Under His Wings

As I sit outside this morning doing my devotions , birds are fluttering all around me.  The last several weeks the Lord has been speaking to me about my children that are not yet home, through the birds around me and the nesting they are doing to prepare for the little ones soon to arrive. So as I sit hear listening to the birds singing all around me, I am pondering a mental image from a book I recently read. A mama eagle perched in her nest with her 3 young chicks and a storm is raging all around.  The mama has a wing outstretched covering her babies, and under her wing they slept.

Psalm 91:4 He will cover you with his feathers and under his wings you will find refuge...

so as I watched these birds fluttering around me another vs. came to mind Matthew 6:25-27, in these vs. Jesus is basically saying stop worrying, the birds don't worry and look how well they are cared for.  I don't need to worry about my precious baby birds in ET they are gently covered under the wings of the most High God. They will find refuge, though the storm rages all around, they will sleep peacefully under his feathers, finding refuge and care.  Thank you Jesus

Twins perhaps

I found this picture about a year ago. It says A DOUBLE BLESSING at the bottom.  If you've ever been to our house you know I have a collection of these baby pictures hanging on my wall going up the stairs to the boys rooms.  After I found this picture I began to see twins everywhere at church, Walmart, in ads, and on TV. So I began to make a list of twin spottings and I soon gave up after about a month because there were too many to count.  I know this is God speaking to me as only he can, reassuring me, leading me gently along this long road of waiting, encouraging me with a double blessing at the end of this long adoption road.

Hope

My fast has ended I feel God encouraging me to place all my hope in him.  I read through the book 30 Days of Prayer for the Voiceless, my hope seemed to drain out, the evil and oppression some live through is hard for me to comprehend and as I wait for our children to come home and I pray that they are not experiencing these kind of things, I must put all of my hope in him.

A couple of weeks ago I asked the church congregation to pray for our children as the wait seemed to be dragging on forever, and of course I got emotional as I always do when I talk about our adoption.  After church, people asked me if we'd been matched with a child yet, etc etc., and I knew they couldn't comprehend my bond to children I didn't know anything about or even how many children we're getting.  It's hard to explain that I know because God has told me there are two and it's hard to explain that God has already connected my heart to theirs and so my heart aches to hold them in my arms.  I know people mean well and they are trying to understand, and yet they don't understand.  I feel like an island in this adoption.  I see others on the horizon trying to see and understand but their view is limited and their understanding limited because their knowledge is all gathered from a distance.

A week or so after I shared at church, a lady stopped me after Sunday school and asked me how our adoption was going and I went into my usual explanation, but she stopped me and  held out her hand to me.  I didn't understand at first that she was trying to give me something.  She handed me a small, yellow glass disc and on it was the word HOPE.  She said, "you just hold on to this while you wait."  I teared up and thanked her.  She had touched my heart deeply, maybe she hadn't experienced the ups and downs of adoption but she had understood my despair and knew I needed hope that day.  I know she was being obedient to God, He had sent her to gently remind me where my hope should be placed. 

Romans 15:13
So I pray for you Gentiles that God who gives hope will keep you happy and full of peace as you believe in him.  I pray that God will help you overflow with hope in him through the Holy Spirit's power within you.

Leigha

Female Suicide Bombers

Day 14

Definition:  Women who are recruited to die with explosive belts strapped around their waists o kill others under the guise of equality, the promise of rehabilitating a family member, or cleansing their own reputations.

Female suicide bombers believe their destiny is to become the bride of Allah in paradise.

Streets, hospitals, babies and children's events are named after "martyrs."

A portion of the book: "The women were awkwardly silent.  Malbrook spoke a little about her daughter, spoke with pride, but there was something else in her voice and manner.  She seemed weighted with sadness; a deep, abiding grief that she had never stopped carrying since the day she lost her daughter.  Her voice was soft.  She told the women that she still cried all the time, "day and night" for Wafa--who had died several years before.

One of the women went to Malbrook, and held her hand.  She looked into the older woman's eyes as she knelt beside her.  Then she prayed, never turning away her gaze.  Tears flowed on more than one face in the room.  'Did you know what she was going to do?'  one of the women asked, referring to Wafa's plans to kill herself as a female suicide bomber.

'No,' said her mother.  'If I had known, I would have stopped her.'
(30 Days of Prayer for he Voiceless)

Oh Father the you would hear the crys' of these desperate women.  That you would intervene.  I pray you would send missionaries to reveal to them the truth of your love, that they would not feel compelled to kill themselves and others.  Oh Father be with the victims and the families of those who are murdered, only you can heal the wound.
In Jesus name, Amen.

