While I am sad, extremely so, that another one of my friends is leaving (my husband said it's my personality--if that's true, where can I sign up for the next "How to change your personality" class?!), I will eventually be okay. I still have one or two friends poking around here somewhere. What makes this situation blog-post worthy is something my friend said to me.
And then one day, BAM! God wasn't wrong after all! He began moving in their hearts about a church plant a year ago, and as recently as two weeks ago they candidated in a very small church with no Christian school. Four days ago, it became official. They are moving, and God was going to (finally, to our limited scope of life) bring about what He had promised to a teenage girl almost 20 years ago.
I say all that to say this: God won't be wrong in my life, either. When I was in junior high, God told me that I would start an orphanage. I have to say this one thing, real quick. If you know me, like, really know me, you know that I don't particularly like babies. They cry for everything and despite what well-meaning veteran parents say, all their cries sound alike to me. They sleep all day and fuss all night, and when you finally do manage to get them to stay awake while the sun is up, well, that's when they spit up all over your very clean shirt and blow out their diaper right after you just changed it. Eventually, they learn the magic that comes with vocabulary, and suddenly, I am a-okay. And, if you're wondering why I just spent a whole paragraph depicting my dislike of the tiny non-communicatives, God told me that this orphanage would be for babies. Specifically, babies whose mothers would have gotten an abortion, but decided to give the baby a life, instead.
When I went to college, I was sorely disappointed when I did not find a "How to start an orphanage" course. I thought surely a missions-minded college would have at least one 2-credit class about running an orphanage. But they didn't, so I decided to take general missions courses instead. Then I got married and had a cry-machine of my own (who I love with all my heart, who so quickly and wonderfully outgrew those awkward months, and who is now a smart, handsome six-year-old ready to take on the world). My husband taught high school, then we moved and he is now involved in politics.
Ever since college, I have thought, maybe not necessarily that God was wrong, but that maybe I had misheard Him. Maybe He just wanted me to feel bad for those babies. (Yeah, now that I think about it, that doesn't sound like God.) Maybe I did think He was wrong. And because God didn't immediately put me on the path He told me I would one day take, I didn't like to tell people about it. Can you imagine? "Yeah, God told me I would start an orphanage, but I'm not doing that, so...I guess He was wrong or something." So I just didn't say anything at all about it.
I don't know about you, but last time I checked, I'm not dead. My life is not over. As far as I know, I still have YEARS for God to fulfill His promise to 13-year-old me. And as I'm writing this, I realized something. Not a lot of mothers who want an abortion choose life/adoption. Abortion is so much "easier". But when abortion becomes illegal, there will be a whole pile of mothers looking to permanently farm out their kids. Cue me with an orphanage just for such precious babies! And don't think it's a coincidence in the least that the area of politics my husband is so impassioned about is Personhood and the fight against abortion.
Knowing someone else, and hearing it from her how God worked one way in her heart when she was young and is just now "following through" with it, is such an encouragement to me. I mean, I know in my head Isaiah 55:8-9 "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." I have those verses memorized and can platitude my way out of a paper bag with them. But now I can claim them, proudly (you know, the good kind of pride), and can say with certainty, "Isn't it wonderful that God has much higher ways and thoughts than I ever could!"
And if I end up dead tomorrow, God still isn't going to be wrong, because maybe my influence would have caused others to start orphanages, and my support of my husband encouraged him to continue the battle to end abortion for good. Who knows, I may even start an orphanage during the millennial reign!