Made In His Image

In case you are not familiar with me and my family, I have a four year old Daughter with Autism. I was asked a few questions from a new friend about my struggle with this situation this week and I thought I would share them with you.

The question was asked what have I learned the most about God in this situation.

The following is my response:

More than anything else, I think God has challenged me on what it means to be made in His image. It began when my wife asked me to consider praying Scripture over our daughter for her healing. Typically I do not do this. I feel as though when people do something like this they are in desperate situations and, in an effort to "strong arm" God, are claiming a promise of God that was not made to them. They want the promise of someone else for themselves. This has the devastating potential of setting you up for a major disappointment and disillusionment. It was a risk I did not want to take.

However, after some prayer I felt a peace about doing this. So I began to do a word search on the topic of concern. Namely, that our daughter cannot talk. So I decided to look up scriptures for things like speech, lips, mouth, tongue, voice, etc.

The first one I came to was Exodus 4:10-12. Moses is speaking with God at the burning bush. God is asking Moses to go to Pharaoh. Moses in turn gives God a litany of things that disqualify him for the task (something that I relate to concerning my calling as well). One of things was his difficulty in speech. Moses tells God "I can't speak well. I can't do what you are asking."

You know I always remembered this story with God getting angry and fed-up with Moses and saying, "Well fine then, I'll send Aaron with you and he can speak for you!!!" You know what, He does not do that yet. Instead He says something to Moses I was not prepared to hear.

God says,"Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I the LORD? Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say."

When I read this the Spirit hit me in the chest like a tun of bricks. God was telling me that our daughters Autism was not the result of a genetic defect. It was not because something went wrong in the womb or in her delivery. On the contrary, it was God's intention that she be like this. God reminder me that He molded and fashioned her with his own hand; that she was just as fearfully and wonderfully made as any other child. To God, She was a Psalm 139 child. She was fashioned by the hand of God Himself. Created with divine design, meaning and purpose, with the same fear and wonder as anyone else.

God also showed me that He heard my prayer and I needed to go in peace and leave Him alone about Delaney's healing. He Himself was going to help her speak and teach her what to say.

Well that was when I realized that God had made her just the way that she was. If I was not accepting of that then I was telling God that He made a mistake with my daughter and I did not approve of or like His creation. How could I say that to God?

After that 'talk' between me and God I was challenged to rethink what it means to be Made in His Image.

Strong Enough To Be Honest

There has been some issue being raised about the private letters of Mother Teressa. In them she expresses doubt and disillusionment with God. She openly struggles with what God is doing and whether He is even there in the first place.

Of course this has brought out many in the atheist community to pooh-pooh on her faith with the "see we told you so" babble.

You know what though, I have to admit, if I had no faith, I would probably form similar opinions about the "Saint of Calcutta" concerning this matter. However, after closer examination I realize that even the giants of our faith, the patriarch's, especially David, wrestled with doubt and confusion concerning the where-a-bouts of God, what He was doing and how long was He going to allow injustice to continue. If you take an honest look at Mother Teressa's life hers is one of similar struggle. She went to the poorest place on the face of the Earth and let the light of love shine in the darkness. She did so in the name of Jesus; to bring the Kingdom to Earth to those who would otherwise never experience it. I would dare say that, were it not for Mother Teressa, those people would still be waiting!

I can only presume the source of such a crisis of faith, but if I were to venture a guess I would be willing to bet that Mother Teressa was looking at the whole of her ministry to the poor, diseased and rejected and was wondering what it all was for. What difference was she making? After all this time, Calcutta is still arguably one of the worst places on Earth. She buries the dead every day. People still go hungry. They are still sick and diseased. All she could do was love them through this hell and she was doubting her impact. She was angry with the conditions there and the hopelessness of the people who are its residents. When you reach the end of your life you want to know that what you have done has made a difference.

I would be willing to bet Mother Teressa was examining the scope of her life and work and began to wonder why God has not done more to change the people and conditions of Calcutta. It all seems quite natural to me. It also makes such a person 'human'. The life of mother Teressa was so transcendent from the world in which she lived that we looked at her as someone who was almost superhuman. In fact, she asked the same questions most of us have asked and felt the things we have felt about God's sovereignty... which makes her one of us (to the great relief of the atheist I might add).

This reminds me of John the Baptist. Jesus called him the greatest of all the prophets. He ushered in the readiness of the coming Messiah, preached with boldness and spoke out against the religious hypocrisy of his day. He was a giant of faith full of the power of the Holy Spirit. Yet we read that once he was imprisoned he begins to wrestle. He doubts. He questions. He sent his disciples out to ask Jesus if he was the Christ written about in Scripture or should he expect another. Jesus has to encourage John with the truth of the Scripture that showed he was indeed the Christ; that John's work had not been in vain; that the work John had prepared for his whole life was not for nothing, but rather, that it had fulfilled the purpose of God. Mother Teressa needed the same encouragement.

