surrender

God Plants: a prayer for releasing our baskets and our brokenness

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“She saw that he was a special baby and kept him hidden for three months. But when she could no longer hide him, she got a basket made of papyrus reeds and waterproofed it with tar and pitch. She put the baby in the basket and laid it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile River. The baby’s sister then stood at a distance, watching to see what would happen to him.”

–Exodus 2:2-4

—

March 15, 2023

Just going to pour out my heart here.

Today, I walked to the fridge, opened the door, looked at the bottle of Benaiah’s brain medication, and left it sitting there. This is Day #1 of NO DIAMOX for Benaiah. And he is all grins.

Praise Him.

Praise Him.

Praise Him.

Praise Him.

Lord Almighty, Thank you for restoring my little baby.

I was watching “Prince of Egypt” with Abi yesterday and the scene where Moses’ mother lays the baby in the basket and releases it to the Nile – with its waves, the crocodiles, the ships and nets and hazards, and then it finds its way to the calm riverbank with a bathing princess, ready to take him in and return him to his own mother’s arms. It had me breaking inside. THIS. THIS is what I felt with my baby. Releasing him into all these dangers I was helpless to protect him from. Pressed between the soldiers coming after him and the unknowns of pushing him out to sea. CSF shunting on one hand, Endoscopic third ventriculostomy and choroid plexus cauterization on the other, watching and waiting and begging for a med that never works to WORK, please God, WORK! Helplessly releasing my baby to His hands – I’ve done everything I can for him here, you have to protect him now.

I didn’t know what God had for him. But like Moses, I see that he is a special baby. And just as He shielded that little basket and swept it to safety, He held my baby with delicate care and dropped him back into my arms, healthy and whole, despite every odd. Despite hydrocephalus, despite arachnoid cysts, despite congenital malformation of the cerebellum, despite spina bifida, despite strabismus, despite nystagmus, despite weight loss and jaundice and tongue tie and lip tie, despite abnormalities on his abdominal ultrasound, despite birth defects, despite complications in surgery, despite plagiocephaly, ear infections, and fevers, he is okay.

He is okay.

Lord,

The river was turbulent and the dangers were many and the basket was handmade and it was out of my hands and my heart screamed “SAVE HIM,” and you heard my cry. The basket held – watertight – and you swept him into peaceful waters.

Lord. What will his life hold?

And why do I need counseling after a miracle?

Because no mother should have to lay her 17 day old baby in a basket of wires and testing and specialists and hospitals and brain scans. And if she must, the basket and the baby may make it to safety, but she will not be okay.

Past the stage of not okay, I’m trusting that this makes for a strong mama. One that has practiced acknowledging how little control she has and releasing what she holds most precious in the whole world into your capable hands. One that knows she can trust you.

But in the aftermath, I do not feel strong. I feel like someone took a blender to my heart.

I told a few close friends the full story this last week, and I shared about a brutal moment. After all the results had come in at the children’s hospital and I’d called Cody to come – come right now. And I was curled up in a recliner staring and Cody walked in the door, scooped our new baby from his hospital crib and held him and grinned at him and bounced him and sang him a silly song.

Here’s the picture of that moment:

I remember it, because he was being what I so badly wanted to be for Benaiah.

I couldn’t look at my baby – tears would start spilling and it would be too hard to breathe. I wanted in that moment to cuddle him close and reassure him and tell him everything would be all right, but the world had just spun out of my control and I couldn’t make it okay for him and I was afraid that if I picked him up and took a good long look at him, I would scream. I was afraid I would give into the utterly devastated wail of my soul and it would frighten my baby instead of soothing him.

I once asked Cody, “How? How did you just swoop in and find that silly place and love him so well in that moment right after that news broke over us?”

Cody’s eyes misted over, “Beka…I didn’t know how much time we had left with him. I wanted to cherish him every moment of it.”

This last week, a close friend of mine was sharing some scary possibilities she’s facing for her baby – he has some persistent symptoms she’s afraid to get checked out. She told me, “I can’t do it! I can’t test him because I can’t face it if it’s bad news. I. will. die.”

“Yes,” I said, “A part of you will die. And then you call me.”

Because that part of me has died, too. When you push what you hold most precious out into the water in a handmade basket and it drifts away from the reach of your fingers, you will not be okay. That moment will wreck you and a piece of you will die. Surrender is a death. And in this life, our God will ask us for surrender.

But Lord, you are the resurrection and the life.

