Monday Confessional
So last week was a hard week for me. I actually don't really know why. I have been short-tempered and I yelled. I felt more like the wicked step-mother than a mom. I think it's the lack of Dr. Pepper….and I skipped my Bible study a few days.
That proabably had something to do with it. When I opened my study book on Friday, I knew should have done that on Thursday. It was all about Hagar. I have really come to love the story of Hagar. Sometime last year, I taught a lesson to comparing Hagar and Jonah on Sunday morning to a bunch of 9th and 10th grade girls and somehow Hagar's story stayed with me.
I can't imagine what it was like to be her. A servant, probably forced to do something that she probably didn't really want to do in the first place and she wound up pregnant. Then, not only did she have all the changes that come with pregnancy, the woman who put her in the position in the first place began to mistreat her. It was bad enough that Hagar ran away. That took some guts. I mean where was she going, how was she planning to birth this baby, and what would she do for shelter.? I don't think any of those questions were crossing her mind when she left. I would bet she was just desperate to get away.
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In June 2011, three strangers moved into our house. I remember the first night. My Facebook post said something like, " there are 3 little kids asleep in my house and they will be there in the morning!" That post received all kind of "likes" and happy comments that ended in exclamation points. In reality the sentence I posted was written out of fear, not excitement. No one would have suspected that though. To everyone else it looked like excitement that we had our new family together. Wasn't that what we had prayed for the past two years? Shouldn't we be ecstatic and grateful that our dream had finally come true? Reality: I didn't know what do with them. Five lives were tossed upside down in the matter of seconds.
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I think Hagar felt that way. She didn't know what to do and now her life was upside down. A bad home life and a new baby, this was proabably nothing like the way she'd ever dreamed her life would be. So she left. Then in the midst of her fear, God found her. On the road to Shur, next to a spring, He came to her. Hagar called the Lord "the God who sees me" (Genesis 16:13) You love it, don't you! Hagar knew God was looking after her and her baby-on-the-way. God sent her back to Sarai and told Hagar to submit to her, but He gave Hagar a promise about her child. I wonder if she turned around on the road and walked home with hope, bravery, confidence and peace. It couldn't have been easy for Hagar to go back to Sarai. Later, we know that Hagar and her son were sent away, but God was faithful, He came to her again and took care of her and Ishmael. (Genesis 21)
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God found us that first summer, after the airport. He promises He makes beauty from ashes. We survived that summer off prayers of friends and family. God has taken 5 lives that were turned upside down and slowly made a family out of them. Our family is so far from what I think a family should look like, I can't even see the road, but we are learning and becoming a family a new and different way. It's slow and really painful sometimes. I don't know why it's painful and hard. I see other adoptive families and they seem so together and perfect, but I think that behind the scenes, it can't be perfect. Comparing does nothing but get my mind and heart in trouble.
I find it so comforting to know that God sees me. He knows me. He knows you. He sees the real life inside. He sees inside the heart. He sees the truth of what's happening in life. When life is upside down, that truth lifts weights off my shoulders.
I think if I had remembered that truth this past week, "things"… my attitude might have been not quite so difficult. Perhaps I would have been able to see as God sees.
Thankfully God comes to us again and again. He is slow to anger and abounding in love and faithfulness.
Happy Monday.
That proabably had something to do with it. When I opened my study book on Friday, I knew should have done that on Thursday. It was all about Hagar. I have really come to love the story of Hagar. Sometime last year, I taught a lesson to comparing Hagar and Jonah on Sunday morning to a bunch of 9th and 10th grade girls and somehow Hagar's story stayed with me.
I can't imagine what it was like to be her. A servant, probably forced to do something that she probably didn't really want to do in the first place and she wound up pregnant. Then, not only did she have all the changes that come with pregnancy, the woman who put her in the position in the first place began to mistreat her. It was bad enough that Hagar ran away. That took some guts. I mean where was she going, how was she planning to birth this baby, and what would she do for shelter.? I don't think any of those questions were crossing her mind when she left. I would bet she was just desperate to get away.
----
In June 2011, three strangers moved into our house. I remember the first night. My Facebook post said something like, " there are 3 little kids asleep in my house and they will be there in the morning!" That post received all kind of "likes" and happy comments that ended in exclamation points. In reality the sentence I posted was written out of fear, not excitement. No one would have suspected that though. To everyone else it looked like excitement that we had our new family together. Wasn't that what we had prayed for the past two years? Shouldn't we be ecstatic and grateful that our dream had finally come true? Reality: I didn't know what do with them. Five lives were tossed upside down in the matter of seconds.
----
I think Hagar felt that way. She didn't know what to do and now her life was upside down. A bad home life and a new baby, this was proabably nothing like the way she'd ever dreamed her life would be. So she left. Then in the midst of her fear, God found her. On the road to Shur, next to a spring, He came to her. Hagar called the Lord "the God who sees me" (Genesis 16:13) You love it, don't you! Hagar knew God was looking after her and her baby-on-the-way. God sent her back to Sarai and told Hagar to submit to her, but He gave Hagar a promise about her child. I wonder if she turned around on the road and walked home with hope, bravery, confidence and peace. It couldn't have been easy for Hagar to go back to Sarai. Later, we know that Hagar and her son were sent away, but God was faithful, He came to her again and took care of her and Ishmael. (Genesis 21)
----
God found us that first summer, after the airport. He promises He makes beauty from ashes. We survived that summer off prayers of friends and family. God has taken 5 lives that were turned upside down and slowly made a family out of them. Our family is so far from what I think a family should look like, I can't even see the road, but we are learning and becoming a family a new and different way. It's slow and really painful sometimes. I don't know why it's painful and hard. I see other adoptive families and they seem so together and perfect, but I think that behind the scenes, it can't be perfect. Comparing does nothing but get my mind and heart in trouble.
I find it so comforting to know that God sees me. He knows me. He knows you. He sees the real life inside. He sees inside the heart. He sees the truth of what's happening in life. When life is upside down, that truth lifts weights off my shoulders.
I think if I had remembered that truth this past week, "things"… my attitude might have been not quite so difficult. Perhaps I would have been able to see as God sees.
Thankfully God comes to us again and again. He is slow to anger and abounding in love and faithfulness.
Happy Monday.
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