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The Waiting Room

Sep25

I’m in the waiting room of my Gynecologist’s office. The almost eerie silence is pierced every couple of minutes by the sound of a door swinging open and a soft woman with a wide smile calling a name. I’m hyper-focused on the slight creek the door makes with every swing. I wonder how the receptionists can stand to listen to it all day, every day.

I make my way to the restroom and I’m greeted by a sign that reminds me to check with the front desk before urinating in case the doctor will want a sample. But I know the doctor won’t want a sample because I’m not here for a UTI and there’s no chance that I’m pregnant.

The sign seems to mock me.

How many times have peed on a stick in the hopes of seeing a second line? How many times has my husband said, “I really think this time is it!” when my gut already tells me it isn’t? How long has it been since he stopped saying that because the disappointment hurts too much?

Back in the waiting room there are three other women sitting in chairs, all of whom are obviously pregnant. There is another woman standing at the reception desk who doesn’t look pregnant so for a moment I assume, like me, she’s just here for a routine exam. But she’s speaking loudly so she is easily overheard. At least it seems loud in such a quiet space. She’s complaining because she’s pregnant and getting married in a few weeks. She can’t believe her terrible luck that she will have to spend her honeymoon pregnant. “Can you believe this happened?” she groans to the receptionist. I ponder whether she understands how these things come about and I wonder if she grasps just how blessed she is that it came so easily to her. Then she gripes that this is her second pregnancy in just a few months, and that she took a bunch of Morning After pills the last time so she would miscarry. “I miscarried that baby and it just figures that now I’m pregnant again!” she exclaims.

You didn’t miscarry that baby, you aborted it, I think to myself. A miscarriage happens to something you love. Something you wanted more than anything else in the world. I’ve miscarried and I can assure you it is nothing like you’ve described.

A chemical abortion is still an abortion.

For a moment I have an overwhelming urge to kick her. I’m not proud of that. I probably wouldn’t admit that to someone in person, but we’ve always strived to be real on our anonymous little blog. The feeling was almost tangible. I actually pictured myself doing it. Then in shame, I sent up a silent repentant prayer. It was judgment, jealousy, and violence all rolled into one sinful thought.

Infertility is hard. Really hard.

When my name is called, I follow the soft smiling woman beyond the creaky door toward the examination rooms. The walls are lined with pictures. Picture after picture after picture of adorable, chubby little babies. The offspring of the women who have received their care here.

The pictures taunt me.

“You’re not a real woman” they say.

Women were made to make babies.
You have no purpose.
You’re broken.
You waited too long.
You’ll never be a mother.
You don’t deserve it.
 
Sometimes I think that Gynecology offices should be separate from Obstetrics offices to spare us infertile women the emotional trauma of a visit to the lady bits doctor. Because let’s be honest, going to the Gynecologist is already traumatizing enough without adding in those jeering beautiful infant photos lining the hallways.
 
My doctor tells me even if I didn’t have a chromosomal disorder and even if I didn’t have PCOS and even if I weren’t overweight, I’d still have almost zero chance of conceiving because at my age all my eggs are dead. He also informs me that at his age, my husband’s sperm is dead too. He didn’t use those exact words, but he may as well have.

I feel silenced from talking about this pain because everyone around me seems to think I shouldn’t even want children, what with my age and the fact that I already have step-children. But there is a biological drive to reproduce. There is something deeply ingrained in a woman to be a mother. God created us this way. My step-children are wonderful and amazing and a huge blessing in my life, but I will never be their mother. I can love them, nurture them, and guide them, but I can never be theirs. They already have a mother, and I cannot (and should not) take her place.

They will never call me mom.

Every children’s birthday party, every pregnancy announcement, every baby shower, and every gender reveal is like another stab in an already shattered heart. You avoid the babies in your life. You desperately want to hold them, and yet you don’t, because you know if you do, you will absolutely fall apart. Your façade will slip, your truth revealed. In these situations, it is reality to be authentically happy for others, but almost inconsolably sad for yourself.

