The Silence is Broken

hello?
is anyone out there?
is anyone reading this?
I just thought I would check and see if anyone is reading my posts...
it has been awfully silent lately...

Perhaps I am just feeling lonely and isolated because I am preparing for surgery and know that I will be cooped up at home for a few days. Perhaps I am just weary of fighting off the attacks of the enemy on my own.

I know that community is growing, but it feels like such slow growth!

Thank you to my friends and family who have been an encouragement in the past few weeks. I have needed your words of wisdom and your prayers. I have been so weak physically that I cannot muster the strength to pray. But there is hope. I believe that God will use this upcoming surgery to bring complete physical healing to my body.

This morning God spoke so clearly to me during worship that it brought me to tears. I have been wrestling through Richard Foster's chapter on the Prayer of Relinquishment in his book on Prayer.

Wrestling with God over His promises and my interpretations.
Wrestling about whether we will have our own family or if we will adopt.
Wrestling with the need to surrender my ideas about having my own children to God.

Please don't misinterpret me, I want to adopt children some day. I love adoption and I think it is a wonderful gift to give a child a permanent home and a hope that they wouldn't have otherwise. This is the call of the church. But I also feel very strongly the need to have my own children. This is not something I can explain. It is just a need. A desire that goes down into the depths of who I am as a woman. The instinct of motherhood.

As usual, the issue was to me black and white: do we adopt or do we have our own children? But God doesn't always deal with our lives in black and white. He meets us where we are in the land of grey. And I am so thankful for this! This morning he spoke so clearly to me that just as I was born into a relationship with Him, so would my child be born.

Now this may seem false to you because I was not born Jewish, so theologically speaking, I was adopted into the family of God. You say this because it is true, but you do not know my childhood experiences. I believe that some people on earth were born into God's family. They were like the prophets of old or John the Baptist. From infancy, they yearned for the presence of God and the experience of His work on earth. As children they witnessed miracles and were aware of the spiritual realm. They may have had a period of rebellion as teenagers, but they always knew that there was a special connection, a drawing them back to God as if they had no choice. As though, if they stopped believing in God, they would just cease to exist. This was my own experience. As a child, I talked with God as though he were my constant companion and a friend sitting beside me. We talked all throughout the day until no words were necessary, just a constant awareness of each others' presence. The way of God and the Kingdom of God were always in my thoughts and affected every action. I could not understand why anyone would not want to experience this life with God. How could they not believe in Him? How could He not be real? He was the air that I breathed, the water and food for my soul. Everything.

God's word to me today was a promise that this legacy will be passed on to my children. My birth children. This gift was so sweet it brought me to tears.
I am trusting God entirely. Surrender comes easier when you know who it is you are surrendering to. He is not only willing to bring to pass His promises, but He is able! What an awesome God we serve.

This week I am hoping to enjoy some community as I recover from surgery. But I am also looking forward to spending some time in silence with God. To just sit and listen to one another. To be reminded of the promises and to receive new ones. To heal... physically and spiritually and emotionally. It promises to be a good week. :)