It's All About the Punctuation

  Don't put a period where God puts a comma, don't say 'the end'          while God is still writing!  -"Follow  the Cloud" John Stickl


I am an Orton Gillingham tutor.  When I dictate a sentence for one of my students to write, most of the time I have to say, "Okay, now how do we end a sentence?"  They will quickly put a period.  While we read, I will discuss with them what that period means, "Okay, there is a period.  End of thought, we are going to pause."  "A full stop" according to my man Noah Webster. 
   

   

PERIOD-10. The point that marks the end of a complete sentence; a full stop, thus, (.)  

So many times in my life I go ahead and punctuate my own life.  I throw that little black dot around like confetti at a party! I place it in every 'sentence' of my life that is not progressing along quite as quickly as I think it should.  Still no healing?  PERIOD.  Dream not coming to fruition?  PERIOD.  No change in that behavior?  PERIOD.  No change in that broken relationship?  PERIOD.  Yep, this is just how it is and how it is always going to be.  Let's just call it what it is, pout for a while, then move on along....let's just punctuate and call it done.  And what about those times I have actually longed for a period at the end of something?  Something I am experiencing that I want to be over, or that I want to give up on, or that I want a finalization of?  Those stories I just want ended?  Sometimes that period at the end of a hard season feels like a ribbon on top of a package, frosting on top of the cake.  

Psalm 139:16
Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

The truth I am discovering is that God deals with commas.   As long as I have breath, He is still writing!  The healing I am seeking may look like a period to me today, but let's face it, I don't have any idea what tomorrow will bring!  Maybe I have dreams that I have carried for such a long time and as of today they have still not come to fruition, but guess what?  I am not the keeper of tomorrow! 

Comma - 1. In writing and printing, this point [, ] denoting the shortest pause in reading, and separating a sentence into divisions or members, according to the construction. 

I love this definition..."denoting the SHORTEST PAUSE"....  ahhh, God's time.  It makes me think of a sermon I watched by Francis Chan (love me some Francis).  He held the end of a rope that went all across the stage and into the auditorium. The very last couple of inches of the white rope was painted red.  He gave his sermon and then held up the red end of the rope.  He explained the rope represented eternity while the red was our lives here on earth.  God's time.

 When God is the author could the period at the end of a sentence not be 'an end' at all?  Could it be the beginning of the next chapter, the preparation for what my story holds next?  Our life is short and God's time is long.  What was not done today does not mean it is not going to be done tomorrow.  I had a vision and passion for adopting for almost 30 years.  I pretended I was adopted as a child (I was even disappointed when my sister finally convinced me I was not). I begged my mom to adopt.  I went into marriage thinking of adoption.  I had dreams about the child I would adopt.  I talked about my desire to adopt all those years.  I gave birth to my last child, I put a period on my adoption dream.  BUT GOD USED A COMMA.  He took the shortest pause from when I first had the thought of adoption to setting foot on the airplane to go get my girl...such a SHORT PAUSE, 30 years. 30 years AND he doubled my blessing because we went back 5 years later for our son!  

                              Here is what my 30 year comma looks like...  hooligans!
Zach. 9:12
Come back to the place of safety, all you prisoners who still have hope! I promise this very day that I will repay two blessings for each of your troubles

Although I have put a big fat black circle at the end of so many things in my life, I really have no right to pick that pencil up in the first place.  It is a false sense of security to think I am writing the book.  I am not the author of my own story, and I am so glad about that.  God is so much more creative than I am.  He dreams such bigger dreams than I ever dare to dream.  He takes me places I would never think to go.  Situations may really feel like they need a period in your life, or maybe God really did put a period on that sentence in your life that you wanted to be a comma.  Whether it is a SHORT PAUSE or an all out black dot.... there is always another sentence to follow!  "Don't say, the end, while God is still writing"!!!!

