He Never Lets Go

I wrote this last week at some point, but haven't been able to post it in our house of sick. :)

I was never the popular one growing up. I was painfully shy, quiet and didn’t want to be noticed. Probably due to my DNA and my early childhood circumstances, I wanted to blend in. I remember well the first day of 3^rd grade. A new state, a new city and a new school. I was terrified. Terrified no one would like me, especially if they knew that my biological father had just walked away from us. Seeing my mom on her bed at night reading her Bible was what helped me know that we would be somehow be alright.

Fast forward to high school and the desire to be popular had grown even more. This is where my mom would say that my strong will would come in handy. It saved me from some very destructive behavior. I didn’t choose the best of friends to hang out with at times and the path they were going down, well I wasn’t sure that was what I wanted. But my heart broke constantly over not “being cool.” I tried out for cheerleader my freshman year of high school because my big brother was dating one of them and I thought that was surely my ticket to being “in.” Which totally makes me laugh now because I was (and can still be) so insecure that I don’t know why I thought I could ever stand in up front of people doing that! Needless to say, I didn’t make the squad. But I did make the basketball team. I should tell you that I hated “home” games because I was terrified of playing in front of my peers- I was so afraid of looking stupid or failing.

This leads me to today. I still feel insecure and inadequate at times. Especially when reading blogs. It’s been a long time since I’ve gotten upset over a blog, I know, real mature! I only read a handful of blogs now and that’s about all. I found a new blog recently, just stumbled upon it really and one day as I was reading I could just feel it coming over me. Suddenly I felt insecure again and overwhelmed at how pathetic my life seems to be. I know, dumb right? I was in a bad mood all day. Couldn’t shake it. I felt inadequate, like a failure- at motherhood especially! Do we talk about God enough? Pray enough? Man, I can’t believe we didn’t read our Storybook Bible the past few nights. I even forgot to pray on the way to school because I was too busy answering 50,000 questions from a 6 and 4 year old.

The next day Twitter was buzzin’ with a bunch of people going to a Deeper Still conference in America. (It's a Christian women's conference) Suddenly, there it was again. Insecure. Jealous. Poor me, I never get to go to these things. Blah, blah, blah. Disgusting.

I laid this all out before the Lord and took a good hard look at the state of my heart. It all seemed to boil down to the fact that I’ve always felt just a tad on the outside. Living overseas has only added to that in several ways. God reminded me that none of this matters! NONE! He is the only one that I should be concerned about. Sure, meeting Beth Moore and Priscilla Shirer would be, to me, totally awesome. But this is where God spoke so clear to me. I GET to meet with the Almighty Creator everyday, anytime I want! And that is SO MUCH better! As soon as this truth began to sink in, I was at peace.

Looking back at my 3^rd grade self I would say to me, “I know you’re confused, hurting and feeling deserted. Just because your dad preached from the front every Sunday about God and then used God as an “excuse” to walk away from you does not mean God has forgotten you!”

To my 17-year-old self I would say, “I know you feel ugly and unpopular but hold on just a bit longer, God hasn’t forgotten about you, He loves you so much!”

And to my self today I say, “I know you feel left out at times and you are missing some really fun things in America, but it really doesn’t matter. You are right where you need to be and God has not forgotten you!”

As if to really let this sink in and gain a new perspective, something really neat happened last Friday. It’s been very, very cold here and instead of lining up by classes on the blacktop, the school has been open and we have been able to take our children directly to their classroom. I’ve really enjoyed this because we hardly ever go into the school. Last Friday I took Bailey to the cloakroom to hang up her coat and place her lunchbox on the trolley when her teacher pulled me aside. She is a believer- the only one at the school we think- and she’s just been a huge answer to prayer. At our very first PT conference she told me she prays over the class every morning. Thank you Jesus. Anyway, she went on to tell me that she was having a really rough day the day before and was feeling really down about some things. She said she was sitting at a table working on something and just thinking when she suddenly heard Bailey out in the hallway playing and singing at the top of her lungs, "OH no, you never let go, through the calm and through the storm.” She said she instantly started smiling and told me that that song could not have come at a better time for her in that day! Bailey, who is a bit more outgoing than her big sister, but still quite shy, was just belting this song out she said. Another teacher heard it and asked what it was and Bailey’s teacher was able to tell her about the song.

I walked away in tears and bawled my eyes out the whole way home and all while trying to tell Marc the story. God used our little 4 year old to encourage her teacher! Ok, so we are not very consistent at times in our family devotions and I lose my patience with these three precious girls more than I’d like to admit, but we are doing alright. God has not forgotten my girls. Often I worry about them at this school, but God is so much bigger!

He never lets go.