the heart of worship

Can you read my heart on my face? Do I need to raise my hands to love my God? The drum beat filling my chest - I want it to pour out through my eyes - why? Do I have something to prove to this room? I am questioning myself on a second by second basis.

The beat of worship overtakes my body - it is all I can feel - it has become my heartbeat. I want to be in this moment with not another single person. Alone with only my God - no one to judge - no one to prove this to - no one to question me or cause me to question myself. Drowning in this worship. The beat of worship filling my ears as if I were under water. Overtaking the beat of my heart until the blood coursing through my veins is pumping at the impulse of the music.

Suddenly the impulse is to jump. Jump with the rhythm of the music, and as the singer screams out the words - I AM FREE TO RUN, TO DANCE, TO LIVE, I AM FREE! My hands are propelled up, lifted high above my head, jumping to the rhythm of the music and screaming I AM FREE! at the top of my lungs. In that moment, I am suddenly alone with my God.

I realize later why I never feel comfortable lifting my hands in worship. It never feels authentic - not when you have to make a decision to do it. You think - maybe I should praise God by raising my hands, then your brain contemplates it momentarily, and if the answer is yes, your brain begins to communicate with your body, tapping out Morse code to your spinal cord which in turn passes it on to your nervous system, which in turn sends out thousands of tiny runners to the muscles in your shoulders, back, arms - and then and only then do your arms begin their ascent. It doesn't feel genuine to me when my brain has to do so much to make it happen.

But, in this one precious moment, hands held high, jumping to the rhythm of the music, screaming about freedom - it occurred to me THAT process wasn't the force that got me to this place. The love of God and His gracious message of freedom had swept through me - straight from His heart to mine - rushing through my body with such crushing force that my arms were above my head before my brain even began to tally the votes on this one. It was authentic and genuine - and I couldn't question that - because I never made a conscious decision to worship my God in that moment by raising my hands. For the first time in my life - my hands were held high because my heart moved them - not my brain.

why?

I often find myself questioning the “why” concerning the situations God allows in my life. Why would God give us a year and a half with Damien and Angel if He doesn’t mean for them to be with us forever? Why can’t we just have a baby of our own? Why does it seem like there is never enough money in the checking account? Why is our car insurance not covering the wreck we had last month? For that matter why did we even need to wreck? Why did my brother Josh just have a wreck that was nearly fatal? Why . . . why . . . why . . .

Isn’t that what most of us spend our time asking? When something doesn’t go the way we wanted it to go, we ask why. When life seems unfair or overwhelming, we ask why. When we can’t understand the purpose or the plan, we ask why. I always feel guilty for asking why. Asking why isn’t the problem –  never getting past the why is..

This week, when I wondered why Charles and I can’t have our own baby, God reminded me of the babies that He has given me to love now, and the ones He will bring into our lives in the future. When I wanted to know why it doesn’t look like Damien and Angel will be able to be with us forever, God used Angel to remind me that He is using this time in their lives when she told me she wanted to ask Jesus to live in her heart. I was having trouble understanding just why in the world our car would break down this month, when money is already so tight. God showed me that He will provide through the generous gifts of His children.

The why disappears and all that is left is the grace and provision of God. No matter what the circumstance, the heartache, the frustration, God’s love for me shines through. He asks us to understand that we may never know the answer to the why, but we will always know His deep and abiding love in the ways that He chooses to care for us – even while we are asking Him why.

infertility to hope

Infertility. That is something that happens to anonymous people out there, not to anyone I know, definitely not to me. Fortunately, I was wrong.

Fortunately? Don’t get me wrong, one of our deepest longings is still to have a baby . . . but God is so faithful. In His infinite wisdom, an amazing blessing has been born out of this pain.

Blessing . . . Last Thanksgiving, as mom and I were discussing yet another negative pregnancy test, she asked if we had ever thought about foster parenting. Not wanting to admit that we may never be able to conceive, I had been extremely defensive when anyone even mentioned adoption, but as I listened to mom tell me about a friend of hers who was a foster parent something just clicked. This is what we are meant to be doing . . . And I realized our family was going to look different.

Family. How I had always envisioned my family, and God’s vision for it were evidently two very different things. I had always thought of older people as being foster parents - probably because most are. (In our county we are probably the youngest foster parents they have.) I had never thought that I wouldn’t be able to have children, so I had always pictured a family of miniature Charles and Brookes - little redheaded, freckle faced babies with huge brown eyes. I had always pictured myself fat as can be for 9 months, loving every minute of it, (okay not every minute.) I had pictured my family probably how most of you pictured your families - beautiful, healthy babies that I would shield from everything bad in this world and always keep safe.

Safe. A word that our two precious foster children don’t know much of, but are daily learning more of. God’s picture of our family is beautiful, healthy, happy and safe. But it is for the children in our world whose parents don’t provide that for them. The children who haven’t been shielded from pain, but instead have known it everyday of their short lives. For children who will most likely be placed back into that same environment, while we hope they will find it safer than when they left.

Hope . . . A hard thing to hang onto when you know that in six months or a year they will be in a situation we cannot control. Hope comes in remembering that our sovereign, loving God is in control. He has a plan for these little lives. We hope that Damien will remember asking Jesus into his heart sitting on the bathroom floor, that Angel won’t forget the words to Jesus Loves Me. Hope that although they will probably never remember our faces, they will always feel our love and never forget this safe place.