Those that say they follow Christ are great at touting rhetoric, but putting it into action is a bigger challenge. Letting your children live it is the BIGGEST challenge. I am having an emotional struggle with the evening news. See this is my son doing what he loves most in a place he wants to spend a good portion of his life:
Andy would like to help run an orphanage in Haiti. We always had a feeling things would go this way. This is not something that we take credit for or believe is a higher calling than, say taking care of your neighbor. It does, however, require us to let Andy go. He told me he would not go if we did not support it because it would be dishonoring. In the year since Andy Haiti as his destination after high school graduation there has been a devastating earthquake, a cholera outbreak, and an election riot. These I could deal with only mild trepidation.
The news of Duvalier's return to Haiti, however, has unnerved me. I don't know why this particular event is the trigger, but it is. I am left to ponder.....
is the safety and life of this boy.....
more important than
the life and safety of this boy?
Romans 12:1-5 (NIV)
Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you. For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.
The Holy Spirit is challenging me to stop praying that his trip be detoured to a safer country. What am I really asking of God? Or maybe I should be wondering what is He asking of me?
Andy may or may not end up in Haiti, but that is not really the point. God is asking me to hold my son's life loosely. I have surrendered myself to Him, but can I surrender my sons to him. Will my heart allow, without resentment or overriding fear, Andy and Alex to follow the paths God has set out for them? Can I accept that they are actually more His than mine and He loves them more than I do?
God gave barren Elizabeth a son in her old age, only to have him sacrifice his life declaring His Truth. Mary was called blessed but watched her son die on a cross for all of humanity. Hannah gave up Samuel shortly after he was born to keep her promise to God. Do I want to love God as passionately and sacrificially as these women did? Do I trust Him?
I need to let my children go where God calls them, regardless of the danger, the risk, the potential rejection or hurt. It is better to hold them loosely than to have them pried from my fingers...because there is much more at stake than just my children.
"For love to be real, it must cost—it must hurt—it must empty us of self."
— Mother Teresa
— Mother Teresa
for what it's worth, I've been praying that God would capture my boys' hearts for missions. There is nothing I would love more than to see them 100% immersed in serving God because they love Him so passionately. I know that when I get to the point in the journey where you are I will have the same fears and difficulties. How encouraging it must be though, to be letting him go to a life of service for his Creator! :) Stacy
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