Whoa, hello there! I’m completely embarrassed by how long it’s been, and this promised “Part 3” that’s been sitting on my chest for months. I’ll keep it short by saying some difficult “life” has happened over the last few months. Our little family is doing fantastic, but lives around me seem to be spinning out of control. I’m a person who wrestles in the Spirit on the behalf of those I love…so I guess you could say my spiritual, mental, and emotional energy has been poured out on my knees. Probably most difficult was recently watching a friend loose her daughter with special needs...it has made it hard for me to think or write about these things. But I got up tonight; I got my knees off of my kitchen floor (quite literally) and sat down at the computer. So here I am, just me at my weakest. Praying that Part 3: A Greater Glory will resound in your spirit like it does in mine.
I love music, adore it, sing it all the time. When no one is around, I belt my lungs out! Haha
Our dog is probably my biggest fan. LOL Seriously, he’s the only one who has ever
heard me lay it all out vocally. I don’t
have the nerve to do that in front of people.
I can give a pretty good church performance, but there isn’t anything
like raw worship when it’s just you and God.
And that’s what His glory is all about…laying it all out there and just
giving your heart over to Him. It’s
about what kind of worship goes on inside of you when no one else is around and
listening.
This message is EXTREMELY counter-culture. I’ll probably get hate mail! That’s
probably the reason I’ve been procrastinating saying this. Hear me now, as the parent of a broken child
who would give just about anything fathomable to have my child healed. She is to His greater glory as she is.
He is quite a capable God, people!
He could have stepped in at any moment and spared us this road. He could use a new medicine, a radical
treatment, the laying on of hands, or the desperate prayers of a mother over
her sleeping child….but He didn’t, and He hasn’t. So, I have to look at this situation and
deduce that even though it’s not what I want, something about who Abbey is on
this earth screams His name out louder than anything else could. Maybe it’s her smile, her unconditional love,
her determination, her grace, her innocence, her beauty? I don’t know, I have no idea. But, I believe with every fiber in my being
that Abbey reflects the character and presence of our God more accurately, more
to His great glory, exactly as she is.
So, I have a choice.
I can resent that or I can surrender to it. Let me tell you, it hasn’t been an easy road
coming to a place of surrender. It’s
against my nature to say, “Whatever God…Whatever you have for me, I will
worship you!” Wowzers,
that’s some tough stuff to swallow. If
you’re not a believer, it will sound like total insanity. But if you are, just let it hover on your
mind. God’s glory…not ours. Not our
happiness, not our wealth, not our health. NOT. OUR. GLORY.
This has everything and nothing to do with
whether or not you have a child with special needs that you want to be
healed. This is about you. It’s about
letting go of control and surrendering your life to something that in the eyes
of this world makes absolutely no sense at all.
And, it’s about me. It’s about finding a song of worship deep in my soul
and singing the heck out of it at the top of my lungs. Despite it all…and because of it all. It’s about making a choice to trust that God
has it figured out, and that our disabled children display the very splendor
and majesty of God by being exactly who they are. And we can display that too, when we choose
to surrender to His plan for our lives. I have to do this over and over and over
again. I don’t always get it right, but
I keep trying. I keep letting it go, and
when I do I’m so overwhelmed by God’s gentleness and mercy over my life that I
can hardly contain it.
Here’s a song that Ryan and I have been
listening to a lot lately. One of the
singers in the group lost his father unexpectedly…this song came out of that
loss. It’s a song about giving God glory no matter what happens in this life,
because of our hope in Him for eternity, and quite frankly..because He deserves
it. Very powerful stuff!
Amen and amen!
ReplyDeletelisa k.
This is perfect for where I am and what God is teaching me. It is so easy to blame God and natural to be angry or disappointed when something horrible happens like losing someone or other things. But we must confess and surrender our sin to him- even if we are sinning directly towards him by having resentment towards him. Laying it down at the mercy seat and under grace. That's where the healing begins. Honesty with God. Not living life the "right way" because we know that's what we should do as "Christians". It's not enough to fake it till you make it- to fake the patience and the kindness cause that's what we know we should do. God wants us to live under the grace, not under the law. So when something earth shattering occurs we have to run to him and talk to him and be honest with him about it and his grace will bring us through in his supernatural way. That the distance our dissatisfaction with our circumstances sometimes creates between God and us is to much to bear. That we can lay down all of our negative feelings toward God and he will heal us of them. That whatever we go through or whatever life brings we know He loves us we know that we have His favor as believers in Him.
ReplyDeleteThanks for letting God speak through you and sharing your struggles and hope.
-Taylor Wilson
Very good Kimberly. Thanks for sharing from the depths of your soul and blessing me with your words, the song and Piper. Total abandonment to the will of God whatever it is knowing He is pure goodness and is taking us to a place of exquisite beauty and bliss in the end. Your example, my sister, edifies me and strengthens me as I think back on my own road of suffering.
ReplyDeletePastor Rick