Today I want to share my friend's testimony that the LORD reminded me of a few weeks ago while we were worshiping. Names have been changed to protect the identities =)
Erin grew up in a small suburban town where everybody knew everybody. When she was 14, a preacher came to town and held a youth revival. During the altar call, though she was touched by the Spirit, she spitefully refused to go to the altar. The preacher then pointed at her and called her out, proclaiming that she had a call upon her life. She recalls that moment that changed her life like it was yesterday, right down to the denim jacket she was wearing. She received Jesus as her Lord and Savior that night, but like so many young people, had some working out of her salvation to do.
She went on to college where she continued her relationship with Jesus, but in secret. She thrived in popularity, academics, and extra-curricular activities, but no one knew she was a Christian. If someone knocked on her door while she was reading her Word, she would throw her Bible under her pillow before she let anyone in. She fell in love with the captain of the football team, and the two got engaged. Even he didn't know of her secret life with Christ.
One day, Todd, also a member of the football team and a good friend of her and her fiance's, came to her door. With a look of distress he anxiously asked her, "Erin, what's different about you? Why are you always so happy?" Knowing what he was looking for but still too cowardly to profess her faith, she played it off as nonsense and sent him on his way.
The next day she went in to work and noticed a somber mood around the office. There was an accident last night. A big rig collided with a motorcycle just off the main road. The cyclist died on the scene. He was a member of the football team. It was the quarterback, Todd. The accident was recorded at 9:27pm. He had stopped by her room just an hour and a half earlier.
That was the wake-up call Erin needed to get her life together and get straight about her faith. She called off her engagement and came clean about her secret relationship. She would have to figure out how to live the rest of her life with the guilt of death on her shoulders.
Some time later, Erin learned what had elapsed in the hour and a half between Todd's visit that night and his death. After Todd had left her dorm, he went to visit the team's coach, also a Christian, but a professing one. Todd went to his house and asked him, "Coach, what's different about you? Why are you always so happy?" The coach shared with him about Jesus. That very night, Todd got on his knees, in the living room of his coach's home, and with tears streaming down his face received Jesus as his personal Lord and Savior.
And within 15 minutes, he was Home.
"God didn't have to," Erin said at the end of her testimony. "But I'm so glad He let me hear the end of that story."
Our pastor has professed that 2012 is the year of stewardship. As I meditate on this, I think about stewarding opportunities in particular. How many moments have I had like Erin, whether as blatant or much more subtle, where I've had the opportunity to partner in His Kingdom work but didn't recognize it and so passed it up instead? How many opportunities have I had to share the life-giving love of Jesus to a crying heart but didn't? How many opportunities have I had to share the gift of salvation through the Son Jesus Christ to a dying soul, but because of one thing or another, I didn't? When our eyes and hearts are openly looking for opportunities, we will find them in places and capacities we never imagined or even asked for. I know I have been much too closed.
He is the author and perfecter of our faith, but I ask and strive to be a good steward of my opportunities, that I may be granted a role in the homecoming stories of children to their Father. This is my prayer for 2012.
[P.S. As an update from my last post...we are expecting again =) ]
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
God the Creator
My journal entry from July 2, 2011:
Today, as I was picking up around the house, I was unloading a bag of groceries I had left on the kitchen floor a few days ago. I put away all the shopping items and went to break down the bags, only to discover spoons and other various utensils piled between the double layer of paper bag--and smiled. Jedidiah.
It's not uncommon to see little evidences of Jedidiah throughout our house and throughout our days, whether it be a ball in the bathtub when you pull back the curtain for a shower, or a solitary Lego sitting on the toilet seat cover; a spatula jammed in the Diaper Genie, or dozens of puzzle pieces fit through the handle hole of a cardboard storage box; magnets dropped off in Daddy's Muscle Milk, or a cookbook in the bedroom trashcan. Each discovery is so heart-wrenchingly cute and delights me in the most endearing way, causing me to smile no matter what mood I'm in at the time.
As I cleaned up his utensil stash, I had a moment of appreciation for my son. The way he is--just being his curious, silly self--brings me such delight, and he doesn't even know it. I thanked God for making him the way he is. And I wondered how much delight I bring Him just by being the way I am, how many times I make Him smile without even knowing it. I thought, this is why creation is to be praised. Every person, every creature, everything before even doing anything, delights our Father simply because it is fearfully and wonderfully made by Him.
