After a fairly long break, I am very excited to be able to share this special story to kickstart my return to blogging! God has walked with my husband and I through a very different season of our lives. I have had to take a break from my blog to focus on God and cling to Him during this season. I have spent some sweet time with my Heavenly Father. I have learned to worship Him differently and more intimately and I have experienced His characteristics, love, and mercy in fresh and new ways. My husband and I have experienced a dry season, one in which God has allowed us to wait on several things we long for and one where our faith has even been tested, but through it all, our loving Heavenly Father has shined His face on us and showered us with His love and kisses as He has walked with us every step of the way. He truly is our Rock and Fortress and He never leaves us or forsakes us, even when we don't feel Him with us.
One of the sweetest times I spent with my heavenly Father happened recently, about a month ago. My dad has been suffering for quite some time with his health and has been battling several issues in the hospital for over two months now. He had grown very discouraged and saddened by the cycle in which he seemed to be caught. He would see some improvements, then something else would go wrong; he would think he was going to be discharged (and actually was a couple of times), then he would find himself still (or right back) in the hospital, the last place he wants to be. He confessed on several occasions that his condition was very discouraging. Through all of his suffering, he has held on to the God of his youth, the God Who loves Him, and he has continued to seek Him for help, "leaning not on his own understanding" (Proverbs 3:5).
Additionally, my husband and I have had a desire to expand our family and have been trying to get pregnant for almost a year. We, like my dad, were growing very discouraged with our circumstances. Finally, the burdens of my dad's illnesses and hospitalization and our inability to conceived weighed so heavily on my heart, my husband and I decided to fast for three days to really focus on God and seek Him through our circumstances. On the very first night of our fast, I sat down on the floor to meet my God in my living room like I always do--the living room is our reunion spot. Sometimes, it is during the day when I can look outside at His creation and enjoy the sunshine through the window and sometimes it is at night, when there are no distractions, it's just God and me, spending time together one-on-one. Whenever it is, it is just a sweet time where I can meet my Father and bathe in His love, comfort, and teaching. So, I sat in my spot and before I could turn on any worship music or open my Bible, I heard Him clearly whisper in my spirit, His name, Adonai. The first time I heard it, I just thought Adonai--I will pray that name back to my Father tonight during my prayer time. I had heard that name of God before, but was ignorant of what it actually means. God patiently and lovingly whispered it a second time and a third time before I finally had the thought that I should look it up and research what it means.
I discovered that Adonai, like all of God's names, reveals a unique attribute of His, a different aspect of His character that I had never focused on before. Adonai describes the relationship I was created to experience with my heavenly Father. It is a relationship of complete trust and focus on Him, a relationship of His total ownership of my body and my total submission of my body to Him. Paul, in Corinthians, reminds us that we "are not our own; we were bought at a price." Adonai means for me that no matter what is happening to my body, I know my Father and I know that "all things work together for my good" (Romans 8:28), so I will choose to surrender my will to His and trust His ways and His timing. And they are always perfect. So, that night, I made a choice to surrender my inability to conceive another child right now and to let Him have and carry that desire for me. You see, our Father knows our desires and He cares for our desires, our deepest ones. He wants to bless us and is waiting to bless us, but He knows when the time is best to fulfill our deepest desires, the time when that fulfillment will be perfect and beyond our wildest dreams. Our God is waiting to bless us and sometimes, it's hard for Him to wait just as much as it is difficult for me to wait, but I hold on to Him because during the waiting is when I am growing. During the waiting is when I learn to love Him and trust Him completely, that I am not in control, but He is and He has my absolute best interest at heart.
The Sunday after I received this revelation from the Holy Spirit, I shared it with my dad, and what a comfort it must have been to learn this attribute of our Lord--that He is in control of my dad's body and wants what is best for him. My dad just had to let go of his own will and surrender to his heavenly Father's will, trusting Him completely. Either that same Sunday or one week later (I can't really remember now which is accurate), my husband, daughter, and I came home after a long day of visiting my dad, then going to Bible study after church, and we received a positive pregnancy test that God has conceived a child in my womb! Praise the Lord! What an awesome and loving God we serve, and what a privilege it is to wait on Him. Oh, how He loves us and wants our complete submission and trust as He leads us according to His perfect will!
