[On Sunday morning at Highview, I was invited to participate in a morning of 'God Stories' where folks share how they've encountered God in various moments of their lives. Fresh off our most recent trip to Hot Springs, I had many to choose from. I chose this moment, because....God is faithful.]Here's a little song I've taught to the children at Hot Springs.
The Lord has a will
and I have a need
to follow that will,
to humbly be still,
to rest in it, nest in it,
fully be blessed in it,
following my Father's will.
Amy Grant
In
emails and letters and blogs, I have told and will keep on telling the God
stories that describe the broader things He is doing among us and for us at New
Family Foundation.
You’ll
hear more about the New Property, about specific
children’s lives and how they’ve been changed, about the recent Team’s
experiences later on in February when we’ve been invited to bring a report. Keep checking on [this] Highview to Thailand
blog. And if you want to be added to our
monthly email list, please just let me know.
You’ll get lots of God-stories there.
So
many God-stories, so little time.
For
this morning, I wanted to share something more personal. And it has to do with this song.
I’ve
taught it to our gathered family at Hot Springs for a few reasons.
For one, it’s
simple and repeatable and has the rhyming thing going on that is so helpful in
teaching English. And we know that in
learning a new language, music is a great way to get it into that different
part of your brain than where language is stored. So, a good teaching tool.
But also, there's the message of it. The gentleness of
it. The needful place of it for children
whose early lives have included various degrees of neglect and rejection and
trauma…to internalize this idea that a loving Father has a plan and a purpose
and will for them….to know that they can rest in it, nest it and fully be
blessed in it….I want our kids not just to know that, but to feel it.
And
music does that.
This
past trip, on the last day before we left, the Friday afternoon,
when
the kids got back from school, we didn’t do our usual English learning
groups. Instead, we had some games
available, and I brought out the paper and markers and scissors and glue, and
just let them go at it to make things for their Sponsors. There’s this happy chaos that goes on around that table when we do this. Big mess, kids passing around the supplies,
asking me how to spell things, kids presenting their work to me for admiration, and making me promise to bring it back for their Sponsors, which by the way they all
know by name.
And
that last afternoon, as I was sitting at that table, one of the kids starts
singing….the Lord has a will, and I have a need. And without any interruption to what they
were doing, they all quietly join in, me too, just around that table, affirming their
safety in the nesting of God’s will for them.
They’re
safe.
And
it is not lost on me, in that moment.
That they are here, right around me, safe. Because if they weren’t here…..
And
I’ll inject the harshness of this thought into this sweet moment, because
that’s how it happened for me, I believe being placed there by the Spirit of
God speaking to me in that moment. That
there’s no telling what they might be doing on a given Friday afternoon if they
weren’t here, in light of the disturbing statistics on the plight of children born
into poverty, and its connection to the more sinister underbelly of the tourism
industry in southeast Asia.
And
it ambushes me in that moment. I have to
stop singing.
But
the Spirit doesn’t let me off there. I
think it’s plenty enough, but He wants to take it further.
And
I am reminded of all the times in my own childhood when maybe I didn’t feel important or seen or safe. And I fast
forward through my teen and young adult years, though the decades of my life,
closing in on seven of them now, and all the times I was confused and wondering
what good God might possibly be able to extract from the darker chapters of my
story.
And
in that moment, with children singing around me, I hear Him say just one word.
“This.”
As
in all of this is actually a glimpse of how God makes all the sad things untrue
eventually.
One day. Right now.
So, this
morning I want to bear testimony to the faithfulness of God, Who has indeed had
a will for my life, and I have indeed had a need to rest in it, nest it, and
fully be blessed it, following that will no matter what.
Rev. Ruth Anne Breithaupt, MDiv.
Canadian Representative/Missionary in Residence
New Family Foundation/Highview Community Church
The mission of New Family Foundation is to
provide a loving home for at-risk and
orphaned children in Northern Thailand to
help them achieve their best potential in
education, vocation and service to society.
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