Chapter Six : The Year of Confusion

The last chapter ended with a broken heart.  

As we tried to process all that had happened,
seeds of doubt found fertile soil in our heads and hearts.

Maybe we had failed.
Maybe it was God's way of telling us "no."
  Maybe the "door" had closed.

Maybe we never should have started.

Maybe...maybe...maybe...

Wondering 
always gets me into a heap of trouble.

Always.

It is a huge stumbling block.

 Here is my own special recipe:

wondering + worrying + wrestling = confusion + doubt + fear.

I don't recommend.

And so we wandered together through almost a year of confusion. The months went by with only one foster referral coming our way.  That one referral was an obvious "no" this time.  More and more foster training packets were delivered. They sat collecting dust as we let our license expire--not intentionally, mind you. We were frustrated, dazed, and confused.  Soon we found ourselves stuck in a rut of doubt and fear, not going anywhere. After all, it was getting kinda' comfortable here in this rut.  Kinda' safe.  Kinda' easy,  like setting life on cruise control.  If God really wanted us to do this it wouldn't have been so hard. It would have had a happy ending. He would have given a clearer path. 

Right?

Retelling this part of our journey gives me a whole new appreciation for this:

"The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love." ~Psalm 103:8

                  

Thankfully, the Lord is compassionate and gracious, and He led me to attend a new-to-me Bible study where He proceeded to give me the big old kick in the pants I needed. And this verse, my friends, was my personal wake up call from the Word:

"Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.  Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do."~James 1:22-25

 

OUCH.  

God's Word clearly tells us to care for orphans and widows. 

We knew that God had called us to care through adoption.  Yet, things didn't go the way we had planned, and God didn't give us all the answers we thought we needed to continue. So what did we do? We looked to our own limited understanding and found confusion and doubt, forgetting "what we had heard." We were so easily tempted to guard our lives from more pain and to find comfort and joy in the "transitory things of this world " instead.

Not cool.

"DO WHAT IT SAYS."

PERIOD.

Couldn't be any clearer than that. 

God continued to drive the point home everywhere we turned.

This video in particular just...well, you'll have to watch it to understand.

"We are just privileged to answer His call."

~Jackie Pullinger

We don't need all the answers.

  We don't need guarantees.

We don't need to know the plan.

We don't need to fear pain or sacrifice.

 What we need is FAITH.

Just answer the call.

"Do what it says."

GO!!

Puggle picture by Hanna!