Traveling with Angel today....my thoughts....

It is no secret; I did not grow up with my parents my entire life. It is not a secret that my father has been married more than once, twice, three times….you get the idea. My brothers and I lived with our grandparents for a while when we were toddlers and when my older brother and I were 12 and 13, we went to live with them permanently while my two younger brothers lived with my dad and then, wife. I wish my two other brothers would have been with us….I really missed them and growing up with them under the same roof.

It’s true there is a deep longing in the heart for family, parents….love and acceptance. No matter what your past is, even if you try and deny the longing…it is there. I remember when I was overseas, talking with a fellow missionary and she asked me if I thought my birth mother loved me. I remember sharing at that time that I did not believe she did. She then asked me if I had a longing for her and I was very quick to say, “NO”. She, of course, did not believe that. There was a longing there that I did not want to believe existed.

Did you know that we have a deep longing in our very souls for God? We have a deep longing for our Heavenly Father? Oh, we may try and deny that…but it is true. I remember being outside of His family…trying to fill the longing, trying to find purpose.

Ecclesiastes 3:11 states:
He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.

Just reading those words bring tears.

And then I read in Psalm 139:15,16
My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

I remember the intense love that grew as I carried Joshua and then Faith. It is truly something ineffable. Now, here is our God who knew us before we were even formed. He placed within each heart a desire for eternity. That “taste of the sweetness of LIFE” with Him. Can you grasp the immensity of that? A longing for Him in our hearts….we were HIS before we were even born. Then sin enters the world and snatches His LOVE and all these years He has been pursuing to take HER (US) back. I remember when I gave my heart to Him….i thirsted for HIM, could not get enough of HIM. Even in my “veteran” years as a follower….I still cannot get enough of HIM.

Joshua asks me daily if there are “don’t knows” (people that we don’t know) who are going to Hell. He has a burning to tell them about Jesus; (and does every chance he gets) that incredible Hope he has found and continues to learn and thirst for. Just today he was trying to grasp that God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are ONE God.

To answer my friends question…I do believe that my birth mother loves me. I am sure she has the deep longing in her heart and that her birth children are just beyond reach. My mom has been incredible with trying to understand my relationship with her…even the need for relationship with her, whatever that may look like. (And I thank her for that.) Living most of my life with my grandparents…my heart misses them…yet I do know, because of the eternity that was placed in their hearts just like you and I and them accepting HIS pursuit…I will one day see them again.

Oh Lord, what a day today has been for reflection on my “eternity gift” that you have placed in my heart on so many levels. May my eternal heart along with the eternal hearts of, my children, my husband, my friends, & my family always long for MORE of You…and, to quote the verse that Joshua continued to say today:

Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. 1 Peter 3:15