God is preparing you for what He has prepared for you. This is what the Spirit has been telling me all summer long. In every situation we face, God is always preparing us for the next thing. He knows where we are headed and what He wants to do, so He prepares us and positions us for greatness. We don't have a hard time wrapping our minds around this when the preparing and positioning is fun, easy, painless, and understandable. However we have a really hard time when it involves problems, pain, perseverance, and a lot of questions.
Those of you who are my Facebook friends know last year was incredibly tough for my sweet daughter Hannah. She had a difficult time transitioning to middle school ... a longer day, no play ground, and all the changes that come with puberty. There were also some real issues with her teachers who were lovely, well meaning people but were not equipped to deal with some of Hannah's behaviors. (For those of you who do not know, my daughter was diagnosed with Autism just before turning 3 and is non-verbal).
So after a long first semester of Hannah hitting, kicking, and biting people and having to be restrained on numerous occasions, a behavioral coach was finally assigned to her. We all took part in creating a FBA (Functional Behavioral Assessment) and designed a game plan to move forward. Things began to calm and I was starting to feel good about it when I got a phone call from her teacher informing me that the ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) classroom Hannah was in would be relocated to a different school next year.
Upset does not even begin to express my feelings of frustration. To think of everything the teachers, myself, and especially Hannah had been through to get to a better place and now to know everything would be uprooted and changed ... a new school, new teacher, new bus driver, new classmates. New is not usually a good thing in the world of Autism. Old, patterned, predictable, reliable is what makes their world go round. Understand too that this was not the first time the county had changed schools on us, and I was feeling incredibly irritated by all these "professionals." So I decided right then and there I was going to look into other options (i.e. private school). I still didn't have peace though. Peace about leaving her in public school, pulling her out, or anything. Just frustration.
One day as the rant directed at the school system played in my head, the Holy Spirit said "If you make a decision because your panties are in a twist, you can be certain your decision is of the flesh and not the Spirit because, let's face it, your Spirit doesn't have a butt crack." (I know some of you may be thinking the Holy Spirit would never speak of such things, but I'm telling you He did.) It was just the message I needed and funny too! I laughed and laughed all day about it, and then prayed this prayer ...
"Lord I don't know where Hannah should go to school next year, but You do. You
know exactly where she needs to be. So Lord I ask You to give me wisdom. Open
the doors where You want her to go and close them where You don't want her to go.
Lord, I pray you make it painfully obvious to me what I'm supposed to do. You see
my plate is full. I don't have the time or energy to ponder this. Show me."
A lengthy search ensued including a meet and greet at the public school the ASD unit would be moved to the following year. It's funny, I really didn't pray that much about it. I was quite confident in the prayer I had already prayed, but the morning I got in the car to go tour the private school I had decided was a good fit, I found a Praying Mantis on the steering wheel of my car. After managing to get him out, I prayed ... because really, what are the chances of that! The problem was I read into that Praying Mantis too much. Yes, I prayed, but I prayed believing this was where Hannah was supposed to be. It wasn't!
About a week later the door that seemed open was suddenly and shockingly slammed shut. The whole thing was done very unprofessionally, and I found myself dealing with negative feelings of being offended until I realized ... my prayer had been answered! Man didn't shut that door. God shut that door. And just as I had requested, He made it painfully and unmistakeably obvious. How could I be offended about an answered prayer?! God also helped me to realize that prayer is important for two reasons ... it either leads to complete joy if we get what we ask for or deep peace if we do not. I cannot begin to describe the peace that I felt in that moment. I stayed open to other possibilities but basically knew Hannah would stay in public school. A few months later I learned of the teacher who was hired from people I highly trusted, and I knew the search was over.
Ironically I was going to blog about this yesterday and didn't, and at 3:30 I received a call from Hannah's school that she had hit a student over the head and bit her teacher. My heart sank. It's the 3rd day of school and here we go again. I was beside myself and happy I hadn't made a fool of myself blogging about my answer to prayer. Ha! What a joke, right?
