Even Still

July 20, 2017 adoption realities, orphanage realities, Realities, Rebecca 3 Comments

“We must learn to realize that the love of God seeks us in every situation, and seeks our good.”

- Thomas Merton



Sometimes things just don’t make a bit of sense. 

Sometimes, often actually, God allows things to happen that I don’t get.

Sometimes, in the story, rules change, and I’m confused.

Sometimes, in my story, things hurt, and I’m frustrated.

Sometimes I find myself groaning, “Why God, why?”


But, even still, I know…

God is not cruel.
He does not intend harm.
He is loving and good.
Always.

All I can do, when I’m confused and battered up, is chant this that I know to be true. Years of living has certainly tethered my heart to Jesus, but I can’t yet claim “unwavering faith”. God’s sovereignty over all life’s bruising twists and turns is truth in my mind, but my heart sometimes is yet convinced. Sometimes I doubt Him for a bit. How could I not? This world is filled with so much hurt. But, in His kindness, despite my waver, His goodness settles me all over again.

///

Even…
When governments make rules that make no sense, that harm children and blister our hearts.
When a family willing to say yes to adoption is told no.
When a family has an adoption file in hand, a child already in their hearts, but is told, “No, rules changed.”
When a family holds vigil by a broken-hearted son’s hospital bedside, praying with hope for a medical miracle, but the healing comes not on earth, but in heaven.
When children linger on waiting child lists.
When a newly adopted child wants nothing to do with being loved.
When a daughter with layers of medical trauma needs yet another IV.
When a traumatized boy rages, all these years later.
When the surgery has complications.
When the test results aren’t in our favor.
When teens join eager families, but their world is spinning so wildly out of control that they fight love.
When my own little medical needs daughter’s body stops functioning post-up and scrub draped nurses race her hospital bed into the OR at midnight due to renal failure.

///

Even still, God is not cruel.
He does not intend harm.
He is loving and good.
Always.

Sometimes, when life isn’t how I think it should be, when suffering wounds my heart, all I can do is chant to myself that He is good. Reminding myself, willing myself, to believe that He is good, even still. He made us some promises, didn’t He? In those moments, the best I can do is step out a door and let the sun soak life into my skin and allow the breeze to still me. Under the blue of the sky, evidence of Him cannot be denied, and it is there where I can consider His ever present love and sovereignty.

///

He’s the one who rains unexplainable peace in OR waiting rooms.
He’s the one who fills hearts with hope when all hope seems lost.

He’s the one who amasses prayer armies.

He’s the one who sends gentle angels in nursing scrubs.

He’s the one who fully and forever heals broken bodies and promises heavenly reunions. 

He’s the one who promises to someday “wipe away every tear”. 

He’s the one who paints rainbows. 

He the one who washes the earth with rain.

He’s the one who tells the sun to burn unending light.

He’s the one who siphons joy back into wounded hearts.

He’s the one who stirs hearts to fight for those who can’t fight for themselves.

He’s the one who calls more and more new families to say yes to adoption.

He’s the one who pumps passion and the crazy kind of love into the adoption community.

He’s the one who sends the servant-hearted nanny into the orphanage.

He’s the one who sends the friend who “gets” what orphanage behaviors can do to a home. 

He’s the one who placed the spunk and fight in the Chinese-American daughter whose hand holds mine. 

He’s the one who turns night to merciful day, dark to light, mourning to joy, over and over again.

In all things, He is calling me to Him, whether I like the story, or not. He pursues me, and you, in life’s winters and its springs. In its harshness and its hopeful abundance.

///

When God allows hurt, I might be confused, but I refuse to believe that He is cruel. He’s promised to be our refuge, our stay in the storm, and to work it all out for our good and His glory. So even when I have to chant it to my own heart, I trust His goodness, even still. He sees things that I cannot. He is ever and always at work within governments, adoption agencies, hospital rooms, families and hearts. Yours and mine.

God is not cruel.
He does not intend harm.
He is loving and good.
Always. Even still.

“And by accepting all things from Him, I receive His joy into my soul, not because things are what they are, but because God is Who He is, and His love willed my joy in them all.”

- Thomas Merton







3 responses to “Even Still”

  1. Rebecca says:

    Thank you for sharing this. Chanting that God is good has been my survival this past year. It remains my stronghold as we begin hospice care for my precious little girl who has suffered so much. Your words express the feelings I have so well. It is good to feel like someone else knows…

  2. Lisa says:

    Beautifully said! Wonderful words that speak the volumes of so many of our hearts words. I today, stand upright because of God. I sit on the fence of life wondering what’s next. Do I jump or stay safely perched on my safe spot watching the world. As I contemplate giving up a life I know for a life of adventure…I sit knowing that God will move me, literally and figuratively from the spot I call home. With our child who has struggled so badly within our home being in another’s home right now…the future feels confusing. Yet in this time of respite, God still stirs up my heart to GO and DO. To move. To believe in the value of people. To remember the words of my (20 years ago this month deceased ) Dad who adopted me at birth…that the only thing we can take with us at the end of our life is our memories. Nothing else will go to heaven with us. Nothing. Not our homes. Not our stuff. Not our money or power, prestige or social class or our titles. Nothing. But those memories, God will allow us to take those. So again, as I sit here..I realize I’m going to rest and know that God will make the story of my daughter amazing. No matter what. While still allowing our families story to continue. The ebbing and flowing of life. The good and bad. He is using it all. But I know up high on my fence, I’m soon planning a jump. Just waiting on God. I see the pain of regret, and complacent in the faces of so many people that are now at the end of their lives. I’m in one day 45 years old and so I am fully aware of time slipping by..so I know I am jumping. Again. I plan, with Gods prompting, to do what he is calling me to do, to do the unconventional, to unchain myself from the American dream and instead propel myself into Gods purpose and plan for my life and that of my families. To hear the voice of my beloved Dad and make memories instead of staying out in a safe world of the known. It’s time. God gives us just so many days to be here. I’ve been horribly sick, died, brought back and am alive again…and all within me, I realize these last 4 1/2 decades of life…I want to finally FULLY live the words of my Dad. And breakout. My daughter. Her severe issues. The pain and suffering of her trauma. Now our trauma. God is using all if it. He comforts me, always. God speaks and speaks and speaks to me and I will hear the words from both, my heavenly and earthly Fathers, their words. I can not deny the existence of God as I have seen him face to face, so saying no. Isn’t an option. Live life fully, all of you out there no matter what road your walking. Life is a gift, people are a gift. Pour your life into what truly matters, what God is calling you to do and have peace. God is good. In ALL of it even when we don’t understand the Whys. God Is still good. Fully. And ALWAYS. Thank you Rebecca for reminding and confirming in me the words I am hearing from God the last few days. 🙂

    • Linda says:

      Yes, to all of what you say!! I took the leap from safe, secure, to folliwing Jesus call to use up our lives in the service of others. I cannot deny that, in once doing so, i didnt fully grieve for my old, safe and secure life, but after 4 years and a whole lot of stuff (pain and stretching and growth with my 2 adopted children,) i would not have it any other way! Jesus does not call us on an easy adventure, but promises to be with us through it all! I still count on this every single day!!

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