And then comes the guilt. Guilt for feeling that way. Guilt for being too-self-focused. Guilt for failing your husband yet again. Guilt for not taking it better. Guilt for not always praising God through the storm. Every month the grieving process starts all over again. You try not to get your hopes up, but you can’t help hoping this is the month for your miracle. Followed by the inevitable let-down, indescribable grief, and the return of the guilt. Did you know that more than half of women experiencing infertility say that it is the most upsetting experience of their lives? Another study showed that women with infertility feel as anxious or depressed as those diagnosed with cancer.

I have no idea how people do it without God.

Because I know God, it’s not all consuming for me. The Lord has blessed me tremendously and I am very thankful. I have an amazing husband and an incredible family. I am truly happier in my life now than I have ever been. I have a God whose love IS all consuming.

In my pain and sorrow, He is there. Always there. I can’t say why my prayers haven’t been answered or if they ever will be, but I can say without any doubt that I know He’s heard me. He knows my tears. He sees my struggles. Even when my attitude hasn’t always been right, He has continued loving me through it all. I am forever grateful for that.

He is a God of the impossible. It was but a few short years ago that I was on this blog moaning that I was still single in a sea of unhitched Christian women with nary a single Christian man in sight. I saw all the impossibilities: the high ratio of single women to men, my below average looks, being beyond the average age for a first marriage, and being too busy, too shy, and too anxious to date, among other things. By my human reasoning, there was no way I’d ever find a mate so there were times that I doubted whether God would send me a one. Still, I was never quite able to give up my hope and when the time was right, God answered my prayers for a spouse in a way that went far beyond my expectations. My husband is so incredibly good to me. He makes me feel loved and valued every single day. He has a tremendous faith in God. He is everything I ever wanted in a partner.

If God can answer that prayer, I know that He can make me a mother. If He doesn’t, then I know He had His perfect reasons for not doing so.

In His Love,
Rebekah L.

 

No Place For That Here

Feb22

Recently, I was talking to a friend who said she needed prayer – the “spirit of discouragement” was trying to latch onto her. I went into prayer for her, ready to do battle against this “spirit”, to cast it away from her, whatever I needed to do. She is at a really intense time in her life and certainly didn’t need  a spirit of discouragement standing in her way!

As I began getting into the heart of my prayer time though, God gave me the revelation that in this case there was no such spirit of discouragement. There was simply a girl, a child of God, doing her best to walk out the calling on her life but currently falling short. She wasn’t out of His will, she was following His call, she was just falling short of the fullness of what her life was meant to be at this time.

Why was this happening? It was because she knew what God had called her to do. She had heard His voice…..but then she used her earthly ideas to fill it in. For example, say somebody really likes flowers. And so, really liking flowers, was expecting them from a loved one for their birthday. All day at work waiting for that bouquet to arrive, expecting it at home. Instead, the loved one didn’t send a bouquet at all but took them to a picnic in a field of wildflowers. The wish was fulfilled but not in the way our flower-loving person expected. The present didn’t meet expectations per se, but does that mean it was bad?

In the case of my friend, it is Jesus’ will that she is doing. She is just walking with a certain (earthly) expectation of what that should look like. A certain expectation of how people will respond to her along the way, because it is God’s will. And as it happens, it isn’t turning out like she expected. The breakthroughs are happening between her and Jesus, not between her and those around her. And so she is finding herself discouraged.

But as I prayed for her, God revealed that this is an issue of our own hearts, not some outward spirit attacking us. And it’s an issue we face a bit too frequently. So often we walk in expectation of what God can and should do. And yes, of course we should be expectant. But sometimes we end up seeking the things we expect of Him, rather than seeking God Himself. And that’s a problem.

Readers, our first and really only desire should be Jesus. To serve Him. To seek Him, To be with Him. There are numerous – numerous – Bible verses about how we should seek God with our whole heart. That doesn’t mean “seek Him with half our heart and keep the other half of our heart waiting to witness His miracle”. That doesn’t mean “seek with most of our heart and keep a teeny bit waiting to rejoice at a breakthrough”. It means our whole heart longs for Him and Him alone. If He is healing the masses as we walk among them, great. Awesome. Amazing. I had a friend in Africa recently who was feeding a village and God literally repeated the miracle of the loaves and fish. I was crying at His glory and power with this miracle. BUT. If He happens to just be merely standing before us, that is fine. Amazing in fact. Why? Because He’s Jesus. And He’s enough. And if our whole heart is truly desiring Him and Him alone, if we keep all our own thoughts and expectations out of it and instead seek only His face and heart, His mere presence is enough. If we desire Jesus, our desires are fulfilled. Because we have Jesus.

