Last month I went to a ladies luncheon where everyone had a prayer card waiting for them at their seat. There wasn't any assigned seating, so the prayer card was randomly placed, and yet everyone at my table was talking about how the prayer card they got was talking directly to them. Mine? It said:
God loves you so much
that He sent His Son to die for you.
Jesus is the proof of God's love.
~
For God so loved the world that
He gave His only begotten Son,
that whoever believes in Him should
not perish but have everlasting life.
John 3:16 NKJV
To God be the glory, great things He has done.
So loved He the world that He gave us His Son.
FRANNY CROSBY
My friend next to me asked what my card said, and I was just like, "Apparently I'm not feeling loved." Because when I read that all I can see is that it tells me over and over again God loves me.
Few days later I was reading through my notebook (journal) from last year. It's strange reading about how much I wondered and asked God if their siblings would return, and now here they are! What I was writing about last July though was about their names. I was writing about how the kids are getting older and if those names are really names God gave us for them... And I just started writing, God it's been more than 2 years! It's been more than 2 years now since they left us!!! Are they really coming back?! And here was the response:
Two years is nothing,
nothing in My eyes.
What I have planned,
is good for you guys.
You question, you wonder,
and you won't stop asking "why?"
But I have a reason, I have a purpose,
and it is good for you guys.
It is good,
do you hear Me?
Trust Me, Believe.
What I have destined, it will be.
Have a little more faith.
Remember that I love you.
And I would never make
you wait for no good reason.
I read that and felt like He was saying those exact same words to me today about everything I've been thinking and feeling about some new stuff..... "Remember that I love you". There it is again, God saying He loves me. Coincidence? Hmmm...
It's funny how I'm being told over and over and over again that God loves me and I'm just like, "Yeah yeah, I know, I know..." But then when I was reading in Deuteronomy chapter one this week about the Israelites feeling hated by God... it broke me. You see, I "know" I'm loved by God, but what I didn't realize is just how much I've felt hated by Him.
20 "...You have come to the mountains of the Amorites, which the Lord our God is giving us."
27 "...Because the Lord hates us, He has brought us out of the land of Egypt to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites to destroy us."
The way God has called us to grow our family, the way that He has brought us in growing our family, it has been HARD! But He doesn't hate us. It was never because He hates us. The rollercoaster ride we've been on is not because He hates us. Every goodbye? All that pain? The waiting for more than 2 years for these guys to come back? It was not because He hates us. Fifteen and a half years of infertility? Not because He hates us. The waiting we've already done for termination of parental rights to happen this time, not because He hates us. If we have to continue to wait for rights to be terminated, if the youngest ends up leaving us, if baby sister isn't a "baby" when she gets here, if... It's not because He hates us.
The Isrealites saw the mountains of the Amorites that God was giving them and they said, "No! It's going to be too hard! God must hate us. "...The people are greater and taller than we. The cities are great and walled up to heaven. And moreover, we have seen the sons of the Anakites there." (Deuteronomy 1:28) It's too much God! What You are calling us to do to receive what You say is for us, it's too much. God, we'll be destroyed before we ever receive it!"
Here I am with six children, so many of them I've had to say goodbye to already not knowing if they'd ever come back. And even when I was promised they'd be back, I/we still had to say goodbye. I fear the goodbyes aren't over yet. I hope and pray they are for the two siblings that used to be with us, but little brother? He might leave us, and it's going to hurt. It'll hurt all of us if he leaves, but if he does? It's not because God hates us. Jesus, God's own Son, begged that the cup He had be taken from Him, and God said no. It wasn't because God hated Him! And Jesus knew that. I've been begging for a long time to not have the cup of reunification with birth parents. Been begging that we can get off this ride with DHS. Begging and pleading that we can be done. So far the answer has been no. Jesus knew what waited for Him on the other side would be worth it, but He still begged not to go through the pain. We will have our moment of "it is finished." Our family will be complete one day. One day it'll all be over. Done. And it'll all have been worth it.
29-31 "...Do not be terrified or afraid of them. The Lord your God who goes before you, He shall fight for you, just as all that He did for you in Egypt before your eyes, and in the wilderness, where you saw how the Lord your God carried you, as a man carries his son, in all the way that you went, until you came to this place."
God loves us. He goes before us. He fights for us. And He wants to carry us through every step as a father carries his children. God is good. And what He wants for us is good. Every hardship we've had to face, none of it has been because He hates us. If we can trust and endure until the end, it'll all be worth it.