they will spring up like grass in a meadow

Isaiah 44: 3-5  For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground  I will pour out my Spirit and my blessing on your descendants.  They will spring up like grass in a meadow, like a poplar trees by flowing streams.  One will say, "I belong to the Lord." Another will call himself by the name of Jacob; still another will write on his hand, "The Lord's" and take the name of Israel.

During those tough teen years when kids are figuring out what they think of the faith they have been brought up in and what they will do with this Jesus their parents have set before them I found this passage and highlighted it in my NAS and my NIV.  I wanted to find it quickly and easily to remind myself that no matter what my eyes saw, how badly I failed, how badly my children failed, God would nourish and work it out.  He would pour water on thirsty land and streams on dry ground.  In those years I was often dry ground, parched and cracking.  So I would come to this place and be reminded that I would see meadows and trees by the streams - someday.

Someday is today.  The fullness of those words and the truth of the promise gained life as our grand joys found their way into our lives and our hearts.  Water on thirsty land.  The blessings multiply throughout the years.  But the joy of seeing our grandchildren learn about Jesus and my children walking in faith is a blessing beyond what I could have expected or known.

Perhaps the concern for today is not children.  Maybe it's a bank account that is not quite meeting the bills.  Perhaps it's a diagnosis that even the word terrifies.  A loved one has died and we are left with the memories, the grief of loss, and the loneliness of forced aloneness.  A single life that was filled with passionate pursuit is now simply lonely.  The marriage did not, is not bringing the fulfillment expected.

Whatever the dryness is, there is still hope.  In John 4 we are told of the Samaritan woman who meets Jesus at the well of Jacob.  He talks to her for just a few moments and confirms what she says and all of a sudden she gets it.  She runs to town and announces that this man has told her everything she ever did.  The towns people leave their work and go out to the well to see this man.  She was overflowing with living water and they recognized it. They saw the dry land had been saturated in living water and went to the source.

Whatever your life circumstances, he is the answer.  He is the comfort you seek, the healing you need, the answer to the question, and the provider of your needs.  It may not look like what you thought it should, but it will be exactly what it should be when it is laid down before the Mighty God, the Creator, the Most High.  Laying it down in fear and trembling before the One who holds the key to everything, finding the peace that comes only from Him and in the most unpeaceful times, that is gift that is found this side of eternity as we learn to trust him.

Hang on his Word.  He is trustworthy when all else fails.

God's view

Last week I talked about the need to see who we are without Christ in order to recognize the amazing goodness of the Lord toward us.  This week I want to look at what the Word says about us. Seeing the truth of who I am without Christ, I believe, was necessary so I would understand honestly who I am in Christ and that who I am is all about who He is in me.   Getting stuck in that place of self-awareness was never God's intention for my life though. Seeing myself through the eyes of God was His intention all along.

I had defined myself by my sin, by my circumstances, and by every negative thing anyone said to me.  God's Word proved to have a very different opinion about me though.  So let's consider what the Bible has to say to each of us, individually, and grab hold of the amazing love that He lavishes on us.

The first thunderbolt that pierced my armor of self-depreciation was from the book of Isaiah:  Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee.  For I have carved you into the palms of my hands and your walls are continually before me.  (Is. 49:15-16)

I remember the feel of wonder the first time I realized that Jesus literally did this. The Hebrew word for palms include the top of the wrist where the nails pierced him.  Those nail marks were a revelation to Thomas.  They are carried on the beautiful body of Christ into eternity and one day when I stand before him I will see where he carved me into the palms of his hands because he loves me. The marks of death for the sake of my life.

But there are so many more pieces of treasure that continually served as a balm, a healing solvent, liberally applied to the wounds of my soul.  Here are some:

Romans 3:24  I am the forgiven child of God.
Romans 8:1-2 I am the child of God - set free
Romans 8:37   I am the victorious child of God
1 Cor. 1:2       I am God's child and acceptable to him
1 Cor. 1:30     I am a holy child of God
2 Cor. 5:17     I am made new as a child of God.
Ephesians 1:4  I am God's child, I am loved.
Ephesians 2:13 I am God's child who has drawn close to me.
Ephesians 3:12 I am a confident child of God.

Internalizing each of these truths transformed my understanding to allow me to walk in the forgiveness, the freedom, the victory, the acceptance, the holiness, the newness, the love, the closeness, and the confidence that are God's view of who I am, and to see you in that light as well.  God's grace is so full and complete that as we get a glimpse of it and understand just a glimmer of the truth He lavishes on us it changes us from the inside out.  I challenge you to spend some time in the next month as the world focuses on human love to meditate on a few of these verses and draw near to God.

