A Surrendering...

Each year as a family we read The Jesse Tree as a part of our Advent tradition and preparing our hearts for what Christmas is really about.  Every year when we read the story of Abraham being asked by God to give his son as a sacrifice, I get choked up.  (Take a moment and read Genesis 22.  It’s just one chapter and won’t take long.)  I, too, only have a single child, and though it wasn’t nearly as long, we waited for her.  I reflect on Abraham’s story and just don’t know if I could do it; if I could offer up my only daughter - who I liken to being my heart outside my body - if God asked me to.  

As much as this story has caused me to take pause in previous years, this year it is especially poignant.  Over the last several days this transition, what many keep referring to as our “re-entry,” as if we’ve been in outer space for the last 10 years, has felt heavy.  Despite all the good that is coming, seeing my girl wrestle with the whys of our move hurts my heart.  And, if I am truthful, I fear this move will break her; that it will be more than she can process and carry and that it will cause her to lose herself.  There is a large part of me that would really love to just stay put and allow her to live in this little bubble we’ve been allowed to keep her in for the past decade. I wish I didn’t have to make her 12 year-old-self have to decide what to take and what to leave behind.  I wish I could give her the certainty and safety of what she knows here but also all the advantages and opportunities that a secondary education in the US will provide her.  But I can’t, not if I am to continue to walk in obedience to the Lord.  

As we read about Abraham and Isaac, and my heart wretched for what Abraham had to do, God turned my mind to my own desires.  As we have tried to navigate the emotions of the last few days, I keep sensing the Holy Spirit asking if I trust him.  As we read tonight, He reminded me that that was what he was asking Abraham, “Do you trust me?”  Please know I am in no way trying to say that what we are walking through is anything compared to what Abraham walked as he led Isaac up that mountain and laid him down on that altar, but this transition  does come with it’s own amount of anguish, of trepidation, of concern, and I think I can understand, in a very small way, some of what might have gone through Abraham’s mind as he prepared the things he needed and faced that walk to what he believed was the sacrifice of his son.  

Each question that comes up, each worry that arises, I hear the Spirit asking, “Do you trust me?” I have to say, it’s difficult to say yes, whole-heartedly.  I know He has shown himself to be faithful over and over again.  I know I had to trust Him when we left our own country and came to a place we had only heard of a year before.  But, when we did that, I picked Eden up in my arms and told her we were going an adventure and that as long as we were together, we would be “home,” and that was all she needed as a 2 year old.  But life through 12 year-old-eyes is quite different than those of a 2 year old… 

But, the faithfulness of our Lord is the same.  And, the trust I should have in Him should be even deeper because of all I have seen him do over these 10 years.  So, as we take it one day at a time, and sometimes, one moment at a time, I am listening,,,

“Do you trust me?” I hear the Spirit ask…

“Yes Lord, I do,” I reply…

I take the next step of obedience and pray for grace and mercy and favor, and for the protection of my girl who was created to live the better part of her childhood in Costa Rica and believing that her Heavenly Father also made her to live her teenage years in the US.  

 “Do you trust me?”

“Yes Lord, I do.” 

When I feel overwhelmed from the choices she is having to make over her childhood belongings and mementos, I choose to believe that God has prepared her to walk this road. 

“Do you trust me?”

“Yes Lord, I do.” 

When I have to watch her treasure the last moments with our dogs that are more like siblings than pets, I believe God has something better still for her, and for myself, yet to come.  

“Do you trust me?”

“Yes Lord, I do.”

And, if this does wound her, hurt her, break her, I have to believe that God will put her back together more beautiful than before.  And, I can believe it because I have seen Him do it in my very own life over these last 10 years.  

How about you?  The Lord is asking, “Do you trust me?”