Faith

Tonight I was watching "16 and Pregnant" on MTV. This episode was about a girl named Lori. Lori is a senior in high school who got pregnant (bet you didn't see that coming!!!). I watched this show and just sobbed. Lori's parents wanted her to give the baby up for adoption but she and the birth father weren't so sure. This couple had a bad relationship and in the end Lori knew that she didn't have any other options so she had to give her baby up for adoption. Her story, along with the adoptive couples journey in this, seemed all too familiar with ours. Watching the heart break this was causing everyone and even the tears that the adoptive couple had during the ceremony they had at the hospital. I was just a mess after watching this.

So, knowing that these emotions were coming from somewhere, I took it to the Lord. I just cried to my Father and told Him how I was feeling. How I want to be a mother and that I am sorry I haven't just let Him be in control of the situation. Then I opened my Bible to Hebrews. I remember Mike and I talking about how he found a few verses there that encouraged him so I turned there as well.

Hebrews 11-12...click here to read it.

These chapters talked about faith. Verse 1 reads "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." Ok...I was totally reading this out loud and before I even finished this sentence, God had me completely in tears. Faith isn't waiting for God do everything your heart desires but that God will perform all that He promises and is the foundation for us to build all our hopes for the future on.

Reading about all the people in the Bible who had faith: Abel, Enoch, Abraham and Sarah, Moses...reminds me that God desires for us to trust that He is working in us in a way that we might not see. I feel that God is using this time of struggle and waiting that we have experienced to make me a better woman and ultimately a better mother. I know that He is making my faith unshakable and putting my relationship with Him upon a firm foundation. These are the unseen ways that God is blessing me by my having faith in Him.

The verse that I am going to cling to this week is Hebrews 12: 1-2..."Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God." I love how this brings us back to the cross....right where we need to be constantly looking to, no matter where we are in life. That truly is faith.