Glorious Princess

One of the sweetest lessons the Lord gently and lovingly imparted to me has been who I am in Him.  The peace of soul that comes with knowing I am a daughter of the Most High is intense, if peace can be described as intense.  Knowing that nothing can take me out of the protection and care I have in the palm of His hand is comforting.  Knowing that I cannot truly make a bad decision for even the really bad ones are used for my good in the end, simply because I love Him and He promised.  All the horrible things done to me and by me are made not simply justified, but good and useful in His hand.

However, it took years before I honestly believed God's Word concerning who I am.  I knew me.  I knew my mistakes, my hatred, my ugliness way down deep.  Do you know what I mean?  Others saw a compassionate, friendly, helpful person.  (These are words others had said to me about me.)  But I knew better and it took layer upon layer of the Lord's kindness and patience telling me, reminding me, speaking anew the truth of His Word that it wasn't about me.

That's it really, isn't it?  It's not about me; what I did or didn't do; what I think or say or feel.  It's about His amazing, abundant, complete, and overwhelming grace following mercy.  Recently I have been thinking about this a little deeper though.

Not only is it not because of me, but those things about me, as I see the truth of them, and realize how desperately distant from God they make me, yeah, those things give me a perspective that allows me to draw closer to Him, appreciate His goodness toward me more deeply, and in general understand who I am in Him even better.

As I recognize my lack of worth, of my complete inability to be anything close to righteous, and I begin to mourn my position, not in self-pity, but in a true understanding of how what I am separates me from the loving God I was created to commune with, I begin in that moment to realize in a deeper, truer sense of how much I need Christ.  I am overwhelmingly humbled that despite my complete and utter worthlessness He loves me.  I am lovable and valuable because of His love.

We live in a time and culture that promotes self knowledge and self esteem.  In some ways there is value in that.  I have seen that get in the way of what God is doing in someone's life though.  We don't deserve anything good or kind.  David called himself a worm.  Jeremiah and Isaiah both told us in one way or another that we are nothing next to God. If not for the blood of the lamb and the veil of the temple God's chosen would have been devoured by judgement.  Find someone who is honestly repentant for their mistake, their bad choice, their sin, and you will find someone who in those first moments feel horrible about themselves and rightly so.  They should feel badly.  It's right they take responsibility.  Only then can they come to a place of recognition of the truth of their need for a Savior.

We utterly and completely need Jesus.  In that first moment when we see we are nothing without Him and every moment following it.  It is good for me to remember what lies beyond the Blood that takes it all away.  Remembering keeps me from feeling deserving.  When I think I deserve it (and we all get to that sense of ownership or accomplishment from time to time) I then begin to see myself as my own Savior.  Now I would never say it that way in the moment of course.  But isn't that what it boils down to?  Replacing Jesus because we feel capable?

The sweet kindness of our Father is like a loving Daddy who allows us to try on own so that we will fall, and then remember - we need His provision.  We are not enough on our own.  It is humbling to say "I can't, help me."  It is necessary to remember so that not only we draw nearer to the God who loves us and longs to  relate to us, but also that in those moments of humility God is lifted, Jesus is lifted and glorified.  I am precious to my Savior.  I was worth His life in His eyes.  I am His bride, his delight, the love of His life.  I am the daughter of the Most High King, a princess, loved beyond measure and treasured more than diamonds and gold.  I am all this and more simply because of His love and not because of anything I am on my own. I did not earn it and I can do nothing to hold onto it.  It simply is. I am a glorious princess not because I am glorious, but because He is glorious through me and in me!

unexpected gifts

Isaiah 40:11  He tends his flock like a shepherd:  He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads the nursing ewes.

