What is your most fervent prayer? Is it about your mothering? Is it still unanswered? Or do you celebrate God’s gift of that answered prayer every single day? Praise God, if that‘s your answer! Otherwise, join the crowd.
Imagine hearing one of your children question how can there be a god who would take his baby brother? Oh, by the way, that same young man lost five friends the year prior to losing his younger brother. His faith’s shaken to the very core of his being – and his beliefs.
May I ask a question?
Is that the reason folks turn away from God – deep pain? So often…
May I ask another question – How do you answer when you’re broken too?
Pain. Hurt. Despair. Yet buried in denial.
Am I talking about how I feel about his statement? Or how he himself feels? To state there is no god requires a hurt so deep, I can’t fathom it. Can you?
Let me backtrack a little. I used to joke that I’d be a successful mom IF 1) I got the boys to adulthood 2) without going to jail and 3) they loved the Lord God.
21 Words kill, words give life;
they’re either poison or fruit—you choose.
Proverbs 18:21 (MSG)
Oh, how our words create our world! I thought I was joking, yet poison spewed from my mouth unwittingly. What words are coming out of yours? Choose them wisely.
My older son called one night – from jail.
Strike 1. So there we sat in the jail waiting room under the sign stating who built it – the company my husband worked for. Yea, it was one of his buildings…
Then my younger son died.
Strike 2. Thank God he knew and loved the Lord!
And my older says he’s an atheist.
Strike 3.
So that self-definition of a good mother…How’s it holding up? It’s not. I’ve failed miserably by my own standards.
But God…
Calls me His own
3 What marvelous love the Father has extended to us! Just look at it—we’re called children of God! That’s who we really are. But that’s also why the world doesn’t recognize us or take us seriously, because it has no idea who he is or what he’s up to. 1 John 3:1 (MSG)
Says He will save our children
24 Who can snatch the plunder of war from the hands of a warrior?
Who can demand that a tyrant let his captives go?
25 But the Lord says,
“The captives of warriors will be released,
and the plunder of tyrants will be retrieved.
For I will fight those who fight you,
and I will save your children.
Isaiah 49:24-25 (NLT)
And God tells me He loves me just like He loved:
- Abraham, who slept with his slave woman, yet he fathered nations
- Elijah, who hid from God, yet he called down fire from Heaven
- King David, who was an adulterer and murdered, yet was a man after God’s own heart
So do I throw in the towel and give up on this “mothering” thing?
Would you? Or is that the stupidest question you have read in a long time? We know these children are ours for life! Do I owe it to my son to persevere in prayer for the salvation of his soul? No, yet I freely seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness for his sake – and mine.
I’m fighting the enemy for my son’s soul. I trust God as The Father of my son to save him as Isaiah 49:25 states. I also know only God can pierce a fiercely guarded heart and mind in ways I can’t begin to ask or imagine. So I love my son, genuinely.
I will continue to pursue Christ, to savor His word and to pray fervent prayers for my child…and yours!
It takes a village…Hillary had that right.
The enemy is not just playing with our children and us. He has ONE purpose – to steal, kill and destroy each one of us.
To steal our identity in Christ.
To kill our hope in the Lord.
And to destroy our God-given destiny.
Stand firm, then in the day of evil and armor up! Ephesians 6:10-20 And PRAY always…
In Jesus name. Amen
Mother taught me, “Can’t is a coward too lazy to try-and I’m NOT raising cowards.”
Yes you can, she would say. I agree. Yes, you and I can, for we can do all things through Christ Jesus.