for nothing is impossible...

This week, at our family therapy session, - which was hell by the way - I started thinking: "I can't do this. I am done.  The hurt and pain and needs of these boys goes way deeper than I can help with.  I knew things were going to be bad, but I did not picture it like this. What am I doing? I can't help them. This is impossible. We are not making any progress.  This was a poor decision."

After therapy, I took the boys to Wendy's to get some food and get out of the house because I thought I was going to lose it.  After eating, I decided we were just going to drive for awhile because I didn't know what else to do.  As I was driving, the Holy Spirit did a great deal of comforting and the boys were surprisingly quiet in the back seat.  God reminded me that he is with me and when he is with me, ALL THINGS are possible.  He works outside the realm of natural possibility - after all he is supernatural. He parts the red sea and makes people walk on dry land. He makes bread fall from the sky and water come from a rock.  He makes walls crumble after 7 laps and some trumpets sounding. He raises up an army from dry bones.  He stops the sun.  He calms the storm. He heals the sick. He raises the dead. He kills giants with stones and a sling. He feeds 5000 with a few loaves and fish. He has never broken a promise.  He died and rose again, showing that He has power over the worst in and around us. And he has told me that with Him and because of Him nothing will be impossible.

For nothing will be impossible with God. - Luke 1:37

    He said to them, “Because of your little faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you." - Matthew 17:20

Nothing is impossible with God.  He has so clearly brought me here, brought the boys here. I am just like the Israelites complaining to Moses that they want to go back to Egypt because they could not see or understand what God was doing.  I have forgotten that God is with me, leading me, and providing for me just when I need it.  Each day I need the reminder that nothing, NO single solitary thing, is impossible for God. He is working now in ways that I can't and may never see.  He is able. I am not gonna make it because I am strong or gifted with kids or because this is gonna get easier some day - but because He is with me and has got a hold of me! I need not be afraid of the impossible because the Creator of all things is with me. In the midst of fear, frustration, and exhaustion, I can and have to trust that my God is greater than all I know. I will probably need you to remind me though. :)

The song called God is Able by Hillsong has been on repeat as a much needed reminder this week...

God is Able  
He will never fail  
He is almighty God
Greater than all we seek  
Greater than all we ask  
He has done great things
 
Lifted up, He defeated the grave  
Raised to life, our God is able  
In His name, we overcome  
For the Lord, our God is able   
God is with us 

God is on our side  
He will make a way
Far above all we know  
Far above all we hope  
He has done great things
 
Lifted up, He defeated the grave 
Raised to life, our God is able  
In His name, we overcome  
For the Lord, our God is able
God is with us  

He will go before  
He will never leave us  
He will never leave us
God is for us  
He has open arms  
He will never fail us  
He will never fail us
 
Lifted up, He defeated the grave  
Raised to life, our God is able  
In His name, we overcome  
For the Lord, our God is able
 
Lifted up, He defeated the grave  
Raised to life, our God is able  
In His name, we overcome  
For the Lord, our God is able
 
For the Lord, our God is able 
For the Lord, our God is able

pity party of one...

With all the change and the challenges in the last 3 months, I caught myself throwing a party.  The kind of party you want everyone join you in, but it is the exact kind of party that no one wants join.  I think planning of this party started when the honeymoon period of all this change started to wear off.  The grace I was happy to extend was waning. It had been almost three months and it was still just as hard, or harder, than when this all began.  I was frustrated. I wanted things to be different.  My strength was wearing out and I feel like nothing was getting better.  I was planning my own pity party.  I started thinking of all the reasons to throw this party:

1. This was hardest thing I had ever done and I want it to be over, but there is no end date in sight.
2. We can't do things that normal families do.
3. I am going at this alone - no husband to help.
4. It is messy - physically and metaphorically (my house smells like boys and I don't know what I am doing half the time).
5. I am tired of people telling me that this is just how their kids act or they know how I feel.
6. My friends are still trying figure out how to help and be around so this feels quite lonely.
7. This is all quite different than I expected.

After I started throwing this miserable party that no one was attending, the Lord was good to come in correct some things.

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. 

- James 1:2-4

I don't think James is telling us to count the pain and suffering of our trial as joy. No I think he is telling us that the fact that we are enduring a trial is proof that God loves us.  He is crafting us to look more like him.  We can rest in knowing that this hardship, whether it is from obedience or disobedience, is to shape us to be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.  I can take joy in the fact that when this is over or if this ever gets easier, I will look more like Jesus.

James also points out that our trials are of various kinds.  Everyone's trials are different.  They have to be because we are different.  I start feeling sorry for myself when I compare my trials to someone else's.  I start thinking that their's is easier or shorter or at least they have a husband to help, etc.  But this verse shows me that my trials are designed specifically for me. God has chosen them for me. They are my trials, given to me to make me look more like Christ. Each person is given different trials to make us perfect and complete - whether it is foster kids, an illness that may become terminal, an unexpected pregnancy, the death of a family member, the loss of a job, etc. The truth is, for me your trials may be easier or harder, but they wouldn't make me look more like Christ.  And my trials might be easier or harder for you to handle, but that is not what will make you look more like Christ.  He is glorified in our weakness, so of course our trials are going to bring out what is weakest in us, but this is for our good. Our trials are specifically chosen for us by our Creator who knows what is best for us, in order that we may be perfect and complete lacking in nothing and that He may get the glory for it.

Over the past week, as I have stopped feeling sorry for myself, stopped comparing, and started leaning in just a little more.  Things have gotten easier.  My circumstances have not changed - in fact this week a bunk bed ladder was thrown across a room - but my outlook has changed and a little bit of joy creeps in every now and then. I take joy knowing that I am not alone and that because of this one day I will look more like Jesus.