In the summer of 1986 I received a call from the doctors' office.  "Congratulations, Mrs. Collins!"  "Thank you!  For what?"  "Um, your test, your pregnancy test?  It came back positive."  I had the test done as a precaution before taking medicine that would be a problem if I were pregnant.  But it was purely precautionary on my part.  I had no idea that I was nor any intention of being so.  I had a very strong headed five year old, a very strong willed one year old, and a very clingy three year old.  I felt like I was drowning as a parent, unable to do anything well for my girls; and now the dr.s' office was telling me I was going to have another one?  I hung up the phone, sat on edge of the bed, and wept.  I prayed, "God do you know how poorly I am doing this job already?" I was tired and worried and thought surely there had been a mistake.  But there was no mistake and in March of 1987 our son Matthew as born.  Matthew means gift of Jehovah, because he truly was just that.  Matt was easy going from day one, loving to be entertained by his sisters.  He rarely fussed too loudly throughout his childhood. He was and is sweet and affectionate. Funny how God knows best.  My dear friend, Carol Jo, offered me this scripture from Isaiah when I was struggling through those first days of pregnancy and I clung to the words like breath.  He would gently lead me, and more, He would carry my babies close to His heart.  I could depend on Him for support, comfort, even to step in and carry my babies when I could not.  What more could I ask?

engraved

Isaiah 49:16  See I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me.

For too many reasons to list here I came into adulthood with a deep sense of worthlessness and fear that others would see just how useless and terrible I really was if they ever really knew me.  But through patient, tender love, the Lord placed people in my life who spoke truth about the value He places on me.  Through the preached Word on Sundays, ladies Bible studies through the weeks, Home Groups, and friendships, as well as things my husband shared, my children would say, my mother-in-law and my own parents I heard the Word confirmed back to me.  One day reading through the book of Isaiah, I read this passage and I realized, "Wait, Jesus really did this in the flesh!"  He carved me into his palms.  The Hebrew word for palms incorporates the full hand and wrist area where the nails pierced Him.  I felt those words fly off the page and take wings in my heart.  I finally got it.  In eternity I will find a glorified perfect body, whole and complete.  But Jesus will carry the marks of His Love for me FOREVER.  My walls are EVER before him.  He loves that much.  Value, yes I have value.  And not because I earned it or didn't do or did do anything.  My value rests in the fact that He loves me.  You, too, by the way.

Romans 8:15 For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, “Abba! (NASB)

Ephesians 1:5   he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, (ESV)


As believers in Christ we know that we are children of God.  We know that we are born again.  


Christ's death, his payment for our sin, the propitiation required, allows us the opportunity to receive the "spirit of adoption as sons".  But what does that mean?  What does it mean to be adopted?


Adoption is a legal term.  It is the process by which a child born of one set of parents becomes the child of another set or individual parent by means of the court system, having a judge rule the adoption complete and lawful.  The judge signs the adoption certificate or decree and the new parents file for a new birth certificate that has the child's new name and the new parents are listed and the child is theirs in every way.  In the eyes of the law this child is now completely and utterly their child and the law will not differentiate between them and a biological child of the same parents.  The adopted child is now an heir among the children.


I know this because I have adopted children.  The process of adoption is a birthing process even as the biological process of birth.  There are distinct markers of "pregnancy", "labor", and "birth".  I can compare this relatively well as I also have biological children.  But I don't wish to share the details of our adoptions here and now.  What I want to look at is the spiritual correlation. 


My adopted children were born to other women.  My daughter belonged to that birth family until she was twelve.  My son was released for adoption at three days old by his biological mother.  They were both born to be my children though.  Born of another's body, but chosen by the Father to be my child.  My son came young and became a part of this family in a way that he knew no other family, no other way.  This is where he belonged.  My daughter came with memories of another time, other people, another life.  But she will quickly tell you that we are her family, I am her mother, and my husband is her "Daddy".  How can that be?  Just because some judge signed a paper?


No, but that marked a permanency that allowed the feelings of belonging and of safety to grow.  It was the fertile soil for those other things to be.  Without the legal process that said she was ours she would have continued to waver in a sense that "they" could take her away again, for she remembers being taken away.  She would have continued to fear that the birth family could come steal her away; something she was very much afraid of for several months, but months not years.  She no longer fears that.   The legal procedure of  adoption allowed our daughter and her new family to move toward the truth that she is ours, born to be ours, designed to be a child of God under our care.

In much the same way, our adoption as "sons" allows us to grow into our understanding of what it means to be God's child. It is the legal decree that declares to all who would hear that we are his.  We were born of another (in sin) but through the death of Christ our redemption was purchased, the requirements of God's law were fulfilled and thereby we have a legal claim to his family simply by the acceptance of Christ's work, of his being who he is.  When one professes Christ as their Savior the adoption decree is signed and that one has the all the legal rights of an heir.  The birth certificate is changed so that God is now listed as our parent.  In that moment the new believer has received "the spirit of adoption" and is completely and in every way a member of God's family.


