Believing relentlessly

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After sharing with you what God has laid on my heart regarding foster care, I also have to share with you that my first instinct as I start to look down that road is to start making lists of everything I need to read and research, everything I need to DO. If only it were that easy. And while all that is not necessarily bad, God is revealing to me that it should never be first.

I have been reading through the book Relentless Hope, by Beth Guckenberger, and last night I had a chance to finish it over a cup of coffee. I had such a sweet time of prayer and reflection, and I really felt like God taught me a lot in the hour that I spent sitting outside in the dark with Him.

God has begun to give me a vision for the ministry He has laid on my heart, speaking to me through His Word and some of Beth's writing. Beth writes the following in Relentless Hope:
"Relentless hope has a fierceness about it, but it shouldn't be mistaken for ruthlessness or inconsiderateness. The fierceness represents the seriousness with which we face our opposition in this world. It's a fierce way of praying, a fierce way we stare down the lion circling the prey, or a fierce entrance into a fiery furnace. A kind of standing-your-ground that refreshingly isn't dependent on the latest polls, the opinions of others, or even a track record. It is instead a fierce hope in the One who has already accomplished all that is needed to bring peace and grace into a chaotic world and a confidence we are on the right team."

Friends, I am not a parent. I have certainly watched a lot of parents raise their children. I have cared for a lot of children. But I myself have never parented. It is easy to become overwhelmed with the thought of jumping into the parenting journey with children from "hard places," but God began to whisper to my heart last night that I need to grow in my confidence that I am on the right team...His team. And more important than any "correct parenting style", I need to be willing to fight for these precious kids with a relentless hope...to believe against all odds that they can find healing and peace in the midst of their chaotic worlds through Christ Jesus alone.

Beth interviewed a man facing considerable grief over many different losses, and he shared the following with her, recounted in her book: "The most helpful people to me are those who are willing to count the cost of stepping into the experience of someone in deep pain and who allow themselves to offer what truly matters in that moment--a heart willing to share the pain." God brought this question to my heart: Am I willing to the count the cost, to step down into the muddy pit of pain that so many of these kids face? Am I willing to offer them my heart, to share in their pain? I can learn thousands of parenting techniques, but Jesus is the only one who can capture and transform broken hearts. Am I willing to carry these kids to Him? No matter how broken their little hearts are? Am I willing to stick with them through the valleys and the mountains, to hold onto relentless hope for them and with them?

As I have already begun to pray for these kids, God has given me the vision, the calling, to be a part of "extracting the precious from the worthless" in the lives of these kids. The following Scripture passage (from Jeremiah 15) has become my plea, my prayer, and my mission:

¹⁸ Why has my pain been perpetual
And my wound incurable, refusing to be healed?
Will You indeed be to me like a deceptive stream with water that is unreliable?
¹⁹ Therefore, thus says the LORD,
“If you return, then I will restore you—
Before Me you will stand;
And if you extract the precious from the worthless, You will become My spokesman...
²⁰ “Then I will make you to this people
A fortified wall of bronze...
For I am with you to save you
And deliver you,” declares the LORD.

I am praying that God empowers me to extract the precious from the worthless...to see the beautiful things that God wants to plant in the mud, to believe in His redemption for these kids and to cling to it with relentless hope.

I will still read parenting books, I'm sure. I will still make lists and I will still research. But through it all, I will pray. I will whisper these words over and over again:
"Show me the right path, Oh Lord. Point out the road for me to follow" (Psalm 25:4).

And more than anything, I will believe that He makes beautiful things...no matter the mess we give Him to work with.