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Consider it Joy

 "The difference between shallow happiness and a deep, sustaining joy is sorrow.  Happiness lives where sorrow is not.  When sorrow arrives, happiness dies.  It can't stand pain.  Joy, on the other hand, rises from sorrow and therefore can withstand all grief.  Joy, by the grace of God, is the transfiguration of suffering into endurance, and of endurance into character, and of character into hope and the hope that has become our joy does not (as happiness must for those who depend upon it) disappoint us."  Quote from Walter Wangerin Jr. as used in Daring to Hope by Katie Davis Majors

  I think that this quote so touched me because it closely describes my last couple of years.  Using the Google dictionary definitions, this is how the last part of the quote might read:
  "Joy is the complete changing of my distress, pain or hardship into the power of enduring a difficult time without giving up, and that endurance leads to character and that character gives way to expectation and that expectation is hope!" 
  I think it is human nature to always hope.  Or maybe it is the nature of those who know the One who is Hope.  I have hoped beyond hope in many situations, I expect beyond normal expectations because I believe God lives outside of any boundaries or probabilities.  God can step into a hopeless situation and change the obvious outcome.  He can.  But He doesn't always do that.  Sometimes He doesn't give me the picture or outcome I have painted in my dreams or envisioned in my heart.  I think the hardest thing about the last year was the feeling of the loss of joy.  Because even though things appeared one way I had hope they would go another,  because God's Word says, "By my stripes you are healed,"  because His Word says, "Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed..."  because His words say, "I will never leave you nor forsake you."  Because He is God, I could hope.  There is a 'space,' a 'time,' a 'season,' where I walked between lost hope and joy.  A place in between.  A place of God wrestling.  A place of not understanding and a place of not moving backward and life pushing me forward.  A place of searching for joy after losing all hope.  A place of calling out to God, "Where are you???"  It is in that limbo that my character grows, that my faith is built, that I decide that although my hopes have been shattered, I have no where to turn except to the one I blame, to the one I cannot hear right now, to the one I know is faithful. 
  And I begin to hope again for new things as I struggle to understand the old.  And that hope has brought me back to the one that is Hope.  And in that great expectancy, in the process of accepting the answer, I begin to get glimpses of joy.  And I sigh and I know He is with me and I know it is okay and I know He has been faithful and I know I will see the joy again and I know that I will never be the same. 

  I know the pain will always be there mingled with the hope and the joy, and that is okay.  I might not have recognized it, but the truth is "Joy can withstand grief."  And I know that the "hope that has become our joy, does not disappoint us!!!"

* Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy.  James 1:2

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Who's your Daddy?

 So this last weekend we were at two archery tournaments for my daughter...(so. much. fun.!!!)  A father of one of her teammates began a conversation with me.  He had me point out my daughter who was competing and could see the other two 'littles.'  He asked me about my archer and I finally told him we home schooled.  He said "Oh, we met another family last year that home schooled...man, they had a ton of kids." He rubbed his head and thought for a minute.  "Yeah, I want to say 5 kids, no, maybe it was 6!"  

         (This is just a fraction of the tribe...getting ready to cheer the archer on! )

Now he was shaking his head in disbelief as he recalled the astronomical number of children this particular home schooling family had.  Doug and I listened in silence for him to finish digging his hole.  When he finally finished going ooonnn and ooonnn about allll those kids we looked at each other and started to laugh.  I finally said, "You might want to sit down, cause we can beat that....we have 7!"   He shook his head and said, "Yeah, but not all of them....." Meaning, "Yeah, but not all of them are yours....." sigh.  I had twenty million replies run through my head along with 25 million emotions.  I finally chose to not be totally offended, mad, or hurt and give him the benefit of the doubt (ignorant, just ignorant) and explained how many bios etc...blah blah blah.  It has bothered me ever since.  There is a huge part of me that was really offended and an even bigger part of me that just felt worn out, worn out by the same thinking, the same questions, the same not understanding. This man made a distinction between the love I have for my bios and my love for my adopted children, he pointed out what my kids already struggle with, who do I belong to?  Who Am I?  But as I replay the conversation I realize that I can be guilty of the same thing, I still find myself  guilty of not understanding who I am or who I belong to.

