waiting on the LORD's good gifts....

yesterday morning found me and the boys home from church. liam and i both with a headache and henry with a green dripping nose and we decided to rest. we probably could have made it happen but something in me told me to just let them rest and not push them or their bodies or immune systems.

we played or tried to play some hymns on our new/old piano which has it's own waiting story that is beautiful and worth writing about soon! we sang and then we curled up on the couch and read our jesus calling devotional and looked up the scripture it suggested. it talked about waiting on God's dreams and your dreams. we talked about our different dreams we have. silly ones, important ones. ones we feel God has called us to...

we talked specifically about how forever this adoption dream of ours has already been and how much longer it most likely will be. and how we believe God still calls us to it but we struggle with his timing. how it's taken a year since we decided to pursue our/His dream for our family, to sell our house, find a house, 3-4 months to get INTO new/old foreclosure house, fix it up and make it passable for inspection to complete our home study, daddy getting sick and needing knee surgery, running out of house-fixing-money, etc. the year passed and while we DID make progress, thank you LORD for our home, our flesh, stubborn and greedy, wanted His good gifts and dream/wish granting to be RIGHT NOW. oh how impatient our foolish hearts that we would tell the creator of the world how to do his job. the God who in fact LOVES the orphan EVEN more than we do and who has good and perfect plans and his own timeline in mind, not ours.... his timing not ours. we think in minutes and hours and HE is the one who made them at all. period.

we read our daily reading and talked about it and then i decided to make a bath for the boys at 10 am so that they could truly rest and relax and chill and breathe a bit better.....lovely idea, except that the tub filled with cold water instead. the WHOLE thing. the boys ran in with only their birthday suits all ready for their baths and found a lukewarm pool that they stepped in and screamed. we drained most of it and they sat in a warm-coolish puddle as we tried for more hot water.

so began the space heater in the front part of the bathroom (safe and up high i promise) AND then the  55 trips with the hot kettle by mama for her cold babies. over and over, gladly i did this for them. my plan was thwarted but i didn't quit....a quick 'throw in the tub' turned into an all morning event.

on one of the many trips, i had re-warmed the kettle AND warmed a huge glass bowl with water in it from the microwave and i was walking through the den with the shifting splashy water trying to get to them quickly. my boys were cold and i knew they needed this liquid goodness, this warm water gift, and i was rushing a good bit. i so wanted to bless them with this gift as they would squeal with delight each time i poured warm water into the tub! in haste and rushing on this trip with the bowl, the water in the bowl started sloshing everywhere and i obviously realized i needed to slow down, way down. even wedding march slow, which was sad because they were begging for more warm water. i could hear them crying out with every snail step i took. i told them i was on my way but they couldn't hear me. only i knew, i was on the way... the only way to get the full intended gift to them was to go slow, snail slow, because if i rushed- it would be half the gift, or none of it, not nearly as great or what they needed or deserved. it would be 'not my best' or the fullest or the BEST for them but less. much less of the good gift that was planned. maybe even all gone?

and it hit me. in my den with my robe on, holding a giant bowl of water over our new hardwood floors, walking like a duck getting married...with the sweet grace that HE gives me in those discovery- Light-shining-on-my-heart and head moments that i love him for.....and thank him for...

THIS is how it is with my GOD and King and Heavenly Father...

He longs to give me good things and His gifts, but if he hurried them when i wanted them RIGHT NOW, begging and crying out, it might just not be the best or the fullest of that gift. it might even harm me, resulting in no. (ex: the boys were screaming for boiling hotter water and the space heater in the tub room instead of the sink room, obviously that's a healthy-protective-no to that gift ;) but even when it's yes, it might not be the full-intended gift if rushed, the kind that sometimes takes time and slowness to bring forth the best and most precious outcome!

it is a silly bowl of water. i know. but can you see it? can you see through the silly analogy i'm sharing what He means to do with His work and timing, with His purpose and plans and promises?
do you see it? do you see the Father, walking slowly with the "bowl of warm water to his begging cold children" good gifts and longing to give and provide and even bring Joy but if rushed it would all spill and fall apart? and it would be wasted. and that's not a part of His plan. he DOES NOT WASTE anything.

our good and gracious God longs to give us good things, things we might even beg for or pray for, cry for or yearn for. He delights in blessing His children and seeing His good gifts given......

i swear, don't laugh at me, but that silly bowl of water along with the devotional reading before, is a total balm to this waiting heart in adoption and many other dreams and that sloshy bowl of water-reminder makes it THAT much easier to wait on Him. He loves me and i trust that even more, as i look at it all even in relation to my cold sweet boys in a bathtub and my longing to bring them joy with bowls of warm water. all in perfect timing HE works. and we wait! because His time is what brings forth the most beautiful gifts that could point only to the Gift Giver!! glory be!! such grace!