"Only the power that makes a world can make a Christian." – Wesley Sometimes, I’m tired. Sometimes, I’m discouraged. Sometimes, I’m confused, and let’s face it. Sometimes, I’m angry. Child rearing can do that. Raising children from hard places can do that. The grind of an upward trajectory can do that. Getting up at 6 am, getting children ready that are food obsessed and devoid of any sense of time, and getting them to their properly designated areas before 8 am can do that. Thus, my need to cry out to my Father on a Tuesday morning after a long Monday evening. Had I cried out to Him on Monday evening, there would have been less crying from my little one and less crying on Tuesday morning. That’s how it goes, And days can manage to do a nose dive Straight from bad to worse. There’s this lesson that I’ve learned as of late—answers. They come quickly when we surrender quickly. Surrender to the Holy Spirit, I mean. God doesn’t give us vague notions or fleeting feelings. He gives answers, the kind that speak into our lives in a way that we understand. He knows us so intimately that He can give us answers that catch our eye, snap our head, make us stand upright, and we whisper a profound oh. This was my experience on the Tuesday evening of the Tuesday morning that I decided to wave my white flag to heaven. The little darling that got all this crying started memorizes scripture, every week, for school. Tired, discouraged, confused, and trying not to be angry, I pounded on some keys on the Dell, and staring back at me from the pages of the KJV was my oh. 2 Corinthians 5:17 -- Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. Adoption is hard stuff. Mommas, we desperately want to make our children into something new because where they came from may have done many things but producing a desired effect on our children was not one of them. They are broken. The tears, they come when we can most clearly see the millions of broken pieces and the deepness of the depravity. Yes. Depravity. We all suffer from it. There is only one cure. Jesus. We find the right doctors. We bargain for the right teachers. We read all the latest literature. We connect with other families. We discipline, not too much, not too little. We read them books. We rock them, over, and over, and over. We pick the best food. We stay on a strict schedule --to make them new. All the while, the weight on our shoulders gets heavier and heavier, and every time we nose dive from bad to worse, the guilt chews us up and spits us out. But, have we taken their little hand and led them to a Savior that promises that He will make them new? Have we taken our yoke of perfection off, laid it at His feet, and exchanged it for a yoke of mercy and grace? Have we forgotten that He made the world, and surely, He can make a new creation out of our children? Have we lead them to a bloody mess of a cross where our Savior cloaked himself in our depravity, freed us from death, and broke the chains of every oppression that the evil one seeks to use to bind and destroy? Mommas, lay at your Savior’s feet and rest, and while you’re there show the beauty of a risen Savior to your babies. Give them a reason to fall in love with the One that loves them most. And, one day, when they raise their white flag of surrender to heaven, He will do the work. Married with four children: a daughter, two adopted sons, and a son in heaven, Victoria Paxton blogs at Happy Sparrow. Follow her here.
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