So, I bring that death to you. That churned up, bleeding heart. The fear and the heartache and the despair I felt. The layers of being so sick for so long and finally the nausea is over but I’m facing uncertainties with my heart arrhythmia and tons of tests are slotted for me and I just found out I have a dilated heart ventricle and I don’t know what that means for my future and I’m trying to heal post-partum and coughing all night long in the recliner at the children’s hospital because I’m also fighting the flu and trying to nurse and it’s not working and there’s a thousand wires coming from my baby’s head and his eyes won’t stop tremoring.

The moment the resident walked in and started listing things they’d found that they were hoping they’d rule out – after I’d been trying to convince myself all night long that what I saw on that scan could somehow be a variation of normal. I give you these moments that wrecked me, Lord, that are painful for me to revisit. That visit me unprompted.

I have never felt so helpless, so afraid, or so much dread as I have this year.

Heal me, Oh Lord, and I shall be healed. (Jeremiah 17:14)

Surrender is a death. But when I went limp, you held me. And when my baby swept out of my reach, you had him. And what you have allowed to break and die in me was not serving me. It was a pressure to strive for control that suffocated my spirit. What you plant in its place will breathe life and trust.

“The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he will give life to your mortal bodies by this same Spirit living within you.”

–Romans 8:11

Every place in me that you’ve allowed brokenness to touch holds the promise of resurrection. You give and take away. And what you give is more than what you take away.

Oh Lord,

Teach me to leave time in our schedule for all that is happening underneath the surface in our family as we recover. Lord, give me patience for the time it takes to feel better and the process it is to work through things. Teach me to hold space for soul rest, and the labor it takes to enter into it.

I don’t want to be afraid of the things I am afraid of. I don’t want to be twisted up over the things you have allowed. All your ways are just and true. You are trustworthy. Start to smooth the knots in me, Lord.

I read today in Hosea that “Jezreel” means “God plants.” The very place of Israel’s downfall – the name that meant their doom, also prophesied restoration. Our God is a restorer – and we have his promise that what He gives and what He grows will outweigh the suffering that once overshadowed this place. If my heart is thoroughly churned up – may it be as fresh tilled soil: ready for the planting. Plant your truth deep and bring forth life, Lord. My prayer for this grief is “Jezreel” – God plants.

And to you who are reading this with tight throats and hearts in shreds, my prayer for your grief is “Jezreel” – God plants.

“And the Lord said, “Name the child Jezreel, for I am about to punish King Jehu’s dynasty to avenge the murders he committed at Jezreel. In fact, I will bring an end to Israel’s independence. I will break its military power in the Jezreel Valley…Yet the time will come when Israel’s people will be like the sands of the seashore – too many to count! Then, at the place where they were told, “You are not my people,” it will be said, “You are children of the living God.” Then the people of Judah and Israel will unite together. They will choose one leader for themselves, and they will return from exile together. What a day that will be – the day of Jezreel – when God will again plant his people in his land.”

–Hosea 1:4-5, 10-11

Anchor Rope: untangling our hope from our plans for tomorrow

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“Look here, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we are going to a certain town and will stay there a year….How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow?…What you ought to say is, “If the Lord wants us to, we will live and do this or that.” Otherwise you are boasting about your own pretentious plans, and all such boasting is evil.”

– James 4:13-16
 

I’ve been under a lot of pressure this week, and the symptoms of that pressure have been messy. I yelled across the house and threw a pillow on the floor. I thought angry thoughts and spoke in harsh tones.


We’ve had a super busy schedule, some changing plans, and a lot of moving pieces we’re trying to keep track of, but I think what threw me the most was an email mentioning that there might be a problem with our paperwork.

We’ve applied for our work permits so we can serve long-term in Papua New Guinea. As far as anyone knew, we had prepared perfectly, but the requirements are changing and getting stricter. We’re working on it, and we’re hopeful that they’ll still let us come, but it’s a wait-and-see situation. It’s an at-the-mercy-of-someone-else’s-decision situation.

I have found that I have a lot of emotions toward this development. In short, it makes me want to pull my hair out. I’m already aching under the pressure every day, because I know we can’t possibly make it all work. We can chase every detail we know of down and something unexpected can still come up. Even if we knew what all the factors were, we couldn’t control them all. We can’t even change ourselves to handle it better.

My stress reveals that I have let myself start thinking my plans are a certain thing. Again.

Oh, how I love to decide that I know what will happen next. It’s pretentious and evil. And it is so, so easy for me to slip into. I love to plan all the specifics as if I’m the one in control. But I’m not. And when I’ve been nurturing my love affair with the planner, I hesitate to depend on the One I need so badly. Just because he might be allowing one of my precious plans to be threatened, I allow that hesitation and fear to make me miserable. And I throw pillows at the floor because I’m so frustrated.