There’s no place for discouragement when our heart’s desire is being fulfilled. At the end of the day, maybe we didn’t see a miracle we expected. Maybe we didn’t see what we thought we would. But it’s not our plan. It’s His. It’s not our expectation that matters. It’s His. We’re merely the vessels for it. If our hearts are truly in the right place, and God is our true desire, we’ve got Him. Our desire has been fulfilled. It’s being fulfilled constantly, as an inherent part of our relationship with Him. Us + Jesus = perfect satisfaction for our hearts and spirits. The Bible makes this equation clear, and there is simply no room for discouragement in it. Where would it even go?

Where does that leave us? Well. We all feel discouraged at times. It’s normal. It’s natural. For every verse in the Bible that says to desire and seek God above all else, there are probably just as many examples of someone discouraged. It happens. But it’s still a problem.

So, if you are in that place of discouragement, as we’ve all been, I invite you to seek Him a bit further today. Really, really press in to Him and let Him show you if maybe something else has entered your equation. Let Him reassure you and give you peace to know that these other variables don’t really matter because He is bigger than them and He is able. Give your heart over to Him to be reshaped. Give Him your very thoughts to be brought into obedience under Him.

And then rest assured. He’s got this.

God bless!

~Rebekah A

Be Afraid and do it Anyway

Feb4

Overcoming Fear

For the last couple of years I have had recurring dreams of the same person. The dreams themselves are different every time, it’s just that this particular person happens to show up in them from time to time. It is someone I do not know in my waking life and usually when I dream of him, he has an important message to share with me or to help me understand something. I’ve come to refer to him as my “teacher” because that is the role that I most often relate to him in these dreams.

A few weeks ago I had a dream where he came to me and told me that God had a specific task for me to complete and that I was hesitating to do it. As if that wasn’t convicting enough he said, “You move in fear instead of love.” Ouch! I could not refute his claims. How often have we let fear be a motivating factor in how we act (or in what we avoid) rather than love?

I knew exactly what he was referring to. If you’ve read any of the Being Rahab series, you know that I am in contact with a woman who lives on the other side of the globe from me. Recently, she had some questions that she only felt comfortable talking to me about. She suggested doing a video chat. This is a simple solution to the problem of living so far apart and not being able to meet in person. A phone call isn’t ideal because there is a bit of a language barrier between us so we often need the help of facial expressions and hand gestures to communicate. Video was the best alternative. For me however, this was a terrifying request. The thought of being on the internet like that nearly sent me into a full blown panic. Just the thought of doing it, never mind actually going through with it.

This may come as a surprise to many of our readers since you know that I have been putting my posts on the internet for at least two years now. There is a big difference between putting words on a screen and putting your face out there. Where I could be seen. And heard. Even recognized. Or recorded. Especially recorded. You’ve never seen my face on this blog and I don’t even use my real name so making the shift to a video chat was a giant leap for me. Giant. Did I think my friend was planning to record me? No. Or worse, planning to distribute the video out into the world? Of course not. But I am paranoid and I don’t trust technology and frankly the whole idea is horrifying to me.

This paranoia is not completely without justification. I know what it is like to be involuntarily recorded. I know what it feels like to not have any control over that and to not be able to retrieve the recordings. I know the haunting fear that one day those recordings will resurface. I never want to be in that situation again so I have spent years avoiding technology that might take pictures or videos and transmit them somewhere.

But then there’s this woman half a world away. She has questions about the Lord and the church and salvation. She has past issues she needs help working through. She has fears and she needs someone to reassure her that the Lord is her shield and buckler. She needs someone to confirm that Jesus is a healer. And she wants to talk to me. Only to me.

I wanted so much to help her, but I honestly didn’t think I could get over my debilitating fear in order to do it. How could I possibly allow myself to be seen on video? The thought was unbearable.