WRONG! God is always preparing us for what He has prepared for us. God is always positioning us for greatness. It's so easy to think "If this is greatness, somebody goofed." But the greatest victory this world has ever known didn't look good either. Jesus Christ suffering. His blood being poured out as He died on the cross. Conquering sin and death. Raised from the dead. Ascending to heaven. Seated at the right hand of the Father. Given the Name above ALL names. Who would've thought something as horrendous as the CROSS would have positioned Him for such greatness? Satan didn't. The Bible tells us that he NEVER would have crucified the Son of God had he known the consequences. Let us not be conformed to the world's way of thinking about what is good and what is bad. We have been given the mind of Christ and the Holy Spirit to help us understand that when God is in it, what seems bad actually positions us for greatness. In fact we are already positioned for greatness because we are seated with Christ! Will we let Christ be our example of how to carry our cross? Will we trust the Author and Finisher of our faith to see us through? Are we anchored to the truth that Christ's obedience to the cross was the path to victory, and that because of Jesus our obedience to our cross will also lead to victory?
So this morning I praise the Lord for the overwhelming peace I have of knowing that He was the one to direct us to this school. He has Hannah right where He wants her. He has prepared this school with the right personnel and resources to help Hannah. I might have been surprised that she behaved so badly on her 3rd day of school, but God is never surprised. He knew this is where we would be, where Hannah would get the help she needs, and that she will go on to have a successful school year.
I feel truly blessed by a faithful and loving God that has entrusted such a treasure to me. Not because He thought I could handle it, but because He wanted to use this situation to draw me closer to Him ... to foster an incredibly intimate relationship with Him. Today is Hannah's 14th birthday, and the Lord has reminded me of a prayer I prayed while I was pregnant with her that she would be truly special. He has answered that prayer and continues to answer it. He is positioning her for greatness, preparing her for all He has prepared for her, and touching the lives of those around her for His glory. I am beyond blessed to be her mother. Happy Birthday my sweet Hannah! I love you!
Friday, August 22, 2014
Tuesday, March 18, 2014
Stay in the Game!
About 5 years ago we were at my sister's house playing Uno Attack. It's an unpredictable card game mainly due to this machine that you have to push if you can't play. The machine will either do nothing or spit a mountain of cards at you. Anyway, we were playing this game and my son Jacob who at the time would've been about 9, was just getting hammered. I mean either someone was skipping him, playing a reverse, making him "draw two" which means hitting that crazy machine twice, or he just couldn't play anything ... also meaning he'd have to hit the machine. As the game went on every one's hand of cards grew smaller, but not Jacob's. His grew larger and larger until his little hands could barely hold what literally looked like half the deck.
Now as his mother (and knowing what a horrible sport I was at his age), I started to get concerned. I kept waiting for a flood of tears or an abrupt "I quit!" accompanied by Uno Attack cards flying through the air. I waited, but it never came. Finally at the point where he needed help holding his cards, I saw a tear ... and, surprising all of us, a laugh. A laugh that started small and gradually grew until it became contagious, and everyone else at the table was laughing too. I'll never forget how proud of my son I was in that moment. Not only did he display a persevering spirit, he chose to laugh about the challenge he was facing.
You know, life can be a lot like Uno Attack. We all get dealt our hand and start to play. But at some point we can feel like circumstances are ganging up on us. Sometimes we feel there is no good card to play. Sometimes we are stuck with nothing to play. Everyone else is playing their hand and moving on, and we are stuck. We aren't moving at a snails pace. We have come to a screeching halt, and sometimes even feel like we are going backward. It is a very frustrating feeling that I'm certain most people experience.
When I look back over my life I see a few very pivotal moments where the cards I had didn't look like a winning hand ... times when I wished I could have called a do over. You know, press rewind and play the cards differently. The funny thing is in each of these circumstances God clearly knew what needed to be done to gain victory, and He knew full well if left to my own devices I would choose to do something different.
