Thursday Thematics: The Year of the Lord's Favor

Thursday Thematics is a new and ongoing series of posts focused on given topics or passages of scripture relevant to adoption, knowing God, and learning to live simply and love radically. Please feel free to tweet theme suggestions to me @AmandaEPeterson.

For our first theme, we're walking through the anointments of Isaiah 61--the passage Jesus read in the Nazareth synagogue at the beginning of his earthly ministry (Luke 4:16-20). After finishing his reading, Jesus rolls up the scroll and says to the crowd, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing." If this scripture has been fulfilled, how does a fulfilled version of Isaiah 61 impact our lives today?

...to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor

and the day of vengeance of our God...

With my adoption in the in-between place--in the waiting and the paperwork and the approvals and the waiting--my heart feels in the in-between place too.

Yesterday was a difficult day. A difficult day because I found out the process is going very smoothly but is going to take longer than we hoped. Probably not home for Christmas and family as we had hoped.

That hurts.

It hurts in a way I have no words for.

It hurts in a longing way and a deeply anguishing way and a telling yourself to hold onto the glimmer of good and the glimmer of hope way.

I'm caught in this in between place where I know in the deepest parts of me that Hannah* is my daughter but yet she's not my daughter.

My daughter in the pray everyday for every moment of her life.

Not my daughter in the waking her up for school.

My daughter in the aching when she aches.

Not my daughter in the preparing her favorite dinner.

My daughter in the language I use when I talk about her.

Not my daughter in the holding her close and kissing her forehead.

It's a here and yet coming kind of thing. And it hurts beyond hurting but produces hope beyond hope.

___

When Jesus quotes Isaiah's proclamation in Luke 4:18-20, he ends his reading with the line, "to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor" and does not finish the couplet, leaving out "and the day of vengeance of our God."

This omission was another way of Jesus saying to his listeners the kingdom of God has come and is yet still coming. Here I am, bringing the kingdom--bringing grace and acceptance and favor and restored relationship with the Lord--but I'm still coming again to bring the kingdom--to bring vengeance on my enemies and an end to sin and death. Here I am fulfilling this proclamation in your hearing, but there is more to be proclaimed, more to be made right.

Jesus is setting us up for the inward groaning we eagerly await the appeasing of. He is setting us up to be made right and walk along side others sharing our Good News and to eagerly await his return--his return with the fullness of the kingdom.

I can't honestly say I've ever groaned in my spirit for Jesus' coming. I can't say with honesty I'm eagerly awaiting the day. I would be lying because I secretly often think, "Jesus, we're still working on it. We need more time. I need more time." I don't long for the fullness of reunification with God. I don't long for it because I want to keep doing good with my own two hands. I want to keep bettering the world as it is and to keep trying.

I am known to occasionally in a moment of frustration throw my hands up in the air and tell Jesus, "Today, right now would be good," but we both know I don't mean it.

However, the groaning for the fullness and the completion of the adoption...that...that is true. That groaning is deep within my spirit as a I pray and long for it's fullness, it's completion.

And I wonder as I write, if it's like this for God. If his Spirit groans for our homecoming for the fullness of our adoption.

Hannah, I won't say blissfully, but thankfully is unaware of the adoption. I've had many tell me since I've left how much she misses me and how grateful she is to be able to talk to me "on the computer" through the miracle of Skype (and yes, I do absolutely believe Skype is a miracle). I've even read in one school report how she considers me to be her family. But thankfully, she does not know I've left in order to adopt her--that I've left to make her legally my family. And I say thankfully because the burden of the waiting would be too hard on her almost eight-year-old self not to mention the horror of it all falling apart. And I'm glad I can at least a bit protect her from the groaning that is in my heart.

Papa God, do you groan for us like that? Do you groan for the proper time when all the paperwork is in order and everything is set right? Do you know my feeble heart cannot take the groaning? Cannot take the waiting? Cannot take the full knowledge of the separation?

I hope he does. And I hope he will tell me of it someday as someday I will tell Hannah how I prayed and how I hoped and how I worked and how I groaned for the day she would come home.

______________________

*Hannah is a pseudonym I use in my online activity to protect my someday daughter's identity until she is fully and legally mine.

Please consider supporting Hannah's adoption by visiting the Just Love Coffee website and purchasing great, fair trade coffee through our storefront.


Like today's post? Read other posts in this series:
Proclaiming Good News to the Poor
Binding Up the Brokenhearted
Proclaiming Freedom for the Captives

Release from Darkness for the Prisoners

Saving Limbo

I've been back in the US for three weeks now. As usual with the passing of time, it seems impossible so much time has passed and impossible it hasn't been much longer than three weeks.

I am still very much in a "Now what?" place. A few job interviews under the belt. Lots of networking and reconnecting and figuring out how to live in West Texas again. At this point I will say, Lubbock feels very small and very foreign. It's not the Lubbock of my childhood but in so many ways it still is the very same Lubbock I left.

I'm in one of those transitional limbo periods that come with every move to every new place--where you don't really know the place or how to be in it yet and where the kinks of how to live there are still getting worked out.

