Psalm 147

Last Sunday I woke up feeling especially tender toward our adoption. I just felt homesick for our babies. No reasons. Just a deep sense of missing these babies I've never laid eyes on. Then at Newsong we meditated on this Scripture [below] as a worship response. It was timely for me as the service was filled with orphan and baby talk. I spoke to our congregation about the good news of 1,104 children being sponsored from Malawi. I led our infant dedication part of the service. Dave Gibbons talked about the "maturity of a church is measured by how we care for widows and orphans". And a Newsong couple shared their miraculous adoption story. It was pretty emotionally intense, but this passage nourished me...

Psalm 147

¹ Praise the LORD.
How good it is to sing praises to our God,
how pleasant and fitting to praise him!

² The LORD builds up Jerusalem;
he gathers the exiles of Israel.

³ He heals the brokenhearted
and binds up their wounds.

⁴ He determines the number of the stars
and calls them each by name.

⁵ Great is our Lord and mighty in power;
his understanding has no limit.

⁶ The LORD sustains the humble
but casts the wicked to the ground.

⁷ Sing to the LORD with thanksgiving;
make music to our God on the harp.

⁸ He covers the sky with clouds;
he supplies the earth with rain
and makes grass grow on the hills.

⁹ He provides food for the cattle
and for the young ravens when they call.

¹⁰ His pleasure is not in the strength of the horse,
nor his delight in the legs of a man;

¹¹ the LORD delights in those who fear him,
who put their hope in his unfailing love.

Happy Birthday Kiddos!

I can't even count how many times I've thought about our kids' birth days. I wonder what those 2 days have been/will be like. Overwhelming. Prayers extend to Ethiopia for our little ones...

Today, I stumbled across this friend of friends' blog. I thought this post was poignant and inspiring. Enjoy...

Happy Birthday, Son

The End Justifies the Means

Easter. Resurrection Sunday. New life. Death defeated. Freedom from sin. Hope restored. Promise fulfilled. Wounds healed. Empty grave. Victory over suffering.

[my 'life' tattoo from John 10:10
a reminder on my wrist from
Jesus' nail-pieced hands]

This week has been a fairly reflective Passion Week, following a rather uneventful Lenten season. Today, something about the resurrection struck me differently than it has any other Easter Sunday: the end justifies the means. The resurrection made the cross worth it. Jesus defeating death made the suffering of the cross worth bearing. The victory of the empty tomb healed his wounds. Joy. It was a horrible way to get there, but Jesus did it.

Today I was praying, surrendering again our adoption journey...the suffocating time line, the list of unknowns, the years of having an empty baby room, the confusion of these months on the wait list, the wonder of "gotchya day". And once again, in a way only the gentleness and power of Jesus can do, I was struck by how the end will be worth it. And not just the end of our "gotchya day" when our 2 little Ethiopian kiddos will become Diaz's, but the end of this life. In a moment, I got crystal clarity again about the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth through our adoption process. Once again, the means to having a family became worth it...oooh, embraced even.

Thank you, Jesus, for the power of the cross and what it accomplished. But thank you that you were able to defeat death. Otherwise, the means would have never been worth it. You are good to unpack the resurrection in a thousand different ways to your children.