Who shall I fear?

The Lord is my light and my salvation who shall I fear? 

The Lord is the stronghold of my life-

of whom shall I be afraid?  Psalm 27:1

        I promised myself when I began this journal it would not be about me, or my family it would be about My Father.  In part it is to keep you informed of our journey through adoption, but I hope it is so much more.  I hope every word brings my Heavenly Father glory.  I hope each word is written in a way that brings you to understand just how powerful my God is in our life, just how important my God is to us, just how much I need Him every day, just how perfect He really is, and how perfect His will is for us.  Just how much comfort and love and peace He provides to me on a daily basis.  Just how much I cannot live each day without Him.  He is my all, He is my everything.

        Yesterday started out like a normal day.  We are wrapping up our home study and are in the final stretch.  We have one meeting left, and then we start the waiting process.  Waiting for immigration, waiting on Haiti to okay all our paperwork, waiting on a travel date, waiting on Haiti for more paperwork, waiting on another travel date…my head is spinning.  One piece of education that had to be completed was to read what the US Embassy says about Haiti.  Let me just say I wish that is one educational piece that would have been left out.  First of all, I don’t know that I really want to read most things our government says or puts out there lately, but much less something that directly affects me…and my family.  I know they just want to educate you on the country you will be visiting.  I know they want to make you aware of the nature of the country and what is going on.  I know that they mean well when they tell you in detail what all goes on and what happens in Haiti….I know all that.  I know that plenty of people have traveled and will continue to travel to Haiti and return home just fine.  I know all that.  However, in the last 24 hours I have  had a few mild panic attacks, I have already planned out my funeral, decided who Anna Lee’s new parents will be, decided who gets which dogs, decided what will be done with our house, figured out how Anna Lee can still be homeschooled….so on and so on.  That is why I am up at 4:06 writing a blog about how much lack of faith I have shown my Jesus, my Savior, my Creator, and my Sustainer with my pathetic lack of trust…in Him and in His will for this family.  I am a worrier by nature, although I don’t like to admit it.  My mom passed on many wonderful traits to me, but this is one my brother and I both obtained from her, yet we both deny we do it or have it.  After tossing and turning and having all these plans worked out for my demise, my Father gently reminded me there is another way to deal with this…His Word.  So after laying there for 30 more minutes thinking I will just say a quick prayer for my soul and fall back asleep, He gently nudged me again and said, “Get up and let’s deal with this.”  As I opened His word to the Psalms, which always sooths my heart and speaks to the deepest parts of my soul.  I came across my handwriting out to the side of Psalm 27:1. I had written in big purple letters, “What do you fear?”  Who knows how long ago I had already come across this verse, but the Lord impressed it on my heart then to mark this verse in my Bible and write my reflections for just this time in the future.  I then noticed that I had underlined certain words in the verse.  I had underlined stronghold and my life.  Let me show you what this verse looks like in my Bible.  “The Lord is my light and my salvation whom shall I fear?  The Lord is the stronghold of my life of whom shall I be afraid?”  I had to remind myself that troubles may come, sufferings may come, trails may come, but I DO NOT HAV E TO LIVE IN FEAR! Where my God leads us, He will protect us…the more I know of Him, the less I need to fear. If you read down to verse 4 in Psalm 27 David asks one thing of the Lord, and it was, “that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.”  I also wrote in my Bible underneath this verse that David didn’t ask for salvation from fear or riches or any other earthly thing...he asked to dwell with the Lord, and to gaze upon His beauty.  My focus needed to be redirected this morning on this Good Friday. This day so many years ago My Savior who is alive and ministering to me this very morning, through His living word, was crucified and placed in a tomb.  He was beaten and bruised, His flesh was torn and His blood was spilled, all so that we could dwell with the Lord and gaze upon His beauty all the days of our life.  All we have to do is ask for His salvation.  I thank God for my salvation this Easter weekend.  I do not have to live in fear for I serve a God that is alive and living.  I will stand on the promises of God…all 66 books of them!    

        There was one thing that did stand out to me more than all the bad things that the Embassy wrote about Haiti.  There is not much assistance for the handicap in Haiti.  One sentence read that roads and sidewalks are not stable and will abruptly end, and that people in wheelchairs will not be able to get around very well.  It said that restaurants and places of business were not set up to accommodate the handicap and pretty much that if you were handicap you probably didn’t need to go.  There was no government assistance for the handicap either.  I might would have read over this part and not taken much notice with all the other mess I was reading, but one thing stopped me for a moment and one glimmer of hope sprung from that short paragraph.  It is a good possibility our little girl will never walk.  She has a joint disability that enables her legs to work properly.  When we first inquired about her we were told she would more than likely be in a wheel chair.  It hit me as I was reading about her country that her country is not set up to care for her, nor would her life there be easy.  Even with all the other junk that is going on, the most negative of all of it, was what I read concerning what her life would be like if we didn’t bring her home. 

        In the midst of my whining and complaining to the Lord over the past 24 hrs, He still showed me His love and compassion.  Some very dear friends from church gave us a donation towards bringing our daughter home.  They thought it was just a “little” donation in their words, but it was so much more.  It was the Lord continuing to push me through my fear straight towards His will, His Plan.  It was the Lord telling me He goes before me, He is a friend of mine, He is the God of Angel Armies, He will be by my Side…there is nothing to fear.  As I called this family to tell them thank you, I shared a little bit of what I had been going through, and He said one statement that was like God shouting from the Heavens through this man’s voice.  He said, “Don’t worry about all the other stuff going on, Your Daughter is in Haiti and that is where you go.”  He is right…my daughter is in Haiti and that is where we will go.  My God goes before and stays beside.  There is nothing to Fear. 

For in the day of trouble he will keep me safe in his dwelling; he will hide me in the shelter of his tabernacle and set me high upon a rock.   Psalm 27:5