If you Weary with the Footmen. . . .

I wrote this a few months ago and am reviving it

1. For my own reminder as we wait for spring to arrive

and

2. Because traffic has increased to this blog, so I wanted to share this with my new readers as well.



In this time of waiting and praying, wondering how God is going to fulfill His vision, He has shown me clearly that it's not a time of nothingness. 

“If you have raced with men on foot, and they have wearied you, how will you compete with horses? And if in a safe land you are so trusting, what will you do in the thicket of the Jordan?"

Jeremiah 12:5

If you weary with the footmen. . .

If I can't handle the pace of my life now as a mom of 1. . .

     If I can't handle getting up at 2:00 a.m. to change wet sheets without grumbling and complaining. . .
     
         If I can't learn how to get up early to be ready for my waking child, despite morning sickness and a night of restless sleep. . .

                   If I can't learn to manage my schedule by the hour and maximize the use of my time. . .

       If I can't learn to make my waking hours about my family's needs instead of my own agenda. . . 

           If I can't learn how to budget. . . and create healthy meals full of nutrition. . .and a house that is cozy and warm and appealing to the eye with what little I have now. . .

Then how do I think I'm going to be able to do this with a house full of children?  Who will be ill all night long? Who will need homeschooling and physical and occupational therapy throughout the day? Who will be awake early and go to bed late?  Who will take double time to give baths to and who may be dependent on diapers that need to be changed for the rest of their lives?

What will you do in the thicket of Jordan?

             What will I do when a child isn't responding to therapy like they should be?
                     Or who needs a new wheelchair?
                           And one needs to be hospitalized while my other babies stay home without me?

       What will I do when the cupboards are getting bare and my husband is in his winter masonry time with little-to-no-work?
                When all of the children have outgrown their current shoes,
                            and this one needs leg braces
                                   and this one needs dental work?
                 When taxes are due and the hot water heater goes?

         What will I do when people criticize us for the life we have chosen, citing it as unfair to our biological children or accusing us of doing it for attention or foster parenting checks?

            When they roll their eyes at the size of our family and take it personally that it's so large?

                 When they discriminate against my child with AIDS and treat my Down's child as it he  or she is nothing more than a nusiance?


No. . . this time of waiting is not a stagnant time of twiddling my thumbs.

Rather, it's a time of preparation. Learning to be faithful to what I have in front of me today.

To learn to get up early and spend that quantity time with God, staying focused on Him and Him only---not my worries or people's opinions--because it's that, that's going to carry me through people's gossip and criticism and hard times.

It's a time of continuing to budget wisely and cook with what I have in nutritious ways--because nutrition is going to play a huge role in the health of our children.

A time of setting aside my own agenda and focusing on my family, using their sleeping hours for my dream of writing, but taking their waking hours as my role I have been called to.

This is a time of my heart learning to be what it needs to be,

for the fulfillment of the greater vision. 

" One who is faithful with a very little will also be faithful with much."
Luke 16:10a