I’ve wrecked a lot of cars.
Which is really sad because I’ve been driving 3 years less than most
people my age.
The good news is that my husband and I carry really good car insurance.
My 2nd major accident took place in Fort Wayne,
Indiana on icy roads. I lost control of
my little Ford Taurus on a four-lane highway, and when I stopped spinning I
ended up stalled out, facing the wrong way.
A semi truck was coming right toward me.
I braced myself for impact.
It’s an action I find myself doing a lot lately.
“Hey, Becky, what’s new with you?”
“Well, we’re adopting 7 year old special needs twin girls
from [insert name of Eastern European country on the brink of civil war
here].
Brace for impact.
Prepare for condemning questions.
Prepare for disapproval.
Prepare for lectures and concerns.
I lie awake at night planning rebuttals in my head. And I walk around feeling constantly like Lucille Ball, who’s just heard for the 100th time, “Lucy! You have some ‘splainin’ to do!”
And I think God has been telling me to chill out. To relax. To embrace the crazy.
Because, believe me, that is exactly how most people view what we are doing!
And what God wants me to do is to stop focusing on the world’s view of me and start focusing on His view of me.
I STINK AT THAT.
Really.
I am even worse at it than I am at driving. Which is saying something. Just ask Val Quinby. Or my husband. Or my kids. Or my dad.
A BOX IN A BOX!
Oh, dear; I digress.
See…
I want to seem smart.
I want to seem wise.
I want to seem practical.
I want to seem responsible.
I want to seem dependable.
But lately, I’ve just been getting a “You’re crazy” vibe. Which means I’m actually in pretty good company, if I really think about it.
Uh, Abe, honey, I know I’m like 99 and all, but I’m pretty sure I’m about to have your baby.
Genesis 21:1-7: The Lord kept his word and did for Sarah exactly what he had promised. She became pregnant, and she gave birth to a son for Abraham in his old age. This happened at just the time God had said it would. And Abraham named their son Isaac. Eight days after Isaac was born, Abraham circumcised him as God had commanded. Abraham was 100 years old when Isaac was born. And Sarah declared, “God has brought me laughter. All who hear about this will laugh with me. Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse a baby? Yet I have given Abraham a son in his old age!”
So, Pharaoh, I just had a conversation with a bush. But not just any bush, a burning one, only it wasn’t burning, just on fire, and anyways, the Lord of the bush—well, the Lord of everybody and everything—He wants you to free the millions of slaves on whom you depend to support your vast and wealthy economy.
Exodus 5:1-3: After this presentation to Israel’s leaders, Moses and Aaron went and spoke to Pharaoh. They told him, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: Let my people go so they may hold a festival in my honor in the wilderness.” “Is that so?” retorted Pharaoh. “And who is the Lord? Why should I listen to him and let Israel go? I don’t know the Lord, and I will not let Israel go.” But Aaron and Moses persisted. “The God of the Hebrews has met with us,” they declared. “So let us take a three-day journey into the wilderness so we can offer sacrifices to the Lord our God. If we don’t, he will kill us with a plague or with the sword.”
Hey, guys! We’re going to defeat a whole nation of giant heathens by marching around their wall and singing!
Joshua 6:6-7: So Joshua called together the priests and said, “Take up the Ark of the Lord’s Covenant, and assign seven priests to walk in front of it, each carrying a ram’s horn.” Then he gave orders to the people: “March around the town, and the armed men will lead the way in front of the Ark of the Lord.”
Um, so you 100 men, it’s time to fight this gigantic army, that outnumbers us by a handful less than, oh, let’s see, a BILLION, yeah, we’re going to fight them with torches and trumpets. Ya’ll ready to rumble?
Judges 7:17-18: Then he said to them, “Keep your eyes on me. When I come to the edge of the camp, do just as I do. As soon as I and those with me blow the rams’ horns, blow your horns, too, all around the entire camp, and shout, ‘For the Lord and for Gideon!’”
Relax, King! I can beat your enemy all by myself! He outweighs me by like…a small house, but I’ve got this!
1 Samuel 17:32-37: “Don’t worry about this Philistine,” David told Saul. “I’ll go fight him!” “Don’t be ridiculous!” Saul replied. “There’s no way you can fight this Philistine and possibly win! You’re only a boy, and he’s been a man of war since his youth.” But David persisted. “I have been taking care of my father’s sheep and goats,” he said. “When a lion or a bear comes to steal a lamb from the flock, I go after it with a club and rescue the lamb from its mouth. If the animal turns on me, I catch it by the jaw and club it to death. I have done this to both lions and bears, and I’ll do it to this pagan Philistine, too, for he has defied the armies of the living God! The Lord who rescued me from the claws of the lion and the bear will rescue me from this Philistine!” Saul finally consented. “All right, go ahead,” he said. “And may the Lord be with you!”