Pornography

Day 13

Definition: Pornography is the explicit depiction of sexual activity in literature, films, photography or the Internet, that stimulates erotic feelings.

The pornography industry is a $57 billion global business, $12 billion of this is in the US.  This is larger than the combined revenues of all professional football, baseball and basketball franchises in the US.

47% of Christian men say pornography is a a major problem in the home.

A portion of the book:  "She will be invited onto the movie screen of his mind, loyal to him as he trains his body and mind to think of her as an object to grope and ravage and touch.  And then with a a single movement of his finger, the flip of a page, she will be ushered back into the dark recesses of his mind.  With the click of his finger at  his computer, she will be filed away.  She will wait there until he tires of the other lovers, old an new: a fix, a stimulant.  His beautiful lover without a name." (30 Days of Prayer for the Voiceless)

Oh Father forgive us for turning something so beautiful into something so harmful.  You intended sex to be between a husband and a wife an expression of love and when it is made into something it wasn't meant to be it wrecks havoc in so many lives.  Father help those trapped in pornography to break free and find freedom in you.  In Jesus name, Amen.

Barren Women

Day 12

Definition:  A woman incapable of conceiving or unable to get pregnant.

In some places motherhood is the only way for women to enhance their status within the family.

The impact of infertility is compounded because women are generally held responsible for reproductive failure.  This blame may result in divorce, husbands taking a second wife, difficulties with in-laws, domestic violence and economic abandonment.

This is a topic I know too well.  I don't even have to deal with many of the repercussions that many women do, but i know the pain that comes from not being able to bear a child.  God has used my infertility as a great blessing to us, we have children from Colombia and Ethiopia and without a very hard dry season of infertility we wouldn't have know the beauty of adoption.  It has taught us so much, we have a new deeper understanding of all that the Father has done for us and we better understand that he adopted us for his great pleasure.  but for many cultures infertility is viewed much differently and adoption isn't even in their vocabulary.

Let's read a portion of the book:  "I am barren.  Every month I hold my breath and say a prayer--many prayers--and every month the turning moon mocks my fragile hopes as it calls forth another river of blood.  Oh God, what would I give to stem that implacable tide!
I am despised by men who don't see any purpose for me apart from bearing children.  I am pitied by women who are more favored than I, and of whom I am jealous with an intensity that sometimes borders on madness.  I am utterly alone, and full of emptiness that devours me from the inside out -- a long, slow, agonizing death of the heart.  Little by little I am being eaten alive, and one day there will be nothing left." (30 Days of Prayer for the Voiceless)

Oh Father that you would open the wombs of these women.  That you would hear their prayers just as you did with Leah and Rachel.  Oh Father, that cultures would change and women would be valued for who they are and not for how many sons they can produce.  Open eyes to see women the way that you see them.  In Jesus name Amen.

Incest

Day 11

Definition:  Sexual intercourse or other sexual activity between persons so closely related that marriage between them is legally or culturally prohibited.

68% of incest survivors were adult victims of rape or attempted rape.

In East Africa 9 out of 10 girls are abused by the people who they trust most.

A portion of the book:  "'You're a woman now Anna.'  By this , her uncle means that she can be kicked, mutilated, sold like a commodity, burnt, at the stake, raped.  'You're a woman now, Anna,' says her uncle.

When Anna closes her eyes to pray, the memory plays out in her mind. the nightmare of that night forces itself upon her against he will.  All at once she is on her uncle's farm again , in the barn.  There to see the new litter of kittens her uncle said were born early that morning.  Before she can ask him where the kittens are, his hand is on her shoulder.

There are no kittens.  Then it all happens.  Quickly.  He grabs her by each arm and pushes her into the hay.  The scream is sucked out of her chest as she is pushed harder against the ground.  Her voice is trapped somewhere between her stomach and her heart.  She can't pull away." (30 Days of Prayer for the Voiceless)

It makes me so angry and sick to type these words, to imagine what this young girl was forced to endure.  I can't begin to imagine the suffering that she faced, by someone who was supposed to love and protect her. 

Oh God, I cry out to you with an anguished soul.  I pray you would come to these children, who are victim of incest and bring your healing to them.  I pray they would allow you to minister to them as only you can.  Bring people in their lives that can help them heal and overcome this evil violation.   I pray for your justice to come here on earth as it does in heaven.  I pray these perpetrators would not get away with their crimes.  I pray government officials would diligent tin caring out justice.  In Jesus name Amen.