At the Command of the Lord

The other night I was reading the devotional book "Our Daily Bread" (a great supplement to any Bible study plan, by the way!) and was arrested by the assigned scripture reading. To my shame, I was pretty sleepy and wasn't expecting anything too earth-shattering from the book of Numbers.

But the repeated phrase "at the command of the Lord" or "according to the command of the Lord" drew me in.

The scene: the sons of Israel are wandering in the wilderness after escaping slavery in Egypt. God is leading them to a land they are unfamiliar with and they need to follow Him to get there. He graciously provided a cloud that hovered over the tabernacle to guide them.

Let these words wash over you (emphasis mine):

"At the command of the LORD the sons of Israel would set out and at the command of the LORD they would camp; as long as the cloud settled over the tabernacle, they remained camped. Even when the cloud lingered over the tabernacle for many days, the sons of Israel would keep the LORD'S charge and not set out. If sometimes the cloud remained a few days over the tabernacle, according to the command of the LORD they remained camped. Then according to the command of the LORD they set out. If sometimes the cloud remained from evening until morning, when the cloud was lifted in the morning, they would move out; or if it remained in the daytime and at night, whenever the cloud was lifted, they would set out. Whether it was two days or a month or a year that the cloud lingered over the tabernacle, staying above it, the sons of Israel remained camped and did not set out; but when it was lifted they did set out. At the command of the LORD they camped, and at the command of the LORD they set out; they kept the LORD'S charge, according to the command of the LORD through Moses." 

-Numbers 9:18-23 (NASB)

What word first comes to mind? For me it was obedience. And then trust. No matter how long or how short the cloud stayed, the Israelites were faithful to trust God's leading and stay or prepare to move out. Just finished setting up camp a few hours ago? Cloud's moving! Time to pack up! Haven't seen the cloud budge since last summer...thinking maybe God moved on and forgot to move the cloud to let you know? Stay put. No matter what God's reasons were for staying or going, His people trusted His leading and were faithful to pack up and move or stay put according to His direction.

How aptly this cuts to my own heart! I may not have a physical cloud hovering over my life to provide direction, but I have something (Someone) even greater- God has put His own Spirit to dwell in me, and the same principle of His leading and my following is just as applicable to me in my daily life as it was to the journeying, desert-weary Israelites. Galatians 5:25 says,

"Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit." (NIV)

 And Jesus says of the Holy Spirit,

"But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you..." - John 16:13 (NASB)

As I thought of this and how it pertains to the current uncertainty of our adoption journey, it turned my heart again to renew its trust of Him, our Guide.

Whether He leaves us camped in this seemingly empty wasteland of unfulfilled desires for a few days, months or years, or whether He calls us to pack up the camp at a moment's notice and move in a new direction full of adventures and unknowns, we are at the command of the LORD.

We choose to trust that He knows where He is leading us when we cannot see.

At the command of the LORD we camp.

At the command of the LORD we set out.

Trusting God When the Answer Isn't What You Want or Expect

When Travis and I were engaged and first married, we had many conversations about family planning (as most couples do!). God was tugging on our hearts to surrender that area of our lives, like everything else, to Him. To let Him be our family planner. Call it "family un-planning" if you like- we were convinced we were prepared to take whatever He would bring. Which, of course we thought would be children. Immediately and in great numbers! That was the issue of faith we wrestled with- trusting God with however many kids He would give us (which, of course, we assumed would be many since we weren't going to do anything to prevent it!).

What never crossed our minds was that God might choose to plan our family in a way other than showering us immediately with numerous children (what we wanted). Over the last nearly five years He has done exactly the opposite. How many times our hearts have cried "when we said we would trust You with our family planning we thought that would mean children! Not this emptiness and waiting!" Were we prepared to trust Him when He answered our trust with what we did not want or expect?

The last few months the Lord has been showing me that I need to trust Him with our family "un-planning" when He doesn't give children for all the same reasons we were prepared to trust Him if He did.

One of the main reasons is that we believe God is sovereign over all things, including the womb (see Gen. 20:18; 29:31; 30:22, 1 Sam. 1:5, 6; Psalm 103:19; Luke 1:31). While I had always believed this, I see particularly now not only at the fact that God has the power to open the womb, but that He also has the power to close it! If He is the God of all things, this too is in His control.

If I believe that God is in control and that He is good, doesn't it follow that I should trust Him when He gives what I expect and when He doesn't? My faith is strengthened as I realize more and more that this period of time while we are waiting on God for His timing and His ways (and experiencing a perhaps temporary "no") is all in His control. It's all part of a bigger plan.

We are still trusting God to plan our family. We just know now that that may mean no children, one child, a few children, many children, adopted children, foster children...our God is creative and good and knows just what we need.