But then I had a dream. My “teacher” came and told me that I needed to demonstrate my burden. He invited me to demonstrate my love for the Lord and for the souls I cry out for.

He asked me, “Do you love Him enough to leave your fear behind?” I could not answer the question. So he told me that God would be with me and that my calling required a giving up of self and a constant overcoming of fear.

He asked me again, “Do you love Him enough to put your own fear aside?”

Again, I could not answer him.

“Do you love Him?”

I answered with a resounding, “Yes!”

He said, “If you love Him, but cannot put your fear aside, then be afraid and do it anyway.”

With that, he walked away and the dream ended. When I woke up, I knew I had to do the video chat. I didn’t know how I was going to do it, but I knew that I could. Despite my fear, I had to move in love. I had to reach out to a woman thousands of miles away in a way that was utterly terrifying to me because it was what she needed. I had to put myself aside. I had to be afraid and do it anyway.

And you know what? I did it. Through the Lord, by the Lord, with the Lord, He helped me do it. It was not easy. It took a lot of prayer. I admit I cried and threw up before the video chat started. But when the switch was flipped and there she was on a screen across from me, Jesus helped me to move in love instead of fear. As far as I know, she had no knowledge of how difficult it was for me. And God accomplished something amazing in that conversation. Two women a world apart and He helped us both overcome that day!

I often think that God has to remove a fear before I can be free to act, but I have learned through this situation that sometimes God moves in the fear. He doesn’t always take the fear away first. You have to be willing to say that your love for Him and your love for souls is more important than the fear you are feeling.

When I feel God leading me to do something that feels scary, I have a new motto: Be afraid and do it anyway.

Dear Readers: May the Lord help you to walk in love instead of fear. May you never shy away from His bidding because of fear. May you overcome by facing that fear and doing the very thing that you are afraid of.

In His Love,

Rebekah L.

Merry Christmas!

Dec24

unto-us-a-child-is-born

It’s Christmas Eve. I pray all of our readers are happy and blessed. I know this time of year is not the easiest for many people. The media is aglow with perfect families sitting by their perfect fireplaces around the perfect Christmas tree and perfectly loving each other whilst giving the perfect gifts. Reality is a whole lot messier. There is no family that perfectly embodies the perfection of commercialized Christmas.

There is only one person who has ever walked this earth that has earned the description of perfect. His name is Jesus. There is no other name. So for a moment I ask you not to consider all the things you still have to do to make your holiday go smoothly. For a few minutes I ask you not to think of the things you lack, the family you wish you had, or the gifts you would like to be able to give. Instead, Remember what all of this hubbub is supposed to be about. It is truly amazing that God chose to robe Himself in flesh in order to save mankind. We are incredibly loved and blessed.

“For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.” -Isaiah 9:6

Merry Christmas to you all!!

Ｉn His Love,
Rebekah L.

PS. I didn’t realize the similarities between this and Rebekah M’s last post until I had written this. 🙂

A Vision and a Prayer

Nov2

So, as I have walked through New York City, following a fairly steady route throughout the winter, spring, and summer (between February and August, and less frequently starting in September), there have a few people who have become staple parts to my daily commute. One in particular is a homeless man named Bradley. Sometimes he’s more awake than others, and sometimes his words are more slurred than others, but no matter what kind of day he’s having he is easily one of the most personable people in New York. He might be filthy, but he is always smiling and always cheerful. He talks about his past with fond remembrance rather than bitterness, though he is from another part of the country and it’s been a long time since he’s had contact with any loved ones.

I don’t know exactly what happened in his life and what issues he’s faced that caused his decline from then, when he had a wife and a stepdaughter he still refers to as his princess, until now. We have a game we play, where he gives me a name, I look up its meaning on my phone, and he relates the meaning of the name back to the person they were. I don’t know most of the names he gives me or who these people were in his life, just a few snippets he’s given me.

I do know that the first day I met him I was hoping to pray for him, but before I could even ask he was expounding on how the government was a big conspiracy and how Jesus wasn’t real, His miracles were impossible and the whole Christianity thing was just a made-up story that people get fed today because the governmental powers that be think we’re dumb enough to follow it.