Some of us come as little children and really know no other way.  Our memories are wrapped up in the family of God, surrounded by God's grace and love.  Some of us come later, with memories of old ways, an old life, and other relationships.  We may face fears that arise from things in the past. But those memories and fears, those old ways, those old relationships do not change the fact that the adoption decree was signed and a new birth took place and we were born to be a child of this Father.

Placement Day

Today is "Placement Day" for our family.  Fifteen years ago today we sat in the small "living room" of the adoption agency together with our children, my parents, our newest son and his foster mom and her little girl. I don't remember if the day was sunny or it rained.  There could have been cold cloudy breezes blowing but I have no recollection of the weather outside. It rained through sunshine inside though. Tears were flowing freely:  tears of joy, tears of loss, but not tears of fear, and not tears of an infant.  The tears came from me, and a couple of my daughters.  The tears flowed from Dawn, the foster mom, who was battling with conflicting emotions both joy and grief.  The tears threatened my mom's cheeks as she wiped and sniffled them away.

This little boy had been Dawn's for six month.  She had loved him freely, changed his diaper, rocked his fears away, sang him into dreamland, and her husband and she gave themselves to him in a selfless act of devotion to their Savior.  Dawn had become his "Mommy" and earned his love and devotion.  They had prayed for us and wondered what took so long to find a family for him.  They had waited for this moment and knew it would come.  But now that she faced it her world was shaking hard.  Still she dressed him that morning for the last time and brought him to us, knowing this was what the plan was from day one.  Her heart ached with the loss, but her spirit smiled through the tears - sunshine through the rain.

Genna cried too.  She was the cute little blond two year old with a smile that would melt the meanest heart.  She loved our son like her own.  He was her own.  He was her first brother.  There would be others who are brothers who belonged to her.  But in that moment he was her brother and she cried for the now that she didn't truly understand.  Mention Genna's name and he jumped with joy.  He knew she loved him.

My mom and dad came.  My dad has always had such an open heart.  He had often included the lonely and neglected.  He gave with a generous heart to those around him.  That day he spoke words of blessing, words of inclusion, words that welcomed the baby physically and spiritually into our fold.  He slid easily into the moment of newness with our son.  My mom was the more cautious one.  She considered the practical and carried concern for what could harm.  She was never the one to weep openly, and quietly dabbed wet eyes. When he was placed in her arms her heart reached out and wrapped her around this tender little boy.  She had worried for me.  She had worried that she would not be able to see him as her own grandchild, but in that moment she received him just as she had my first four children.  He reached his tiny hand to her and grasped her heart within it.

My children each took turns playing with him, holding him, the new toy.  A baby for the oldest two girls to enjoy.  A mixture of love and competition for my third daughter who had been the "baby" in our home.  Our son embraced this newest son with a delight only an only son could grasp.  He was not alone now.  He had a brother.  A dream come true for him.  Second mommies who would care for him and love him without a second thought, a sister who would be a sister in every way, teasing and tempting and loving him intensely, and a brother who would continue to be devoted to him throughout life, this is what waited for Tim on the other side of the ceremony in that little living room in 1997.

My husband took him in his arm and read passages from 1 Timothy, a favorite of his, and the reason we decided to keep the name he had been given at birth - Timothy.  A child that was not part of my husband's plan at first, but that day in that room there was no doubt in Richard's heart that this child had been born to be his son.  Adopted by this father even as Rich had been adopted by his father, and we had been adopted by the Father.  Not something of shame as the generations before had labeled adoption.  No, this was a reason to rejoice!  This was a celebration for we had a new son!  Yes, there was sadness in the path that brought him to us, but anything of value has been refined in the fire of life.  We were simply thankful that God allowed him to be ours on this day.

I wept openly with delight, with the deepest kind of joy.  The kind of joy that awakens and pushes its way forward and out into the light when a dream is realized.  I had timidly offered this dream to my husband almost seven years before this day.  I had spent days weeping at what I thought was the wrong dream as we were rejected over and over for different children waiting for adoption.  I had worked through depression that tried to drown me in a sense of worthlessness and unfitness for the task.  And this day, May 9, 1997 was my day of victory.  The completion of the dream bounced on my lap with overwhelming delight at the attention being offered to him.

Timmy found the day a party.  He laughed and gurgled with joy.  He delighted everyone with his cute little face and noises.  There were days ahead that brought more struggle as we learned how to be a family together and settled into the routine of life that included this little boy.  But he knew today, this day, was his and he basked in the warmth of the moment.  

I love you, Tim.  You are my dream come true and the answer to my prayers.  I am thankful every day that I am your Mom.