big things

oh how i wish i could know God's plans.

one year has passed since sj came home. and in remembering i found myself simply overwhelmed at what God did to bring her to us. and to bring her to full health. she is absolutely the cutest thing on the planet (i've been teaching her how to say that!) and she is a picture of God's miraculous hand, walking around in our house. what an incredible privilege, and one i completely take for granted, that we have witnessed God's miracles over and over and over again. truly, who can say that?

over the past couple of weeks i have been trying to wrap my head around it. i mean, the things God did were huge! why? or more pressing to me right now, why not? why don't we expect God to be big all the time? why is it so overwhelming and surprising? what else does he have planned for us and he is just waiting to be given the opportunity? he is simply waiting for someone to have enough faith to follow God into something "crazy" and then watch Him do his thing? but instead he gets us, who have our lives neatly packaged. we go about our business with absolutely no need for the supernatural, so why would he ever show up? we don't ask for anything miraculous so we never get it! we never launch out to that place of crazy discomfort so that it can only be God who meets our needs.

i know that God does not always choose to do the miraculous. if he did, we wouldn't have nearly the pain that we live amongst. i would never want to encinuate that i was one who thought that miracles simply don't happen in certain situations because someone didn't pray enough. my 36 years have had way too much reality for that to even enter my brain. nor am i an advocate of irresponsibility and then waiting for God to bail you out. no. not my thing. at all. hear me LOUD and CLEAR.

but what i AM burdened about is the idea that God may be calling us to something way out of our comfort zone and we don't go simply because we are scared. we're afraid God won't show up and do what he needs to do. we're not willing to risk the chance of looking like a fool as we patiently ponder God's arrival. and what sarahjoy's story reminds me is that God showed up! he really did! we prayed that he would provide and we completed her $30,000 adoption with a few extra dollars in the account! we prayed he would match us with a little girl who fit right into our family and whose health needs we could manage and out of the hundreds of thousands of orphans available for adoption, look who we got! you don't have to be around her too long before you will say, as so many do, she is a SANZONE! and as is God's way so much of the time, he gave us far more than we could have asked or imagined. not only did he provide adoption funds, but he kept providing through his people's generous gifts towards SJ's medical bills. we didn't ask for that! we didn't even have a chance to pray about that, or expect anything! but it was as if God wanted to say, "HEY! not only can i do the miraculous, i can do miraculous on STEROIDS!" and yes, God brought us through heart surgery and lots of question marks and gave us back SJ. he did miracles for that child to walk out of the hospital. but not only did he heal her little body, he gave us a 100% healhty little girl! one year later there is not a thing wrong with her. MIRACLES PLUS MIRACLES!

my heart aches to see God do something big in our family again. i feel as though through my rememberance he has placed in me an unsettledness. a "feeling", a gut thing that says let me do it again. oh boy, it's scary. don't get me wrong. but the reality of God's vastness and longing to do great and mighty things through his people trumps fear. at least it does when i stare at what happened in the last 24 months to bring sj home. when it's in front of my face and i can't deny it i KNOW i want to do it again. i want to be up close and personal with God's faithfulness and his miracles!

so who knows what is in store for us? i don't know. all i know is that eric and i are praying and asking God to be really clear. REALLY clear. there is nothing more invigorating and pleasurable than being in the center of God's will. and there is absolutely zero that is more frightening than being outside. so our prayer is simple...show us your will God. show us what big thing you want to walk us through next.

and hang on for the ride!