That was the one and only time I’ve seen him agitated. Suffice to say he was not receptive to the idea of prayer. But, That said, he has been heavy on my heart lately. I have been vaguely praying for him as God has led me, and praying into God’s plan for him, but the past few days God has gotten much more specific in how I’m to minister to him. Basically, He told me He wants me to do a bible study with Bradley, and gave me a specific place in the city where he wants this to happen. It’s near where I always see him, and it happens to be on some ground that I claimed for Jesus a few months back (possibly a story for another day, but long story short: God is pretty cool). He also told me in no uncertain terms that Bradley won’t willingly go there with me, and certainly won’t willingly read the bible with me (had God consulted me first, I easily could have told Him this part and spared Him the trouble of sending me the vision, but I digress). That being the case, my next direction was simple: if he won’t come with me, I am to go to him. Sit on the subway floor, by his side. If he won’t do a Bible study with me, I am to read my bible by myself, as I sit next to him. I am to simply talk to him. To seek God for wisdom and discernment on every word that comes out of his mouth. To seek wisdom and discernment over his heart. To let God fill my mouth with the words to minister to those places, and to supply the bible verses as needed. Eventually, there will be more direct bible interaction. God promised this, if I follow His guidance. In short, I am to go low and slow here.

I have never done anything quite like this before. But I’m game if Jesus is. Interestingly, I haven’t actually seen Bradley since this has been revealed to me. Either way, I thank Him for what He’s shown me, and I stand expectant and believing for Him to do a work here. And so today I just ask that you pray into God’s will over this man and my role in his life. That I would hear God clearly throughout and fully lean on Him to guide my steps. That most of all, He would move in this man’s life and do a work in him until he is walking in the fullness of the identity God has for him. Umm…..and also that if I am meant to move on this, I would cross paths with the guy. Or at least be told where he is so I can go find him. The city is huge, and there are lots of places where a homeless man might go when the weather cools – sometimes it would be so nice if directives from on high came with a GPS. Or a major clearing of the NYC smog so I could use the north star like the wise men, but honestly at this point I think dropping a supernatural Bradley-tracking device in my lap is the easier option.  Umm…..and since wherever Bradley is, it’s probably somewhere like the subway floor (where I normally see him – he even makes himself comfy and goes shirtless and shoeless down there) or an alley, prayers for my protection would also be appreciated. Though I have to say, there’s nowhere safer than in God’s arms!

I will keep you posted if, after all this subway-sitting and alley searching, I also need prayers to supernaturally boost the strength of my washing machine.

Meanwhile, thank you all very much, and God bless!

~Rebekah A

Perspective

Oct2

Tonight I am in a fog. Why? Well, ultimately it’s because God is doing some great things in the church I came from before I moved here, and He is doing some great things in me. He has completely lit a fire under me and I don’t want it to ever go out. Don’t worry, I’ll explain the fog part later.

The season I’m in has been months in the making. There is a very sick little girl that my old church has been praying for, which is perhaps a blog post for another day (a long one). Through a whole variety of things, God has shown us that He has some very specific and miraculous plans for her, and He wants us to stand with Him to carry them out. The time for that to happen is near, and so it is a time to press into God deeply. Nothing less than the purity of His truth and power will suffice.

While we have been waiting on that, God’s been growing us. Through a series of seemingly unconnected visions, dreams, and even random gifts, He has brought us to a season of tearing down high places within our hearts and churches, and again pressing in. And actually, He used me to reveal the connecting thread that brought us into this phase of deep growth in Him, which is awesome. It wasn’t an obvious connection and drew on prior knowledge that I had, that made God’s message clear when it was combined with this stuff that was happening. But I never would have spoken up (because it didn’t seem relevant), if my prayer partner literally the night before hadn’t had a word for me about speaking boldly no matter what I felt. So I listened to the word she delivered, spoke out, and it turned out to be right on the money. God is awesome in the ways He uses us. This is perhaps another long blog post for another day. My boldness has been increasing in leaps and bounds lately, and I’ve spoken out about a lot of things God has told me when I previously might not have had the confidence to do so, but this grew my boldness even more. Yay!