  What if someone asked you who you belong to.  The majority of us grew up in a home with two parents, maybe they were divorced, but we still had two parents.  We would say we belong to them.  But what if you didn't know who you belonged to?  What if you felt like you didn't belong to anyone?  What if when you were asked, "Who are you?" you were totally convinced you were an orphan, you were totally convinced you were worth nothing, worth no one's love or time.  My kids fight these thoughts all the time.  It is confusing, their story is confusing.  Given away, no, left somewhere, not even handed to a person, just left somewhere for anyone to find.  They were found and taken to an orphanage where there was no one to belong to once again.  Various caretakers, being moved back and forth from an orphanage to a 'foster family; never belonging to anyone.  Then one day a family (Family?  What does that even mean?) comes and says they love you and takes you in an airplane to a place you have never seen, and speaks a language you cannot understand and eats food you have never tasted.  You don't just say, "Okay, this is love.  Now I belong!"  No, you fight what you don't know to feel what you do know.  You  fight the love and want anger instead, it is comforting, it is what you know.  You fight the closeness and sabotage it when it 'crosses your lines' because it feels better to be on your own, you belong to no one.  But. Then. God.  

                                               (But. Then. God.)

Then you hear the name of God.  Then you feel the Holy Spirit.  Then your  hardened heart melts just the smallest bit.  Then you are told how much he loves you, how he wants to be a father to you....you want it, you know your heart longs for it...but you just can't grasp it, you just can't reach out and take it. You. Just. Can't. You lie and you cheat and you steal so that God, who is love, will not love you.  Then those people who say they are your family will turn and you will feel comfortable again, safe and unknown, and you will belong to no one....until someone prays for you that day, talks to you that day, and that hardened heart melts just the smallest bit....and so the cycle goes. 

                                                            (A moment of belonging)

My kids are not so different than me. Not so different at all.  Who am I?  Who do I belong to?  I struggle to answer that on so many days.  It is easier for me to tell my kids who they are then to tell myself who I am and believe it.  Do you know who you are?  Do you know who you belong to? I would love to tell you what I tell them...

You are who, the only One who has the authority to name you, says who you are.

He says you are His child,  His heir.  He calls you Beloved son or daughter.

And while you may live like an orphan and the liar has his way, the truth is, you never were an orphan.  He has held you in the palm of His hand, He knows the number of hairs on your head, there is no where you can run from His spirit.  All your days were ordained by him before one of them came to be.  You were never an orphan. 

And so we run on our 'wheel', we live in a place between knowing and craving the truth and pushing the truth away every single time.  My prayer is that one day, the truth will be held close and the craving will be satisfied with the only thing that will satisfy it.   We will run confidently to Him as his arms are flung wide for us and He smiles and hugs us and says, "Beloved Daughter!  Beloved Son!"

But to all who have received him--those who believe in his name--he has given the right to become God's children … (John 1:12).

I no longer call you slaves, because the slave does not understand what his master is doing. But I have called you friends, because I have revealed to you everything I heard from my Father (John 15:15).

And if children, then heirs (namely, heirs of God and also fellow heirs with Christ)--if indeed we suffer with him so we may also be glorified with him (Romans 8:17).

So you are no longer a slave but a son, and if you are a son, then you are also an heir through God (Galatians 4:7).

Greater

MercyMe

Bring your tired
And bring your shame
Bring your guilt
And bring your pain
Don’t you know that’s not your name
You will always be much more to me

Every day I wrestle with the voices
That keep telling me I’m not right
But that’s alright

‘Cause I hear a voice and He calls me redeemed
When others say I’ll never be enough
And greater is the One living inside of me
Than he who is living in the world
In the world
In the world
And greater is the One living inside of me
Than he who is living in the world

Bring your doubts
And bring your fears
Bring your hurt
And bring your tears
There’ll be no condemnation here
You are holy, righteous and redeemed

Every time I fall
There’ll be those who will call me
A mistake
Well that’s okay

‘Cause I… Full lyrics on Google Play 

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