Dust

(writen over a two week period)

Sometimes I wonder if God has me confused for someone else.  Sometimes I look at my life and I get scarred.  I get scarred that there is no use in dreaming anymore.

Tonight a baby boy is being born.  A baby that I fell in love with and dreamed was MY baby.  But, I'm not the mama who is rushing to the hospital to meet her adoptive son.  And my heart is broken all over again.  (even as my heart rejoices with extreme joy for this mama ... more on that maybe later)

Why?

Proverbs 13:12 says: "Hope deferred makes the heart sick.  But desire realized brings healing to the bones."  And tonight my heart is sick.

Exactly one week ago it became evident to me that the doors we had been knocking on relentlessly for going to Zambia in the late summer were shut.  Something I had wanted so bad and something I had allowed myself to dream about isn't happening (at least not at this time).  The door we had turned down for a specific teaching job in the states seems to be the door we are now being asked to knock on, and my stubborn heart doesn't want this.  I want what WE had planned.  I wanted to go to Zambia and find a child God had put in my heart there.  But again, the door slammed shut.  And my heart is numb.

Why?

Only one day after I started this blog, I ended up admitted to the hospital where I spent nine days, had a NG tube put in my nose (not a fun experience for those of you wondering), tests, throwing up, laying for hours in a hospital alone (when my husband was student teaching and couldn't be there).  I failed at responsibilities and had to stand by and watch others scramble to cover what I usually do day to day.   And my heart felt like it couldn't stand another moment of being me.

Why?

If you are thinking that I have some amazingly profound answer to my "why" questions, you can stop reading now.  Because the truth is I don't know why.  I don't know why God would allow my heart to love a child and then take that child from me.  I don't know why God would let me dream of living in Africa (finally!) only to shut that door.  I don't know why when my health has been so stable I would suddenly have to deal with a whole new set of issues and decisions about future treatments.  I don't know why in the midst of health struggles I would question who I can trust with what is going on with my health, why I would struggle with being who I am and allowing God's strength to show through my weakness. 

But I do know one thing.

God makes beautiful things from the dust.  And that's what I cling to in moments like these.  Because, right now, my life feels like dust.  I am grieving the loss of dreams ... again.  I am wondering what the future holds for my health ... again.  And through it all with white knuckles I am clinging to the truth that God DOES make beautiful things from the dust ... from US.  In all our ugliness, all our sin and selfishness, in all our brokenness and in all our pain ... beauty out of ashes.  Take a moment and listen to THIS.  Is your life in a place of dust?  Trust that He can and will make beautiful things - even from what you are going through right now.

Give Him the control and let Him make what He wants from the broken dust of your life.