Anyway, the underlying thread of everything is that we are in a season to press into Jesus, to passionately and radically pursue Him. I like the sound of it already.

In an effort to ‘press in’, I have been fasting a bit more regularly. My typical fasting pattern is to abstain from food for a 24-hr period. Since this season seems like it calls for a more prolonged endeavor, I have gotten creative. I am fasting sugar. Detoxing from it, really. I know, I know. It’s a health fad. It’s a trendy kickoff to a trendy diet. Truth be told, I couldn’t care less about the trend. It is also something that my body is currently dependent on, and to me that is all that matters. I want my body to run the way it was created to run and to be dependent on nothing except for Jesus Christ Himself. It’s my physical manifestation of pressing in. The problem with detoxing from sugar is that you go through a mini withdrawal, and you get sort of sick for about a week. I am on Day 2, hence my brain fog. I’m also fairly convinced that someone drove into my bedroom with a Mack truck and ran over me while I slept, and then magically glued my walls back together. How they did it, I will never know, but I am definitely feeling the effects!

It has been interesting, to be spiritually on fire and physically foggy. I am pressing in, which is the whole point, and both reaching and expecting breakthrough. I am grateful for the season, because I am growing in leaps and bounds and am expectant that God will deliver on what He’s told me. I’m even grateful for the fog because it forces me to really focus to hone in on the spirit, and to depend on His help to get even mundane tasks done. I’m mostly grateful that God has given me some perspective on where I’m at, and where He’s headed both with me and the Body as a whole.  I can’t wait to see what He does!

God bless!

~Rebekah A

Learning to Trust

Sep11

“So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” ~ Isaiah 41:10

Any followers of this blog will have probably read by now that I’m in a pretty bad place financially. I’ve been living in NYC for two years now and have yet to find steady employment. And yes, I’ve been looking. First it was the house falling apart, so I lived off of savings while we sorted it out. Then it was part of my contract as roommate to a man named Jimmy with muscular dystrophy – part of the deal was to be around on Mondays and Tuesdays (the two days of the week when he’s not at work). As it turned out, the work I was qualified to do takes place in schools or hospitals, and most definitely involves Mondays and Tuesdays.

So about the time I was looking for different work, Jimmy’s full-time aide got hit by a NYC bus. He’s been recovering slowly and painfully and still has a long road ahead of him. In the meantime, we’ve had a revolving door of aids while looking for a replacement and through it all I have been the one go-to backup. I’ve been permanently on call for the better part of a year. None of these situations are conducive to steady employment but I’m trying. Unsuccessfully, so far, but I do have a few potential prospects so be praying that one of them comes through!

Anyway, things have come to a head with some of my student loans this week. I basically ran out of deferment time and have to come up with a lot of money now. Which I of course don’t have. Whenever it came up with Jimmy, he made it clear that he didn’t have it either. As for my family….well, if they had it, I’d have it. And we all very much don’t. I don’t even many possessions to sell – most of my clothes are wearing out and I sold my car awhile ago.

So here I was. Needing more than I had. Owing more than I could give. With no crutch, no options, no man-made solutions left. I have to say it was a new situation for me. I have been in places where I’ve needed God….but never in a situation where literally my only hope for getting through it was to count on a miracle. Until now. And I wasn’t happy about it. There were a few days (and a few phone calls) where all I could do was break down and cry.

So I told myself that God knew best, maybe it was for the best. He does all things for our good, right? If I am floundering, maybe I need to redefine what it means to thrive. And that’s true. I do need to do that. Eventually. But what I need to do most of all, right this second, is stop trying to define anything. Stop trying to scramble and come up with crazy solutions and then pray that God shows me favor when I try to make them happen. No. That’s not trust. That’s self-reliance and looking to God to be my sidekick. That’s what I’ve always done. I’ve always landed on my feet, figured it out for myself, and just prayed to God for backup support. Sure I give Him credit. I thank Him for the blessing. But that’s not true trust. Trust is letting God do the defining, letting God do the planning and providing. I thought I trusted God. But this experience so far has shown me that I’ve never fully depended on Him. I’ve never fully, with everything in me, trusted His full provision. I’ve trusted Him for favor in my provisions for myself, but I’ve never given Him full and complete control. Until I had no choice.

