Rhema through a Megaphone! (Part 1)

When people hear that we are adopting, the first question, after "Really?!," is "From where?"  The answer: Ethiopia.  Then, "Why did you choose Ethiopia?"  Then I get to say, "We didn't choose, God told us."  This is SO cool, for SO many reasons!!!!  The most obvious being that I get to share what the Lord is doing in our family, and I get to share His heart for the orphan and His plan of adoption.  But, it goes even further than that.  I get to share how the Living God, Creator of the Universe, cares enough to speak to ME!  And, he doesn't just speak to me, He speaks to me so I can tell other people so that He can speak to them, too!

So, if you read the last post, you know that we knew we would adopt at the "right" time, but that was supposed to be in the distant future, when we had more money and our other kids were older . . . .   Well, God has other, better, perfect plans.  While I was content to wait, the Lord kept at me by building a community of adoption around me.  A few of my friends started an Orphan Care Ministry Team, and since I had no time to join it (yep, that's sarcasm), my good friend kept me updated on all that they were doing.  She went to a conference, learned a lot, had fun, met some neat people, heard John Piper preach, began hearing the Lord speak to her very specifically about her role in caring for orphans . . .   It was all great, and I was loving being a part of it by praying for her and thinking through all these things with her.  When it was time for the next conference (this past May), our other friend couldn't go.  The conference was for 4 days in Louisville, Kentucky, and she was planning to drive.  I sort of flippantly said, "I'll go!"  To me, it made perfect sense: we'd have a fun road trip together, I'm interested in orphan care and plan to adopt one day, and I will have some much needed time away!  (All very selfish reasons for going, I admit.)  Then when I started to really think about it, I knew I needed to talk to my husband, make sure I could get off work, arrange childcare, oh, and pay for it.  I told her I could only go if everything except my meals was covered, and that it would be totally okay if she needed to find someone else, most definitely thinking I would not be going.  She asked another girl . . . came back to me later and told me that everything was paid for (conference fee, hotel, gas, even my food!), could I go?  God was preparing the way!  Obviously, I went!

The Orphan Summit VII was amazing!!!!  I could write for days about all the great things the Lord is doing around the world!  I learned so much, and met some really great people!  But, more importantly, this is when I really started to hear the Lord speak very clearly about the "right" time for us to adopt.  There were many moments during the conference when I was emotional, and the stories tugged my heartstrings, but this was more than that.  Up until the very last sermon of the conference, I was still in my "one day" mode - constantly thinking, "Oh, I'll have to remember that when it's time for us to adopt," etc....  The last sermon was about our culture being a "Snuggie culture."  The pastor was speaking from John 21 - the third time in a month I had heard a sermon from this passage!  (I knew I really needed to get it this time!)  I wish I could recount the sermon in it's entirity; there were so many great truths!  However, the one the Lord really wanted me to hear was this, in our comfort-seeking (i.e."Snuggie") culture, we have tranferred our need for comfort to God.  We claim to  know that we are in God's will when things line up, make sense, and are easy.  (In His goodness and grace, He often does that for us.)  However, in John 21, Jesus first affirms Peter's sense of belonging by recreating the scene where he denied Jesus three times and gives him the opportunity to proclaim his love for Jesus three times, then He tells Peter that he will go to places he does not want to go.  The pastor talked about how Jesus told Peter He would build His church upon him, yet he would be led to places he did not want to go. (He was ultimately referring to Peter following Him in death by crucifixion.)  How can we, the church, expect anything different?  1 Corinithians 1:18 says, "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to those who are being saved it is the power of God."  The rest of that chapter and chapter 2 are all about how different man's wisdom is from God's wisdom.  Likewise, man's will and God's will are not always the same, and God's will often does not make sense to men.  So, the challenge from this pastor was for us to consider if perhaps, being in God's will often is difficult, even something we don't really want to do, and defintely something that doesn't make sense.  WHOAH!  In that moment, I heard the Lord speak directly to my heart about how I was waiting for a "right" time, a time for it all to work perfectly and make sense - in my human eyes!  Even now, 4 months later, I have chills remembering how clearly I heard His voice telling me the time is NOW!