The first example would be when my husband and I decided to move to Florida. Testing the spiritual waters, we put our house on the market. We certainly felt God opening the door as we had a buyer within the week. We then moved forward with an offer on a home in Florida, as well as my husband putting in his two week notice at his job. A week later our realtor called to inform us that the sale of our home had fallen through because the buyer couldn't secure financing. This of course caused our purchase of the home in Florida to fall through. My husband left the following week to start his new job in Florida while I stayed in Tennessee with our one and two year old children to sell the house.
To make a long story short, we ended up finding a brand new community in Florida and decided to build there. This community ended up being a great place for my husband to start a business, which he did 5 years later. The home we almost bought had a pool and was 4 doors down from a busy intersection. Two years later we would learn of our daughter's diagnosis of Autism. God was looking out for us concerning issues we had no idea were heading our way.
The next example would be when we found out our daughter would be placed at a new school. This school offered the same special program but was closer to our home ... sounds like a good fit. Then we found out the teacher of the class was married to someone in which my husband had some unfinished business with. The two were not on good terms with each other. Certain this would make for a strained, uncomfortable, and potentially explosive situation, I tried EVERYTHING within my power to get her switched back to her old school, and found out the only way it was even a remote possibility was if I transported her to and from school everyday. Well, it just so happened that my car had died a few months prior. We were stuck and had no choice but to have her attend the new school.
Wow! The next 3 years at this school with this teacher would end up being the best by far in all our daughter's educational experience. These years brought about a calmer, more compliant child. She began to use pictures to communicate and graduated on to more complex augmented communication devices in which she currently uses a program called TouchChat on her iPad. The Lord knew this person would be the best teacher for Hannah and that we would've missed it due to avoiding conflict ... conflict that never even happened because this person was completely unaware of the problem. However, because we had developed such a wonderful relationship, when she did find out about the situation she vowed to rectify it.
The last example would be in 2012 as my husband and I learned of our son's diagnosis of Autism. What a shock it was to get this news and have to come face to face with the fact that for whatever reason it seemed our genetic make-up was not a good mix. What we chalked up to as a fluke with Hannah we were now reliving with Gabe. Definitely a sign to take ourselves out of the gene pool. However, we had had to let our health insurance go a year prior to his diagnosis and had no available funds to take any permanent steps toward infertility. We didn't worry though thinking we were older and unlikely to conceive again anyway.
Wrong! Later that same year we learned we were expecting again. Scared to death and wondering what God was up to now, we pressed on in faith believing for a healthy child. June of 2013 our precious baby girl, Emma was born. What a blessing she is, and how fortunate I am to be able to experience things I missed out on with Hannah. God is so good but sometimes He has to take us to an uncomfortable place to reveal His goodness to us because I promise you if we would've had insurance when Gabe was diagnosed, Emma would not be here today.
Back in January, I remember watching all the coverage for the BCS title game between Florida State and Auburn. One particular show highlighted all the key games and plays that had gotten both teams to the championship game. These highlights got me thinking about my own personal highlight reel. Different scenes began to flash through my mind ... the singing award in junior high, the scholarship to go to college, my wedding day, moving into our brand new home, the birth of all four of our precious children ... And then I began to wonder what God would include in a "Heavenly Highlight Reel." Would they be the same things? We tend to look at the highlights in our life as exactly that, the high points. But is our idea of highlights the same as God's?
Habakkuk 3:19 in the Amplified Bible says "The Lord God is my strength, my personal bravery, and my invincible army. He makes my feet like hinds' feet and will make me to walk (not stand still in terror, but to walk) and make spiritual progress upon my high places (of trouble, suffering, and responsibility).
What are our high places? ... "trouble, suffering, and responsibility." What?! Why on earth are these considered high places? From our perspective these are the low points, right? At the time it certainly never occurred to me to look at the sale of a home falling through, the hauling of my car to a junkyard, or the inability to afford health insurance as high points! But you see according to God's ways, which are completely opposite of the world's ways, OUR low points are HIS high points because these are the times we turn to Him. These are the times when we seek God with our whole heart, anchor ourselves to the truths of His word, and put our complete faith and trust in His sovereign will. At no other time are we more pliable and moldable (if that's a word?) to the Potter. How precious our faith is in the eyes of the Father! It is as our faith in Him grows higher that our understanding of Him grows deeper, and every time we choose to trust God we add another scene to our heavenly highlight reel.
