I AM HIS CHILD

There has been so much on my mind lately I have not been able to form words. 2010 looks to be promising and exciting but it is difficult to feel that way when there are people in our world who are suffering. Haiti was hit with a 7.0+ earthquake on January 7, 2010. I could not bring myself to watch or listen to the news for two days. John Mark had been informing me about what was going on. Then I was listening to the radio and heard the words of Pat Robertson. Anger grew. How could someone be so completely stupid? I called JM in tears as I felt my anger get stronger and stronger. “Is there no compassion for people anymore”, I thought to myself. “Why is one person ready to destroy so much faith?” I prayed. “Oh Lord forgive him, and make yourself known to your children in Haiti.” As bodies where being pulled out of the rubble people where singing hymns to the Lord. It gave me hope in the Lord Jesus Christ’s salvation.

It is still difficult for me to think that so much devastation has happened. So many people are suffering and their basic needs are not being met. I do not want to presume that I know why the quake happened, because I do not. And why? Well, I am asking that same question, why God why? Psalm 130:5 (New International Version) 5 I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope. I am hoping in our God that loves and saves. Praying that the people in Haiti know that God is with them. JM and I continue to wrestle with being thankful that we are here in our home safe and sound but wanting to be in Haiti helping people. To maybe just be able to give someone water, or hold them or listen to them or pray with them. To maybe just bring some hope to people in need. Why God, oh why? I know I will never know the answer to that question but I know that God is with them and that our prayers are being heard by our Lord.
There are many things in my life that I ask God why about. Like, why God do I have a dad that felt the need to leave me? Why did he not want me? For so many years I felt like I was stuck under that rubble trying to yell for help and begged for someone to be there. No one was. Not the ones I thought would be anyways. I thought my dad would have gone through thick and thin to be with his children. Isn’t that how God had planned it? Isn’t it suppose to be that the parent loves the child and the child is protected by the parent? Thankfully my mom was just that. Hard as it was for her and me at times she was stronger and fought hard for me. She was there for everything; all the bad, all the good and all the in betweens. But as much as she tried to be everything for me there I was wanting the one thing I could not have. My own dad! So, why? Why did he leave me? Where is he now? I am really not sure. I have thought long and hard about why but really all it has given me is wasted time. I much rather think about why God saved me? Why did he call me his beloved? I know why, because I AM HIS CHILD. That is what the Father does. He calls us to him and we come because he loves us and he stays with us!

I can not begin to explain to you how hard it is still for me to even say I AM HIS CHILD and that God my Father would turn the world upside to find me. That feeling was never present with my dad. In fact my dad’s words to me where “I need to get my priorities straight and I am sorry, but you are not that priority right now.” Talk about being a total bleep! And at the age of 15 or 16 I knew what he meant. How can you not? How can you not know what your dad means when he says that to your face? Maybe if my dad was in my life I would not have had to try to fill voids. But I did and I did it feeling numb. Do you know what it feels like to not be wanted and then to be told you are not wanted. For a teenage girl it was death. So I partied, I drank and I did what ever I wanted. In fact there was a night in high school where I really should have just died. I left my house angry because of my dad and went to party with “friends”. There I proceeded to drink until I somehow got home, and then ended up in the hospital. I could hear my mom crying for my brother to call the ambulance. My little sister sat crying. I should have died. Something did not let me and I wondered why that next day. To my surprise my dad was at the hospital. He was there at my bed side. I really did not care that he was there. I really rather had just been alone. But he took me to my mom’s house. I wish that I could say we had a profound and changing conversation about how much he loved me and how much I belonged to him, but we didn’t. He took me home sat next to me and left. And that is what he is good at. Leaving. My poor mom, I can not believe all the crap I put her through. I am so sorry Mom!

There are a few times in my life I should have never made it. I was not breathing when I was born and the doctors had told my mom that I would have brain damage if I lived. I used to have convulsions as a child due to high fevers. And there was the time I drank way to much in high school. I was in a bad car accident in college where I should have never been able to walk way, but I did. I now know that God had a plan for my life, a plan for my welfare and not to harm me, to give me a future with HOPE! Thank you Jesus that you saved me; that you where with me everyday of my life even though I could not see you or hear you. There was too much crap in the way and I was stupid forgive me. But for the last 16 years of my life I am happy that I can call you FATHER. My beloved. So when I think of why things happen in this world I think of God’s plan for each of his children. His beloved children that he longs to love and be with.

*These are expression of my own and I do not express the feelings of my siblings and their relations with our dad.