Yesterday, I found out that I had a miscarriage. At the most, I was about nine weeks along. It wasn't painful at all, but I went to the doctor to get checked for some bleeding. While I was in the examination room waiting for the doctor, disposable hospital blanket covering my naked legs, I had a moment with my unborn child. Fearing the worst, as I would soon learn it turned out to be, I put my hand upon my belly and told my baby, "No matter what happens, I know you're there. God knows you're there. He created you and you are fearfully and wonderfully made. I thank Him for your life and I love you very much." When I got home that afternoon, my husband and I prayed together and gave it to God. The part I remember the most is when he asked God to "Tell our baby that we love her--Mommy, Daddy, and brother Jedidiah." It was probably the sweetest prayer I've heard.
Perhaps because it was so early on (we had only known for two weeks that I was pregnant at all), we weren't too saddened by the whole thing. We will never know why it happened, but God is sovereign and He is good. To praise the creator of this life that is now with Him has given me sweet peace.
A song of worship rises in me now but also compels me to write about this and to share it. I need to get back to writing. Motherhood causes you to be selfless because you just don't have the capacity for yourself and the things you want to do anymore. But I'm realizing that at the same time you have to fight to keep the self you were created to be. I used to write all the time. Writing is not just a pastime, not just a passion, but part of the way I was created. Through writing, I think and see and breathe and live. To not exercise this gift is to not fully be the me I was created to be. And share. There is something about making things public, making ourselves vulnerable, that brings healing and closure and beauty. Maybe it's that old saying, 'It's not about me.' It's not about us, but knowing that the end of this breath is the beginning of another.
So my soul worships my God the Creator today. For Jedidiah, for my baby, for me, and for you.
He makes all things beautiful in its time.
Today, as I was picking up around the house, I was unloading a bag of groceries I had left on the kitchen floor a few days ago. I put away all the shopping items and went to break down the bags, only to discover spoons and other various utensils piled between the double layer of paper bag--and smiled. Jedidiah.
It's not uncommon to see little evidences of Jedidiah throughout our house and throughout our days, whether it be a ball in the bathtub when you pull back the curtain for a shower, or a solitary Lego sitting on the toilet seat cover; a spatula jammed in the Diaper Genie, or dozens of puzzle pieces fit through the handle hole of a cardboard storage box; magnets dropped off in Daddy's Muscle Milk, or a cookbook in the bedroom trashcan. Each discovery is so heart-wrenchingly cute and delights me in the most endearing way, causing me to smile no matter what mood I'm in at the time.
As I cleaned up his utensil stash, I had a moment of appreciation for my son. The way he is--just being his curious, silly self--brings me such delight, and he doesn't even know it. I thanked God for making him the way he is. And I wondered how much delight I bring Him just by being the way I am, how many times I make Him smile without even knowing it. I thought, this is why creation is to be praised. Every person, every creature, everything before even doing anything, delights our Father simply because it is fearfully and wonderfully made by Him.
Yesterday, I found out that I had a miscarriage. At the most, I was about nine weeks along. It wasn't painful at all, but I went to the doctor to get checked for some bleeding. While I was in the examination room waiting for the doctor, disposable hospital blanket covering my naked legs, I had a moment with my unborn child. Fearing the worst, as I would soon learn it turned out to be, I put my hand upon my belly and told my baby, "No matter what happens, I know you're there. God knows you're there. He created you and you are fearfully and wonderfully made. I thank Him for your life and I love you very much." When I got home that afternoon, my husband and I prayed together and gave it to God. The part I remember the most is when he asked God to "Tell our baby that we love her--Mommy, Daddy, and brother Jedidiah." It was probably the sweetest prayer I've heard.
Perhaps because it was so early on (we had only known for two weeks that I was pregnant at all), we weren't too saddened by the whole thing. We will never know why it happened, but God is sovereign and He is good. To praise the creator of this life that is now with Him has given me sweet peace.
A song of worship rises in me now but also compels me to write about this and to share it. I need to get back to writing. Motherhood causes you to be selfless because you just don't have the capacity for yourself and the things you want to do anymore. But I'm realizing that at the same time you have to fight to keep the self you were created to be. I used to write all the time. Writing is not just a pastime, not just a passion, but part of the way I was created. Through writing, I think and see and breathe and live. To not exercise this gift is to not fully be the me I was created to be. And share. There is something about making things public, making ourselves vulnerable, that brings healing and closure and beauty. Maybe it's that old saying, 'It's not about me.' It's not about us, but knowing that the end of this breath is the beginning of another.
So my soul worships my God the Creator today. For Jedidiah, for my baby, for me, and for you.
He makes all things beautiful in its time.
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