Telling the truth

Truthfully, I don't always want to tell the truth. I don't always want to have to tell what is really going on in my life, in my family. I want to be able to share lines hot off the presses from Facebook that make people believe I have it all together, my life, children and house are all in order and that I am filled with joy all the time.

But that isn't the truth. 

We were asked to get together with “a friend of a friend” that is starting the adoption process from Ethiopia. I wanted to tell them the short version, including only the parts when everything worked out, when we witnessed miracles and we (& people all around us) were being encouraged because of all that God was doing to bring our 2 children home. But that isn't where the story ends. It isn't the whole truth. 

Here is what I emailed to her after we had spent the evening together, discussing the real version of adoption in our family:

Thank you so much for taking the time to hear our story the other night. I hope that we didn't scare you. I wish I could just share the beginning part of the story before we brought them home when all of the amazing "miracles" were happening. We literally prayed every single night for a year and half as a family. During that time God grew in our hearts a united ownership of the "call" to adopt. Our prayer was based on a quote we have pinned to our refrigerator by A.W. Tozer, "God is looking for people through whom He can do the impossible. What a pity we plan to do the things we can only do ourselves."

Adoption was (and remains to be) beyond our own abilities and God truly paved a way when there was no way. It was amazing and we could not keep tract of all of the things that happened to confirm God's leading in the adoption process.

Once we brought them home, our version of the prayer took on a whole new face. We weren't just praying that prayer to happen, we were living it out. Dealing with attachment issues on a daily basis with our daughter has obviously not been easy by any stretch. But this is the point in our faith journey when we recognize a daily necessity to confess our absolute need for God and to rely on His strength to tarry on. It is not optional. Following Christ is not always pretty and magical, filled with beautifully answered prayers. Most of the days look messy, muddy and are exhausting. But as we arise each morning to start a new day we can say without a shadow of a doubt God alone can do the impossible in any situation and I pray today is the day He does it!

The truth may not always be easy to share or what I really want people to know. But the truth, the real nitty-gritty parts of my life & my being that reveals the core of who I am in any circumstance, is the part of me that crosses over from making my life about me to making my life about God and what He can do. When I share the TRUTH I am making a decision to point others not to me but to the One at work in me, the One I have surrendered my whole life to: God my Savior.

My Prayer: May my heart be grateful for the opportunities in our lives to see You, Lord, do the impossible. I confess my need for You and lean in to You when I am weak (which is all the time). I ask that Your power would be made perfect in my weakness, just as You promised. And give me the courage to continue to be honest and “real” with those around me in hopes that it will bring glory to You.