So…I know you could kill me just for being here and all…but if you would just listen, I have this slightly kind of large favor to ask of you, Mr. King, Sir…
Esther 7:3-4: Queen Esther replied, “If I have found favor with the king, and if it pleases the king to grant my request, I ask that my life and the lives of my people will be spared. For my people and I have been sold to those who would kill, slaughter, and annihilate us. If we had merely been sold as slaves, I could remain quiet, for that would be too trivial a matter to warrant disturbing the king.”
I know that your people will hate me and abuse me, and that we’ll probably starve to death. But really, my dear mother-in-law, I don’t want to go back to my wealthy and settled family. I want to come with you. To be poor. And probably die.
Ruth 1:16-18: But Ruth replied, “Don’t ask me to leave you and turn back. Wherever you go, I will go; wherever you live, I will live. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God. Wherever you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord punish me severely if I allow anything but death to separate us!” When Naomi saw that Ruth was determined to go with her, she said nothing more.
And let’s not forget the mother of all crazies.
So, Joe, I’m pregnant. But don’t worry; I didn’t cheat on you. I’m still a virgin. God put this baby in my womb so He could be born and grow up to save the world from sin.
Matthew 1:18-19: This is how Jesus the Messiah was born. His mother, Mary, was engaged to be married to Joseph. But before the marriage took place, while she was still a virgin, she became pregnant through the power of the Holy Spirit. Joseph, her fiancé, was a good man and did not want to disgrace her publicly, so he decided to break the engagement quietly.
Crazy seems to be God’s M.O.
Why?
Well, I found that answer on top of a mountain, which was where I really began to think about what the Bible says about perspective.
1 Corinthians 13:1-13: If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing. Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge will become useless. But love will last forever! Now our knowledge is partial and incomplete, and even the gift of prophecy reveals only part of the whole picture! But when the time of perfection comes, these partial things will become useless. When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely. Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.
In this chapter, God asks me to do CRAZY things.
To be patient.
To be kind.
To refrain from jealousy.
To refrain from boasting.
To refrain from pride.
To refrain from rudeness.
To refrain from demanding my own way.
To refrain from keeping records of wrong.
To refrain from rejoicing about injustice.
To rejoice over truth.
To never give up.
To never lose faith.
To always be faithful.
To endure through every circumstance.
Try that for one day with everyone you come in contact. I guarantee you’ll get some crazy stares.
Why?
Because we as humans cannot possibly see the BIG PICTURE and understand why doing these crazy things is so important.
But God sees. And we’ll see, too, someday. 1 Corinthians 13:12 says that we see confusing things that are imperfect—but one day, we’ll get why the “crazy” things are so necessary.
I realized that on top of Max Patch Mountain. When I’m at the base looking up, all I see is this impossibly difficult climb. Why would anyone want to try that? All I can see is the mountain. But if I embrace the crazy, put one foot in front of the other, even when my brain and thigh muscles and lungs are screaming, “What the heck?!?!?—“ I will eventually get to the top. And I will see the rolling hills, the mountains that are so beautiful I can hardly stand to blink. And I will think, “Man, that was so worth it!”
My sister, Annie, my cousin, Mary, and me on Max Patch Mountain
My dad touched on this when he wrote a tribute to the former mayor of my old stomping grounds. He said:
“Roger had something to sell and it was his city, his community and the people he shared it with. He truly believed Bucyrus and Crawford County could and would recover. He believed it so strongly that he had little time and perhaps less patience for those who insisted otherwise. Such is often the case with a visionary. A visionary can see because he or she will not let themselves become overwhelmed and allow obstacles and issues to drown out and block off what lies beyond. It’s called perspective. It’s a little like moving your hand far enough away from your face to see what’s on the other side. Roger had that perspective for his community.”
I guess you could say that I have something to sell.
It’s not adoption.
It’s not even caring for orphans.
Selling those is God’s job, through the convicting words of scripture.
What’s mine to sell is God’s redeeming grace.
He made it available to me thousands of years ago when He sent His Son to pay for my sins on a shameful, pain filled, wooden cross.
And in Matthew 28:19-20, Jesus commands me to share it with others: Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
Which is exactly what Marc and I believe we’re doing as we travel this mountain trail of adoption…
To a country on the brink of civil war.
To a set of twins, who have difficult diagnoses.
To a life of unpredictable hardship not just for us but for our community of family and friends.
I guess embracing the crazy means that I stop worrying about what I see, and what those around me see, and I start trusting the eyes of God, who sees all things.
Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.
I love you sooooo much Becky! And this post is beautifully perfect!
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