“For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are of sound mind, it is for you.” 2 Cor. 5:13
I must admit to all who know me, including God, that I am scared.
For whatever reasons we can barely remember we moved into my parents place. We have been here for a bit. Even staying here we’ve struggled financially. We have to admit that having this safe haven to stay has caused us not to step out as we should as people of faith and as parents. (not that the 2 of those should be viewed separately) We no longer feel that we have the choice but to step out on our own.
Heather and I had Mikah pretty young. I was 21 she was 17. (some of you probably didn’t know that I’m sure) We were both pretty into drugs when we found out she was pregnant. Literally a sobering experience for us both! After Mikah was born we lived together in Indianapolis before we were married and became pregnant with Kiara. A while after we found out we realized we needed to move back home. Humbling. We were married in July of 2002. Kiara was about 9 months old.
Mikah is now 4 and Kiara is 2. I am thankful for this time that I have been able to ‘awaken’, as it were, from my few years of drug use. I stopped growing up the moment I started using I think. It’s been good to have the safety of our folks’ homes to raise our kids for the first few years of their lives. I truly believe we needed it, but I believe we are beginning to stay past the time necessary and it is becoming no good.
I am in a really scary place that many have been before. Getting ready to step out into the great big world not knowing what lurks around the corner for us. I broke down last night talking with Heather. I admitted for the first time that I just do not know how to care for my family. We have another child on the way and I do not know how to provide for the ones I’ve got. I have not been trained to do anything to get a well paying job. With Heather being pregnant I am the only one who is going to have a job. “How will we make it?” I cried. “I just do not no [what] to do or [how] to do it. I don’t know how to be to take care of all of you.”
From Sweet’s Jesus Drives Me Crazy!:
The apostle Paul, while in prison awaiting death, said he learned the ‘secret’ of smashed rainbows. What’s the secret--the secret of ‘being content’ in any and every situation, the secret wherewithal to endure all smashed rainbows?I don’t know how to care for my family as I should, but He does. I pray He helps me with my faith.
Paul’s secret is this: ‘I can do all things through [Christ] who strengthens me.’ -Phil 4:13
The secret is the three-letter word all. A secret so simple, yet so complex, so mysterious. ‘For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.’ If you are Christ’s, ‘all things are yours.’ God wants to do in your life ‘above all that we ask or think,’ and God will supply ‘all your need.’
Because of the all word, God adds an apostrophe and an opening to that word impossible: ‘I’m possible.’ When the rainbow is most smashed is when God is at work I you and perfecting the divine in you.”
“This three-letter word transforms whatever your manse into mansion, whatever your Sheol into Shiloh. Because of this word, we can praise God for every side of life-for friends, lovers, art, literature, knowledge, humor, politics-and the little red cloud away there in the West.
But all the all promises cling like Krazy Glue to this one verse: Is Christ your ‘all and in all’? When Paul talks about God being ‘all in all,’ he recognizes that God is already ‘all.’ It is our ministry to put God ‘in all’ so that ‘all things are subject to him’ and he will be ‘ all in all.’ Is it your prayer ‘that God may be all in all’?”
“All reminds us that God likes to appear in strange and unlikely places. All tips God’s hand to the divine penchant for working in our lives and world in ways beyond our comprehension. Like Jacob’s dream ladder, where angels were ascending and descending and God was speaking -‘Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go’-we too awake from sleep and say like Jacob, ‘Surely the Lord is in this place-and I did not know it!’
You know how much you love and care for your kids. You want to give them everything that is good for them. Do you think God would treat you, a child of his, worse than you, a parent, would treat your own children?
God’s possibilities are endless. NUTS disciples dream big. Little dreams have no magic. The crisis of faith today has more to do with imagination that with intellect. The Greek myth of Prometheus had humans stealing fire from the gods and being punished for it. In the Christian tradition, God gave humans the fire and rewards humanity for exercising its call to dream-to be creative and continue his creativity by dreaming his dream for the world.
Jesus calls us to refuse to accept life on the terms offered us by smashed rainbows. We are not called to make our own terms in life. We are called to make God’s terms with life.” pgs. 127-130
I pray that He will give me the faith to step aside and that I can give him my all. To give him my family. My self. My need for a job. My breakfast. I give Him our dreams. I pray they are His. I pray that I can be a creative expression of Him, here and now. I pray that I may love. I pray for relationships. I pray for you and you living out His dream.
We have been given each other and I know that I need you.
May I live with a little more imagination and more through Him every day
I pray because ALL my hope is in Him! I can do nothing without Him!
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