Feasting at His table; Kicking the locusts OUT

Those splendid green parrots are perched outside singing while Elliot naps and Adam tries to sleep.

“Feast or famine”

That is what they say right?

That is what it seems like this week…

Elliot’s face is covered in a strange rash/mysterious bug bits and Adam has his first sickness in 5 months.

So I am a bit discouraged and feeling quite tired.

I know I have been quiet on this here site lately.

The thoughts and prayers are swarming in my mind as of late

I do what I can to jot them down in my moleskin and any paper I can find.

But today, I am attempting to share a few of those thoughts here.

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These two kiddos, I guess I should say three?

(Because there is surely a little heart beating and a little life sprouting inside.

I am swelling and seem to have doubled in size in 4 days.

I have 10 months to prepare for his/her coming but how quickly they are passing.)

Yes, these three, they are such gifts.

But how different each of them are.

I remember when I found out we were pregnant with our surprise, Elliot.

I remember such a flood of emotions and questions.

There were so many fears and anxieties.

I spent too many hours questioning and trying to predict what his and Adam’s relationship would be.

I was drinking from a cup of bitterness
I was dwelling in a land of famine

I spent months forgetting He calls me to feast at His table

When He pleas,

My mind pitched a tent in a land ravaged by locusts

And questions of men and anxieties of my mind took root

Would Adam envy Elliot’s health?

Would Elliot grow jealous of Adam’s attention?

Maybe Elliot is going to care for Adam?
No, I cannot put that on Elliot…Elliot has to be his own person

Maybe Elliot needs Adam?

(No, they both need Jesus.

That was the Truth, but I chose to reject it for some time)

Am I going to raise children with resentment and frustration?

What about nights Adam is in the hospital?

Will Elliot (and future children) get jealous of the one on one time?

Will they laugh roll eyes, high, when we take them out for a “special breakfast” the next day, because they think we just want to make it up to them?

I do not want Elliot to feel an obligation to help with Adam’s needs.

How do I manage that?

Will Elliot tease Adam?

Will he stand up for him against mean kids in the future?

Will he be embarrassed by him?

Will he understand?

What about our BLOG?

Oh my! 

What to do?

It is called “baby ADAM’s” journey

Now there is another baby too!

Should I change the name?

“baby Adam and Elliots journey”?

Yes, that is what I should do.

No.

Maybe it should just be “Elliot’s journey” for sometime.

Stop.

Jess, STOP.

Really, how far can you take this?

I mean are you going to ask everyone to make sure they “like” each of your boys pictures equally on instagram, so that no hard feelings are made?

My goodness.

“set your minds on things ABOVE”

That is what He whispers.

“not on things that are of the earth”

He gently, yet piercingly, reminds.

That stream of thoughts had to be silenced.

A pierced hand, still dripping the blood spilled on my behalf, covers my lips.

Massages my temples

Calms me

Pulls me into Abba Father’s lap

At the banqueting table to which I was called all along
The table where we feast on the good and the true
Where we savor bites of the Bread of Life
And drink deep from flasks of Living Water

Instead of filling my mind with thoughts and worries.

Why not dream of the future?

Why not imagine the beauty that comes from a brotherhood of one physically fully formed, and one not fully formed?

Why not rejoice in knowing that my children are different and pray that that leads them to not see physical differences in others in the world, but to respond with love?

Why not just ask for grace to let your littlest, whose body is healthy, see the value of a life even when “sick”?

Why not pray that Elliot will have a gift of compassion?

Why not plan and pray to strive to live a life of compassion, rooted in Calvary for them to see?

And when I fail, and my compassion proves shallow and vain…

Why not admit my weakness, and point them to Jesus?

Why not pray Truth over Adam?

That he would know he is made in God’s image, fearfully and wonderfully?

Why not strive to point my children to that which is unseen, rather than that which is seen?

Why not point them to the Truth that we are all broken until He comes in?

Why not reveal to them that though my body is formed, many parts of my heart are unformed, being formed daily in the Potter’s hands?

Why not let them take rest in seeing our brokenness?

For there is a great Mender who has already won and promised to restore broken things.

Why not distinguish foolish things from the true things?

For He comes to take the foolish things of our world to shame, us, who claim to be wise.

Because, when it comes down to it, I serve a God who was broken.

I serve One who entered the mess that is our lives

To rebuild and restore

Why desire to build Elliot a sterile existence in a quaint, sterile sanctuary, apart from suffering?
Why be concerned about physical appearances?
When Abba looks at the heart?

Why desire for body healing more than heart healing for my little brood?

No, I want to invite them in.

I want to invite them with me to walk the mud trodden path towards that Stable, lowly.

I want to usher them in to sit on hay, caked in mud

To behold the Messiah that left perfect Glory
To redeem mankind

I want them to see that it is not by being perfect on the outside

It is not by staying clean and religious

It is not by having a childhood unaquainted with grief.
It is not by these things that we have Life

Because, friends, that King, our God, who came to save?

He was not unaquainted with grief.

He was a man of sorrows.

I do not want to base their existence on whether they get the right amount of likes on facebook

Or if our family blog has the right name

Or if our son who is missing a nose gets too many stares on our evening walk

For those things, they are seen.

I serve One who calls us into the unseen

Who calls us to a Kingdom that cannot be shaken

                                  

Because when I sit and dwell on anxious thoughts
I starve
I invite locusts to my table
I welcome locusts to my feast
My feast where my God calls me to come and rest and feast on that which is good and true
I welcome locusts to feast with me and my God in a land made for me
Land made for me by blood, holy, being spilled.
And this banqueting table?
It is good and satisfying.
And this land?
He rescued us to bring us to it, as He did His saints of old, Israel
And it was a land of milk and honey.

                           

Then I sit and groan and worry
I welcome in locusts
And locusts?
They eat honey
They steal from the good that He desires to give
And they gather and they swarm
And the blur my vision

All I see is the bad
All I can think of is the disastrous

So I want to stop.

When I stop
I listen
And I hear His still small voice
And I feel His hands, pierced, wash over my eyes that were blurred
And He unveils my eyes to see this elaborate canvas of love
A display of beauty in the unexpected
He places a crown of beauty rather than ashes on my head

He lets me see beauty every day
And He shows me the goodness and design of Adam and Elliot’s brotherhood
And He fills my heart and mind with a wild imagination of all that is possible

I see kisses on heads all day, every day
I see E bringing A his glasses and hat before leaving the house EVERY SINGLE TIME
I see A comfort E when E was carsick on the way to Delhi

I see this God, who though seems unseen, is truly seen
And He is displaying wonder the whole world over

I make myself comfortable at this feasting table
I drink deeply of that Water, Living
I fill up on the richest of fare
And I fall at His feet in gratitude
For giving me these little ones to love