It's Time to Just Sit

To say we are exhausted from this whole ordeal is a bit of an understatement. It is clear to us that now is the time to rest. And in this rest, to recover physically and emotionally from everything we have heard, seen and encountered over the past three months. I am a doer. I don’t have loads of extra energy, but when I am able to do, I do. I don’t know if that makes sense, but normally I use up all of my God given energy and strength “doing.” I don’t like to sit still. I have to confess that I never watched TV until I was pregnant with my second child, and I still don’t like old movies because they are way too LONG. My attention span for sitting still and just “being” is rather short. J God knows this about me. And I feel certain that is part of the reason why He has not just miraculously removed this severe pain in my back that came on me about 5 weeks ago, just as things started to turn around with AJ’s assignment. I have begged God to heal my back and have tried to convince Him that I don’t have time for this. If you saw my house right now you would agree! How does one just SIT when one has four children to home school, a house to keep up with, meals, bills, doctor visits, grocery shopping, laundry and all that other stuff I am always supposed to be doing (not that it all EVER gets done!) AND a trip to ES to get our family ready for! But after praying and being prayed for and going to doctors, I am convinced that God has me sitting in this season for a purpose.

It would be so easy for us to just keep blowing forward right now, planning and preparing to bring our new daughter home and to MISS reflecting on what God has done and just as importantly, what He wants to teach us as we emerge from this trial. One thing that has become clear to me is that it would be so easy for us to move forward with some little friends that have subconsciously joined us through this process – cynicism and bitterness. We have come face to face with true injustice, deep rooted evil, and the reality of poverty in a way we never have before over the last three months. It would be very easy for us to walk away from this experience without resolving the anger and helplessness which so easily become bitterness and cynicism. But God has spoken to our hearts and made one thing clear. We can walk away with total awe of God’s greatness and wonder at His amazing love for one child, with grateful hearts for ALL of the miracles He accomplished…..or we can come away with the cynicism and bitterness that result from not dealing with the injustice and evil we have encountered….but we cannot come away with both. The two simply cannot co-exist.

So, as I sit, I have the chance to release in forgiveness those whose evil ways perpetrated the injustice that only God could have miraculously fixed and whose evil ways continue to perpetrate the same injustices over and over again against God’s precious children. I have the chance to pour out my grieving heart to God in search of healing for this new brokenness in me from watching AJ’s birth mom die from her poverty. I have the chance to rest and just “be” and you know, right now, I think I am almost exhausted enough to actually just be okay with that!