I've never been a fan of limbo despite the number of times I've been here over the years. It feels out of sync with the rest of the world. You can see life happening about you. People move freely in their lives and experiences; you, on the other hand, seem to be a few seconds out of sync. You are moving at a slightly different pace than everything around you and taking a bit longer to internalize it all.

I hope I'm dealing with the transition a bit better this time around than I have in times past. I can still see the signs of the anxiety--obsessively checking Facebook and Twitter and my blog stats to see just how many of you are out there, struggling to maintain a healthy relationship with food, staying up too late and sitting in my pajamas for too long the next morning. And all the time wanting to move on to the next phase. But I'm also finding healthy ways to help me work through the transition with projects and reconnecting and leaning into Jesus a bit more than I ever have before in limbo.

Last Sunday's preach was out of John 12:23-29, focusing specifically on verses twenty-seven through twenty-nine. Jesus knows his "hour" is approaching when he will be delivered into the hands of those wanting to kill him. He rightly confesses "my soul is troubled." But then responds with a remarkable statement of faith and understanding of his purpose, "and what shall I say? 'Father, save me from this hour?' No, it was for this very reason I cam to this hour. Father, glorify your name."

I confess I've been wanting to be saved from this hour, but I know this hour, this limbo, is part of a much larger story of bringing Hannah home and living in obedience to God--living out a better story. In allowing me to be in this limbo, God, I hope, is preparing something greater than I could ever imagine. It forces me to ask the question, am I living right now for my own glory or for God's?

I hope very soon to find a job, the right job, to move into my own place, to settle in and to be out of this limbo stage, but for as long as I am in limbo, I hope to live better and more purposefully and find the better story God has for me even in this stage.

I hope to be honest when others ask me how I'm doing or what it's like being back. And I hope to be honest with myself about all those feelings.

I hope to settle into a natural rhythm and find myself more at ease in transition--less stress and more faith.

I hope to do something better, be something better and believe something better than I have in the past when I found myself in limbo.

I hope to find a joy and a hope and a peace in limbo that I've never known before.

What about you, how are you dealing with limbo or whatever phase of life you currently find yourself in?

Ok, God, I'm Here...Now What?

The morning after my arrival at Lubbock Preston Smith International Airport (how Lubbock's tiny airport has an international designation remains an ongoing mystery), I sat down to spend some time with the Lord. I cleared out the space in front of me, sat my Bible down and blurted out, "Ok God, I'm here...Now what?" All the emotion and stress of the past few weeks finally released and I sobbed for a long time.

I'm here...Now what?

When I come up against the "now what" question, my first impulse is to make a plan. You can't leave "now what" sitting out there for too long. It needs action. It needs forward movement. "Now what" is the point in the plot line where there has to be immediate action or the story flops. "Now what" taunts you into the next step because you simply can't leave it hanging out there.

But I find myself with the conundrum of not knowing what follows "now what." The past six weeks have been about wrapping up things in South Africa. Finishing the job well. Saying goodbye. They've been about spending loads of time with Hannah and the other kids in Oasis Haven's family homes. They've been about packing and training my replacement. They've been about finishing one chapter so the next part of the story could begin.

So, now what?

Job search, yes. Reconnecting with family and old school chums, yes. Life is moving forward and there is a what happening, but the question is about the bigger "now what." What job? What home? What church community? What form and shape does this new chapter take?

My impulse is to jump. To take a flying leap and see where I land. But I've jumped a lot, and while I've almost always landed on my feet, I think I'm at the point in life where "looking before leaping" sounds a bit wiser. And maybe even, waiting before leaping is the wisest course. Waiting before leaping and waiting on God to take the first step and say, "Here, my child. Come this way." It sounds a lot wiser than my normal mode of operation: "I'm going this way, God. Are you coming?"

There is a desire in me to make it all happen super-fast. Have the job. Have the home. Have the community. Have the kid. But all of these take time. They take patience and waiting. They take trust and faith and obedience. They take quiet and solitude and prayer.

And maybe on the other end, I find something worth waiting for.

So as I wait, I see four major areas for prayer focus right now:

1. The Adoption Process: For the process to go smoothly and quickly so that Hannah can come home forever. For each step to be entrusted into the Lord's hands. And for those around me watching the process to see God's heart of adoption for them. How He has paid a great cost to chose them and make them His very own.
2. The Job Search: To find the right job where my skills, talents, gifts and passions can be used to the glory of God. Where I can be light and where I can build others up and release them to do what they do better. And a job where I can be a single mom and where it is a no-brainer that Hannah comes first.
3. The Home Search: To establish a home that is a place of rest and a place of safety for others. Where people know they can come to find hospitality and peace. A place where the neighbors feel safe when their children come to play and where anyone can drop in unannounced. A place where life and community happen, and a place where generosity and hospitality flow.
4. The Community Search: To find a place where I can contribute to the community in meaningful ways according to the gifts and talents I have been given and where I can live out my purpose and calling. A place where I can be a contributing member of the body and a place where I can find the support I need to be a woman and a mother.

I hope that you'll join me in praying over these four areas, and please let me know how I can pray for you too.