncoming cars would see it. I cringed as I watched the kitten slow down a bit and then decide to race headlong towards the street. “Great – now I am going to watch this little helpless kitten get run over by a car,” I thought. Just what I needed. But at just the last second, the oncoming car slowed and honked and the kitten raced back up the driveway, presumably to the safety of the mother.

I drove away with the distinct impression that I had just witnessed that for a reason. “Ok, Lord, talk to me,” I prayed. I began to realize that the Lord was warning me not to leave the safety of His side and dart out into the traffic. He was telling me to wait with Him and not try to go out on my own and do my own thing – phone calls, emails, getting on a plane….He was warning me that to do so right now would mean danger. “Ok, I get it.” It doesn’t matter if I can’t see what’s happening right now. It doesn’t matter that man is not conforming to my idea of how things should be handled right now. All that matters is that I stay by HIS side, not moving ahead of Him and not falling behind. And so here we sit.

Maybe we are in the eye of this storm. If so, then I must cling to Him even more as the back side of the storm approaches. Perhaps the storm is still raging, and I just cannot see what is happening. I am still longing for that day when this storm is over and all the clouds disappear, the driving rain ceases, and the sun shines gloriously on calm waters.

There is so much that God has been showing us during this time. It’s hard to believe that nearly five weeks have passed by in such a blur. One of the themes seems to continue to be that of Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt. God started leading me down that path shortly before all of this stuff happened, and He seems to continue to speak to us daily through that story. Not that we liken ourselves to Moses, who led what? about a million people out of captivity? No. But we have seen many parallels to our situation and Moses’ in terms of dealing with an ungodly, unbending oppressor holding God’s children in captivity.

There are so many things I could share that God has shown us in this story over the past few weeks. Notably, in the beginning at the burning bush during Moses’ and God’s “discussion” over what God wanted Moses to do, God says:

“I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you. When you have brought the people up out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain.” (Ex. 3:12)

In other words, “When it is all over and the Israelites are safely out, then you will REALLY know that it was ME who called you to do this.”

Does this indicate that God knew Moses would have doubts all along the way until the whole thing was finally over? I think so. Moses had experienced God in a burning bush, but he would really know it was God when it was all finally over. When Moses was standing at the Red Sea and the Egyptian army was bearing down on them, Moses knew that it wasn’t over yet because that mountain was on the other side of that sea!

Our “mountain” resides in Isaiah 41. I have penciled the date “Nov. 1, 2006” next to the passage from verses 8 – 20. This was the passage of scripture that God gave to us regarding this adoption the first day we started our paperwork. We have clung to these verses throughout all the trials of this adoption, believing fully that in the end, God would bring AJ into our family. From this passage at the burning bush though, I believe God knows how hard it is for us to keep walking sometimes in what we believe He has told us. Perhaps it isn’t until we are back on the other side of that Red Sea, standing on that mountain in Isa. 41 that we will really know that it was God who sent us.

Yesterday I saw something new. God had told Moses in Exodus 3:21: “And I will make the Egyptians favorably disposed toward this people, so that when you leave you will not go empty-handed. Every woman is to ask her neighbor and any woman living in her house for articles of silver and gold and for clothing, which you will put on your sons and daughters. And so you will plunder the Egyptians.”

Just as Moses was preparing for the final plague and God’s final release of the Israelites, he instructed them to ask the Egyptians for their silver and gold and clothing.

“The Israelites did as Moses instructed and asked the Egyptians for articles of silver and gold and for clothing. The Lord had made the Egyptians favorably disposed toward the people, and they gave them what they asked for; so they plundered the Egyptians.” (Exodus 12:36)

In our pursuit of God’s heart for orphans over the past five years, we have come to know well the scripture in Isa. 45:2-3:

"I will go before you and will level the mountains; I will break down gates of bronze and cut through bars of iron. I will give you the treasures of darkness, riches stored in secret places, so that you may know that I am the Lord, the God of Israel, who summons you by name.”

When I read about how God told the Israelites to plunder the Egyptians for these treasures of silver and gold, there was an immediate understanding of the plunder we are to take in this battle. Children. Orphaned and abandoned children are the treasure that we are to ask for as we leave this “Egypt” that our daughter is held captive in. I don’t know exactly what that will look like or how it will happen, but for now, I love the thought that God would allow us to “plunder” this ungodly system and take these treasures with us. Only God.