Trust and Obey

Obedience is the theme weaving through my life now. God reminds me as the seasons change; the way the leaves begin their duty of turning, changing, and falling. He whispers to me as the sun sets and brilliant colors interplay with light until darkness swallows them away to rest. All of nature obediently follows the path the Lord has set for them.

Yet, in His goodness, God gives man freedom of choice.

Who are we that we should entertain thoughts that our ways are higher than His? Yet, when we cease to immediately obey, isn't that what we do?

Adoption was my highest form of obedience. When God called us to adopt ten years ago, He spoke to my husband and me in supernatural ways that only He can do. We knew without a doubt what God was telling us...asking us to do. Our understanding of His will and our obedience to it has been an extreme blessing that has transformed so many areas in my life. Like a pebble thrown into a body of water, the effects have reached far and wide.

Now He has chosen us for adoption again. But, just as no child is the same, no person is the same, no pregnancy is the same, no adoption story is the same. He is calling our hearts to a little girl who has spent most of her eight years in an orphanage among "the least of these." Her special need will be addressed with surgery when she comes home to her forever family, so in the midst of transition and so many new and scary things to her, she will also have to deal with many medical visits and hospitalizations.

These issues are bigger than my husband or me. They are not too big for God. He created her. He created us. He knew His plan long before any of us were born.  His ways are higher than ours. His ways are perfect as He develops us...not be become flawless, but more perfectly like Him as we are transformed daily into more of who He created us to be.

Transformation isn't pretty. Nor is it easy. But just as the caterpillar undergoes a radical shift from a wormlike larvae to a gorgeous and delicate work of art and grace, He is reworking us with every request for obedience.