And then there’s Cody, out mowing the lawn like everything will be okay. Just doing the next thing and waiting. Because everything will be okay. Our hope was never in those details.

Oh girl. You’ve got to go get your hope back. Pull it back and pick it up and detach it, strand by strand, from all those pretentious specifics you’ve let it wrap around. Lay the tangled thing at the feet of your Savior and let him braid it into something sturdy: an anchor rope. So every single thread leads to him and his faithfulness.

Then you will not be thrown when things do not go like you expect or when a certain course of action is threatened.

Yes. That plan might not work. But everything will be okay. You’ll be okay. Your family will be okay. Our God knows exactly what you’ll need for the journey you didn’t know to plan for. He knows just how to navigate every turn in the road and he is faithful to use our lives to do the work he is planning, even and especially when it doesn’t line up with what we’re planning.

He’s a good leader. He won’t drag us at such a breakneck speed that we have no option but to drown or let go. He prepares the path and walks it first and lends the strength so that we are surely able to follow the whole way.

Oh Lord,

I’m sorry. I’m sorry for trying to take this back and make it mine. I can’t make these plans turn out. I don’t know everything we’ll need for what’s ahead, or if we’ll even get cleared to take the next step. Can you help my heart release the process to you?

Will you help me trust you to get us there?

I want to do a really good job at this and I want to look good doing it. And that leads me to a place where I obsess and get so upset over the lists and the timing and the unknowns. I’m yearning to be perfect, impressive, on-the-ball, ahead of schedule, all-knowing, prepared for everything. But these goals are only throwing me off balance and adding unnecessary pressure.

Help me unhook my hope from prideful ambitions and pretentious specifics. That kind of obsession does not honor you or the people I’m serving. A humble heart holds all its plans up to you as ideas that could be improved upon and takes on the changes that come with great hope for what you are about to do.

“When you came down long ago, you did awesome deeds beyond our highest expectations. And oh, how the mountains quaked! For since the world began, no ear has heard and no eye has seen a God like you, who works for those who wait for him!”

–Isaiah 64:3-4

Let’s take it back to this simple, steadying truth:

There is no God like you.

I am not impressive. But you are. And its not up to me to make your plan work. I am not under all this pressure to see to every detail. I can simply look at, listen to, follow, obey, and be rescued by a God unlike any other.

Again and again, my whole life long, as often as I need you, you will be there. You will exceed my highest expectations, you will handle the things I didn’t see coming, and you will do incredible work as I wait on you.

Nothing surprises you. Nothing threatens your plans. So I will bring this problem before you and ask you to work on our behalf.

Lord, I believe you’ve led us here, to this point, and you are asking us to keep believing you, to keep watching, and to see how you will make a way for us. We trust you, so we can just go mow the lawn while we wait. Because our hope is tied to a sturdy, unchanging anchor, not to our idea of what tomorrow should look like.

“No human wisdom or understanding or plan can stand against the Lord. The horse is prepared for the day of battle, but the victory belongs to the Lord.”

–Proverbs 21:30-31

Yet I Want Your Will: 5 words to hold onto when I do not like the plan

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“Abba, Father,” he cried out, “everything is possible for you. Please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.”

-Mark 14:36

Lord, may I learn to decide on these two things:

1. Everything is possible for you.
2. Yet, I want your will.

When things aren’t going my way, may I not falter over whether my problems matter to you or if this is just too complicated or challenging or huge for you to change. You are able and willing on my behalf.

When I consider what I have walked through and what I am facing and it just seems like a bad plan, like meaningless suffering, like aimless wilderness; in the face of brokenness and all that I don’t understand, may I come back to this:

“Yet I want your will.”

Obviously, there’s a part of me that doesn’t. There’s a part of me that wants to skip past the struggle. There’s an urge to take over that rises to the surface when I feel passed over, unimportant, uncomfortable and afraid. But when I consider all the stories you have stepped into and the ways you have worked on behalf of those who trusted you, your plan is what I want. 

So, Lord, help me to remember. Strengthen my heart to wait. Those who have waited through difficulty to see what you would bring on the other side of it have not been disappointed. 

Those who have gazed at all the wealth and luxury and trappings that this world has to offer and then chosen to lay them down and go after you have not been disappointed.

This hope does not disappoint. 

Even Jesus took a long, hard look at what the Father had planned for him and was daunted. But the One who decided, “Yet I want your will,” died and came back from death and rescued those beyond rescue and stands in triumph now.

Saying yes to you is always, always worth what it costs.

So may I walk in his pattern, humble myself when I do not like the plan, and learn these five words by heart:

“Yet I want your will.”

“Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ.”

–Philippians 3:8