"For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts." - Isaiah 55:9

Oh, the adventure of a surrendered life! May I have the faith-strength and endurance to run the race set before me as God surprises me at every turn!

Oh Lord, you know my faith is so weak. It is easy to trust You when I think I know what the outcome will be. Please grow my faith as I try to trust You when the answer is different than I want or expect. 

Our New Adventure in Waiting

Dearest friends and family, we want to open our hearts to you and share with you something God has been doing in our lives and a new adventure that is opening before us.

We are on the road to adoption! Before we get to specifics, though, let me give you a little backstory...

Many of you know that ever since our marriage {almost} five years ago, one of our greatest desires has been to have children. Waiting through these years has proved to be a daily challenge of our trust in God and His plan for us. As Proverbs 13:12 truthfully says,

"Hope deferred makes the heart sick..."

 Our hearts have indeed been "sick" with longing for this most precious desire to be fulfilled. But we have also been growing. We feel that in the midst of all the tangled emotions (and there are many), God has grown a contentment in us and a trust in His time and His way. While we don't profess to have perfect trust around the clock (we don't), we do praise God for His work in our hearts.

So what have we been doing? Well, praying, certainly. We have also been the route of doctors, assuring ourselves that there is nothing out of whack that we (or they) can't fix. So far as we can tell, there is no real diagnosable issue with either of us. For this we praise the Lord, but it also leaves us scratching our heads as to why conception isn't happening. More than ever, we are confident that God is working on His own timetable and in His own way. On a missionary pastor's salary, we cannot afford the more expensive and complicated types of fertility treatments, but after considering prayerfully, we are also convinced that for us, that is just not the way we should go. Our hearts are tender toward adoption for many reasons, not the least of which is that it is a perfectly beautiful illustration of our relationship with God and our adoption into His family (Ro. 8:14-16; Gal. 4:4-6)!

Which brings us to the present. Or nearly so. About 2 years ago, we began to pray and think about adoption. The Lord has been gently tugging our hearts in that direction ever since. One major way was a situation that happened about a year ago. Some of you may know that we were presented with an adoption opportunity through some friends "out of the blue." We scrambled to find a lawyer, flew through the paperwork, got our home study finished and made a trip to OR to meet the mother. And then it suddenly fell through. We were confused, our hearts were heavy, but we felt peace. God was, as always, in control. But what was it all for?

After the ordeal we felt tired. So we waited some more. We pursued some other options with our doctor, and waited some more. About a year. And that does bring us to the present.

A couple of weeks ago, we made the decision to meet once more with the lawyer we found last year. During the whirlwind of that time, he had given us applications for his private matching "pool" just in case the other didn't work out. Those applications had been sitting on our dresser for a year before we finally brushed the dust off of them and filled them out. A private adoption through this attorney (who proved himself to be intelligent, perceptive, and kind through last year's situation) would cost about 1/5 the price of an agency adoption (which can be upwards of $25,000). One of the main things we talked to him about was how to find a birthmother. While our lawyer will be on the lookout, since this is not an agency, part of the job of finding a match is up to us.

That's where you come in! We have been encouraged to spread the word far and wide that we are on an adventure to find our baby! If you know of anyone who is pregnant and looking to put their baby up for adoption, please contact us as soon as possible. Our preference is to adopt an infant (newborn up to a few months old) within Washington state (less costly and complicated), but we're open to discussing other possibilities. If you have any questions whatsoever, please contact us (if you don't have our contact info, leave a comment on this blog post and we'll get in touch)! We'd love to talk to you more about it.

The most helpful way you can be a part of our new journey is to PRAY! We want to be moved along by God's hand in all of this and want Him to be the one to find us the perfect match. It may take time. We may be waiting awhile...but we've been in training for that, haven't we? Please pray for us to have patience and wisdom and to be prepared for whatever this crazy exciting journey is going to look like. We are praying for the second half of Proverbs 13:12 to be true in our lives:

"...but desire fulfilled is a tree of life." 

Please pray for God to fulfill the desires He has given us as we delight ourselves with Him and the ways He chooses to work in our lives (Ps. 37:4).

We are so excited to see what God has for us in this new adventure! It is an adventure in waiting and trusting and hoping and we expect to find challenge and frustrations and growth opportunities at every turn. We are overjoyed to think about the possibility of one day (soon, perhaps?) receiving a precious little one into our arms. Thank you for your willingness to stand with us and be on the lookout for us and PRAY with us! We cherish each of you and want you to know that God has blessed us greatly with your friendship.

Note: Thanks to our dear friend Kathy for taking these beautiful pictures to illustrate our special journey! If you'd like to see more photos from our shoot, please check out our Facebook album!