So I told myself that I was going to trust this time. I was going to ride this ride, and let God stretch the boundaries of my heart. Let Him push the barriers of my control. That I would praise Him through every painful moment, and on the other side I’d come out like gold. That I would trust Him to turn this trial into a testimony.

And wouldn’t you know, even with nothing left the temptation to take the reigns was still there. In email correspondence about a potential job, I was thinking through how to word things and what would best work in my favor. I started to pray, but as I opened my mouth I realized I was about to pray for favor in my efforts. I wanted SO BADLY to ask Him for that. But I curbed the impulse and instead asked for His will to be done. For Him to give me the words to use to help His will be done. That I was trusting Him as my provider to do what was best for me. Typed the email. Hit send. And then I praised Him and worshiped Him with everything I had.

I haven’t gotten a reply to that email yet. But sure enough, our faithful God delivered anyway. Where yesterday there were no options, today there are. I mean it. My school actually bought my biggest loan and is giving me more payment options. When does that happen? With nothing to offer, no escape route, and nothing to save myself with, I am leaning on Jesus. And He is upholding me and seeing me through.

I am learning to go lower, to give up more control and lean on God harder. The more I do, the more I’m finding Him. When that’s the result, I can only be grateful for the hardship. He’s well worth the cost and He’s showing me that more and more every minute! I think of it like leaning on a wall. You can lean to different degrees, right? You can be standing just about upright and barely making contact with the wall. If the wall disappeared you’d stay standing. Or you could be doing one of those workout moves like a wall squat or pushups or something. If the wall disappeared then, you’d be in trouble. I’ve leaned on God before, but it’s not fully leaning if I’m still supporting my own weight. Up to now, were He to step away, I might startle or miss a step, but I wouldn’t necessarily fall. This time around, I’d faceplant and probably concuss myself.  And yet it’s working out better than it usually does. My relinquishing that last bit of control is letting God hold up this whole situation, and it turns out He’s much stronger than me. It kind of makes me wonder what I’ve been missing this whole time!

With that thought in mind, I leave you with a song that’s been on my heart today:

God bless!

~ Rebekah A

The God of the Impossible

Aug20

I have been talking to a Buddhist man at my job about Jesus for awhile now. He always listens to what I have to say and compares and contrasts my beliefs with his own, but I was never really sure if he took anything I said to heart. To me, it seemed that he wasn’t really interested in Christianity beyond an academic understanding.

Today something interesting happened. This man’s son stopped by my office (his son also works for our company). I rarely talk to the son because we don’t work in the same department and most of the decisions for this family are handled by dad. The son asked me a couple of work related questions, but each time I thought his question was answered, he hesitated about leaving. Finally, I asked him if there was something else he wanted to talk to me about. He took a deep breath and gave me a half nod. He said, “you’ve been talking to my father a lot recently, right?” He then stuck his head out of my office door to quickly look down the corridor to make sure no one was around to hear what he was about to say. I suspect he was double checking to make sure his father wasn’t within earshot. When he determined the coast was clear he said, “My dad wants us to ask Jesus to reunite our family.” You see, my co-worker and his sons are in the United States while his wife and two daughters remain in his home country. For legal and political reasons they have not been able to return home, nor bring the rest of the family to the US. Apparently my co-worker told his son, “We tried our home country’s government and that didn’t work, we tried this country’s government and that didn’t work, we tried lighting incense, we tried burning paper and none of it worked. What harm can come from trying Jesus?”

So the son asked me if I told his father that praying to my God would bring their family back together. The son was very nervous and careful with his words, but it was clear that his family has been through a lot and he didn’t like the idea of me giving his father false hope. He feels it is useless to keep pining away for something that is impossible and he does not want to see his father’s spirits crushed by yet another disappointment.

I can understand that he wants to protect his father from further pain and I admire him for his effort to do so. The thing is that I never told his father that Jesus could reunite their family. To be honest, his father never talks about the family back home and as insensitive and naive as it might sound, it actually never occurred to me that this was something he would consider. All I have done is share the testimonies of things Jesus has done in my own life. The fact remains though, that Jesus can bring his family back together! He is the God of the impossible! It is when things seem most impossible that Jesus can move. It is often when we have tried everything else and we are most desperate that God can show us who He is and what He is capable of.