Like Mother Teressa, John's crisis was not the result of a lack of faith, but rather, the result of a faith strong enough to be honest.

Free At Last!!!

You may remember in a previous post I had asked you to please pray for the South Korean hostages who were Christians and were in Afghanistan doing relief work. They were captured by the Taliban and were being used as leverage for negotiations.

Well today the last of them have been freed!! I thank God for working out His will in this way. While I do not know what had to be paid or agreed to in order for them to be released they are finally Free At Last!!

What a wonderful picture of redemption. We too were being held for ransom by our adversary the Devil. We were only released once the debt of sin was paid in full. Now because Jesus our Messiah has paid our debt we now have life in Him!!

Thank you God for the release of your people out of the hands of their enemies. May it remind us that we too have been freed from our enemy. May we praise you for it by living a life worthy of the Name by which we are called!!

Free hugs

If you have not seen this yet check it out.
It goes along well with my 'The Power of a Hug' Post.
Read the post first then watch this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vr3x_RRJdd4

The Power of a Hug

I have two children, a boy (5) and a girl (4). My son is very tender hearted and friendly. He loves to play with friends and always seems to get along well with all manner of personality types. My daughter is very different from her brother. She has Autism Spectrum Disorder. As a result she has a difficult time socially. She can not talk yet and has meltdowns regularly. She does have her shining moments though. For example, one thing she did with delight was give her brother a hug and a kiss goodnight. This also pleased her brother as his primary love languages are words and touch. Since his sister cannot talk he knows this is the only way she can tell him that she loves him.

Well, a couple of months ago his sister started to go into a bit of regression. She stopped enjoying the bedtime routine and began to fight giving her brother hugs and kisses. We would bring her over to her brother for hugs and kisses and she would pitch a huge fit; kicking, screaming and fighting every minute of it. This went on up until a week ago. It began to take its toll on my son. I did not notice it before but I was about to find out. On this particular night something was going to happen that would impact my son, I would dare say, for the rest of his life. God was also going to teach me an awesome lesson on the power of unconditional love.

This particular night my son said to me, "Dad, I don't think Delaney loves me any more because every time I try to give her a kiss and a hug she always kicks me and pushes me away."

I tried to reassure and comfort him by letting him know that Delaney loved him and even though she did not seem to like being hugged and kissed it was important that we continued to demonstrate to her that we loved her no matter what. So I asked him to come and try and give her hugs and kisses. I was sitting on the floor with Delaney on my lap and as Aidan got close she started fighting and whining. I told Aidan to keep coming and held on to his sister while he put his arms around her and kissed her goodnight.

He sat back and just looked at her feeling utterly rejected and unwanted. It was evidenced by the look on his face. He was hurt deeply. This rejection by his sister confirmed his feeling unloved and unwanted by her. Then something amazing happened. Delaney started fighting for me to let go of her arms, so I did. When I did she leaned over to her brother, stretched out both her arms and wrapped them around him. He began to do the same and gave her a quick pat thinking she was going to tear away from him any second. But instead she held on. She continued to do so for several long seconds. Aidan began to pull back thinking she was done but instead she tightened her grip. Then, realizing she was not going to let him go, Aidan began to squeeze his sister in a big, long over due hug.

I sat there stunned as Delaney held on to her brother. I knew this was a moment that was going to impact my son. I watched his face warm up and his countenance change from feeling rejection to feeling that he was loved and accepted. Finally they let go of each other.

"See Aidan" I said, "Delaney does love you."

Those words sank in fast and began to completely overwhelm my son. He just sat there crying for ten minutes saying, "Laney loves me! She really loves me!" Again and again he would say it crying as loud as I have ever heard him.

"I am so happy that Laney loves me Daddy but why am I crying?" he asked.

I scooped him up and carried him off to bed. I told him that sometimes when our heart is full of happiness it spills out in tears. I let him know that his sister hugging him was a good thing to cry and be happy about. So he cried. He cried for a long time...and I just held him.

So many things went through my mind. I knew this was a life shaping moment for him. I wanted to say something that would help shape his life for the good. I wanted to tell him he was crying because at the core of our being we all want to be loved like that. I wanted to tell him that when we love someone from the deep places of our heart and soul we want to know we are loved in return from those same places. But I did not know how to say those things in a way that a five year old could understand them. "God help me!!" I prayed. "How do I say this to my son in a way he will understand it?"

Then I realized...Delaney's hug already did.