Looking back at these situations and many others along my journey, I am convinced that the difficult cards we are dealt in life actually become the very things God uses to set us up for blessing. The very obstacles Satan uses to destroy us actually become the platform in which God displays His greatest accomplishments in our lives. As Joel Osteen says, "Our set backs are God's set ups for a comeback!"
So are you curious how that game of Uno Attack ended? Well, a few rounds later Jacob was able to play a "switch hands" card on his cousin and went on to win the game! That's right ... and really all because he never gave up. Now you might be tempted to think, "That's a sweet little story, but life is very different." You are absolutely right. A game is very different than life. You are not guaranteed you will win a game, but if you are in Christ, you are guaranteed to win at life! He has already secured the victory for you! And although right now it seems you keep drawing cards to add to a fistful of other useless ones you can't play, know this ... the deck is stacked in your favor. At the right time and in the right moment you will not only be able to play but WIN! God can supernaturally thrust you from last place to first place. The true test is not the game itself but choosing to stay in it! Sometimes that is all our faith can do, but the beautiful and amazing thing is, that is all it takes. So keep running the race, my friend. Keep fighting the good fight. It is well worth the reward that awaits.
Now as his mother (and knowing what a horrible sport I was at his age), I started to get concerned. I kept waiting for a flood of tears or an abrupt "I quit!" accompanied by Uno Attack cards flying through the air. I waited, but it never came. Finally at the point where he needed help holding his cards, I saw a tear ... and, surprising all of us, a laugh. A laugh that started small and gradually grew until it became contagious, and everyone else at the table was laughing too. I'll never forget how proud of my son I was in that moment. Not only did he display a persevering spirit, he chose to laugh about the challenge he was facing.
You know, life can be a lot like Uno Attack. We all get dealt our hand and start to play. But at some point we can feel like circumstances are ganging up on us. Sometimes we feel there is no good card to play. Sometimes we are stuck with nothing to play. Everyone else is playing their hand and moving on, and we are stuck. We aren't moving at a snails pace. We have come to a screeching halt, and sometimes even feel like we are going backward. It is a very frustrating feeling that I'm certain most people experience.
When I look back over my life I see a few very pivotal moments where the cards I had didn't look like a winning hand ... times when I wished I could have called a do over. You know, press rewind and play the cards differently. The funny thing is in each of these circumstances God clearly knew what needed to be done to gain victory, and He knew full well if left to my own devices I would choose to do something different.
The first example would be when my husband and I decided to move to Florida. Testing the spiritual waters, we put our house on the market. We certainly felt God opening the door as we had a buyer within the week. We then moved forward with an offer on a home in Florida, as well as my husband putting in his two week notice at his job. A week later our realtor called to inform us that the sale of our home had fallen through because the buyer couldn't secure financing. This of course caused our purchase of the home in Florida to fall through. My husband left the following week to start his new job in Florida while I stayed in Tennessee with our one and two year old children to sell the house.
To make a long story short, we ended up finding a brand new community in Florida and decided to build there. This community ended up being a great place for my husband to start a business, which he did 5 years later. The home we almost bought had a pool and was 4 doors down from a busy intersection. Two years later we would learn of our daughter's diagnosis of Autism. God was looking out for us concerning issues we had no idea were heading our way.
The next example would be when we found out our daughter would be placed at a new school. This school offered the same special program but was closer to our home ... sounds like a good fit. Then we found out the teacher of the class was married to someone in which my husband had some unfinished business with. The two were not on good terms with each other. Certain this would make for a strained, uncomfortable, and potentially explosive situation, I tried EVERYTHING within my power to get her switched back to her old school, and found out the only way it was even a remote possibility was if I transported her to and from school everyday. Well, it just so happened that my car had died a few months prior. We were stuck and had no choice but to have her attend the new school.