Please pray with me that this man and his son will step out in faith to ask Christ to do the impossible in their lives. Pray that God will honor that faith with a mighty move to reunite this family. Pray that they will know without a doubt Who it was that answered their prayer and endeavor to follow the One True God. God is able!

In His Love,

Rebekah L.

A Day of Thanksgiving

Aug17

“For great is Your love, higher than the heavens; Your faithfulness reaches to the skies.” ~Psalm 108-4

If you are a regular reader of this blog you have probably heard of my ongoing saga to find a personal care aide for my roommate Jimmy, confined to a wheelchair due to SMA (spinal muscular atrophy). We used to have an aide – a great one in fact. This past February, he was hit by a New York City bus and has been engrossed in a slow, painful (and currently stalled) recovery.

This man, as a side note, was raised by a Muslim mother and a Hindu father. As he put it, “I was raised with so many religions, I figured I may as well celebrate the Christian holidays too.”. While this sounded promising, it didn’t exactly speak to a heart transformation. And so, after the accident, I prayed for him profusely. For a physical healing, yes, but mostly for a life-changing revelation of who Jesus is, for Jesus to rock his heart and his life and that he would experience the pure love and peace that comes from His arms. That he would know who he was celebrating.

I prayed…..and Jesus answered.

Today I went to what I thought was the Guyanese equivalent of Thanksgiving. I had no idea what was going on or what to expect. It turned out to be his and his wife’s personal day of Thanksgiving, of opening up their home to their entire church (via many, many chairs set up in the backyard) and giving thanks to the Lord for all they have.

Today I witnessed our former aide speak to his church. His face was contorted into a grimace of pain and he struggled to stand, leaning so hard on a cane that his arms were shaking. I knew he was using all his muscles to balance himself because he has yet to regain full feeling in one of his legs. But not a bit of that came into his testimony. Instead, the words out of his mouth were of such passionate gratitude that he started to tear up.

And so I have my turn to give thanks. I am so, so thankful that I serve a God who is so present in our lives that he can perform miracles – not just in the physical world around us, but inside of us. That we can know Him, walk with Him, live with Him, open ourselves up to His unceasing love and attention. Our God is not at an altar; we don’t have to go anywhere special to find Him. He’s not in incense, He’s not in fire, He’s not in flowers. He’s in us, with us and surrounding us, active in both the biggest moments of our lives and the minutia. He listens to the cries of our hearts – and He answers.

God bless!

~Rebekah A

 

Song of the day/Prayer Monday: Healer

Aug5

 

Working as night float, our job is literally to keep everyone alive through the night. From the wee babies to the 90 year old grandparents, there are two of us taking the calls for everyone in our care in the hospital. Although not every patient in the hospital is ours, we deal with a range of complaints from “my patient is having watery diarrhea” to “this baby is here for withdrawl since mom was taking heroin while she was pregnant.”

Throughout all of this I know one thing is true: Jesus is our healer.  From what ails the body to what binds the soul, He is the one who can bring the ultimate healing. I cannot take away the diabetes or cancer. I cannot mend the the past pain of being raped years ago as a child. But I know a God, and His name is Jesus Christ and He died for our sins because He loved us that much.  By His stripes- the 40 stripes inflicted by the ripping flogs- we are healed.

Dear reader- let it sink in today that no matter what hurt or pain has come your way in this world- Jesus not only CAN take it away, He WILL take it away if you just ask!  Know that sometimes with things like diabetes, He may not automatically heal you. You might have to learn to eat better and work out more (I myself am a diabetic and threw my meds away once believing He healed me since I knew He could).  But this journey of learning to balance food, exercise, and a healthy life because of the diabetes is one that I wouldn’t trade for the world.  We can live a better and full life- even if that means living with a daily disease. We can have painful events in our past that God can use to touch others and give hope to the hopeless. Let Him flood your heart and soul with His love right now and find that He is our healer!

In Him,

Rebekah M.