Wow! The next 3 years at this school with this teacher would end up being the best by far in all our daughter's educational experience. These years brought about a calmer, more compliant child. She began to use pictures to communicate and graduated on to more complex augmented communication devices in which she currently uses a program called TouchChat on her iPad. The Lord knew this person would be the best teacher for Hannah and that we would've missed it due to avoiding conflict ... conflict that never even happened because this person was completely unaware of the problem. However, because we had developed such a wonderful relationship, when she did find out about the situation she vowed to rectify it.
The last example would be in 2012 as my husband and I learned of our son's diagnosis of Autism. What a shock it was to get this news and have to come face to face with the fact that for whatever reason it seemed our genetic make-up was not a good mix. What we chalked up to as a fluke with Hannah we were now reliving with Gabe. Definitely a sign to take ourselves out of the gene pool. However, we had had to let our health insurance go a year prior to his diagnosis and had no available funds to take any permanent steps toward infertility. We didn't worry though thinking we were older and unlikely to conceive again anyway.
Wrong! Later that same year we learned we were expecting again. Scared to death and wondering what God was up to now, we pressed on in faith believing for a healthy child. June of 2013 our precious baby girl, Emma was born. What a blessing she is, and how fortunate I am to be able to experience things I missed out on with Hannah. God is so good but sometimes He has to take us to an uncomfortable place to reveal His goodness to us because I promise you if we would've had insurance when Gabe was diagnosed, Emma would not be here today.
Back in January, I remember watching all the coverage for the BCS title game between Florida State and Auburn. One particular show highlighted all the key games and plays that had gotten both teams to the championship game. These highlights got me thinking about my own personal highlight reel. Different scenes began to flash through my mind ... the singing award in junior high, the scholarship to go to college, my wedding day, moving into our brand new home, the birth of all four of our precious children ... And then I began to wonder what God would include in a "Heavenly Highlight Reel." Would they be the same things? We tend to look at the highlights in our life as exactly that, the high points. But is our idea of highlights the same as God's?
Habakkuk 3:19 in the Amplified Bible says "The Lord God is my strength, my personal bravery, and my invincible army. He makes my feet like hinds' feet and will make me to walk (not stand still in terror, but to walk) and make spiritual progress upon my high places (of trouble, suffering, and responsibility).
What are our high places? ... "trouble, suffering, and responsibility." What?! Why on earth are these considered high places? From our perspective these are the low points, right? At the time it certainly never occurred to me to look at the sale of a home falling through, the hauling of my car to a junkyard, or the inability to afford health insurance as high points! But you see according to God's ways, which are completely opposite of the world's ways, OUR low points are HIS high points because these are the times we turn to Him. These are the times when we seek God with our whole heart, anchor ourselves to the truths of His word, and put our complete faith and trust in His sovereign will. At no other time are we more pliable and moldable (if that's a word?) to the Potter. How precious our faith is in the eyes of the Father! It is as our faith in Him grows higher that our understanding of Him grows deeper, and every time we choose to trust God we add another scene to our heavenly highlight reel.
Looking back at these situations and many others along my journey, I am convinced that the difficult cards we are dealt in life actually become the very things God uses to set us up for blessing. The very obstacles Satan uses to destroy us actually become the platform in which God displays His greatest accomplishments in our lives. As Joel Osteen says, "Our set backs are God's set ups for a comeback!"
So are you curious how that game of Uno Attack ended? Well, a few rounds later Jacob was able to play a "switch hands" card on his cousin and went on to win the game! That's right ... and really all because he never gave up. Now you might be tempted to think, "That's a sweet little story, but life is very different." You are absolutely right. A game is very different than life. You are not guaranteed you will win a game, but if you are in Christ, you are guaranteed to win at life! He has already secured the victory for you! And although right now it seems you keep drawing cards to add to a fistful of other useless ones you can't play, know this ... the deck is stacked in your favor. At the right time and in the right moment you will not only be able to play but WIN! God can supernaturally thrust you from last place to first place. The true test is not the game itself but choosing to stay in it! Sometimes that is all our faith can do, but the beautiful and amazing thing is, that is all it takes. So keep running the race, my friend. Keep fighting the good fight. It is well worth the reward that awaits.
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