A Faith-Filled Song
I was sitting at the bar drinking coffee, and she was standing in the middle of the kitchen getting her breakfast. She turned from the refrigerator toward me, shocking me with her words.
“I think I want to go to Serbia.”
I about choked on my coffee. I sat down my yellow coffee mug and stared blankly at her. We had been in our new city for approximately 6 weeks. Initially, it had been extremely hard for her, but she kept walking it out. She called it “going to work” every day. And slowly, acceptance, resolve, and connection grew. But THIS was a crazy leap. A million thoughts started going through my mind:
Are you aware no one from your family is going?
Do you remember how the first 12 years of your life you demanded to sit by dad or me on a plane and clench our arms, panicking if we forgot to bring your ear pressure equalizing tubes?
Are you aware that Serbia is on the other side of the world?
Even in my stupor, I didn’t have the heart to obliterate her hope. I held my face steady, eyebrows up. I just said, “Really?”
A few years ago, I dropped her, her sister, and my two nieces off at the airport early one Sunday morning to fly to Memphis for a mission trip. I remember sitting in the driver’s seat of my car, in the passenger drop-off area at IAH, watching my world disappear through the sliding glass doors, suitcases rolling behind them. I had such a sense of peace over me. I was feeling the effects of an experience I had a few days before.
Three days prior, I had sat across the table from a faith-filled grandmother who had experienced the most horrific trauma and loss to a human being that I had ever personally known of. She had lost all three of her daughter’s sons in a horrible evil act only a few weeks before. I am embarrassed that I had dreaded our meeting. I couldn’t fathom being in the presence of that kind of loss. I had decided already to let the conversation go where she wanted and needed it to as best I could. She came in and out of the conversation, sometimes retreating into herself as the talking went on around her. Near the end of our time, she began to share the family’s heart for the boys’ lost friends to come to faith, for support for the marriages in their family affected by the loss, and for God to gain glory from this evil act. I realize many would say she must have been glazed over and not truly connecting with what she was saying. But no one can convince me differently about what I saw. She was sober, aching, broken, and mustering every ounce of sincere belief of what she knew about her God in the wake of that tragedy. I will never forget those blue eyes of faith, brushed with mascara and sparkling with eye shadow. For all the times we have all heard someone say “I could never . . .”, I have to say that in that moment a saw a real-life faith holding on in light of unimaginable tragedy. It was raw and desperate. I’m saying it makes you unwrap your fingers from the facade of control (that doesn’t exist anyway) when it comes to our kids. And seeing that will leave you changed. It has left me changed.
Later the morning of the Serbia surprise, something I was reading led me to 2 Timothy 1:7. Immediately emotion filled my heart and my throat got tight.. It was not lost on me that the Holy Spirit led me unsuspectingly to this verse. This was THE verse that I had prayed for that child more than any other verse. I prayed it methodically, intentionally, and strategically. I desperately wanted God to release my daughter from a blanket of fear and release her to confidently pursue what He has made her to do. I had written that verse on an index card and placed it on the shelf above her bed when she was in elementary school. I had recited it over and over in prayer on her behalf.
“For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but one of power, love, and sound judgment.”
Well, alrighty then. I knew I had to align my thoughts to that request that He had answered in many ways already. This fearlessness and boldness were exceedingly more than this mom would’ve ever asked for. So, this morning she launched her suitcase into the back of a Ford F250 pickup and climbed into the church’s van with the team headed for Serbia. God will meet her on the other side of the globe. He will make His glory known there and my kid will see His character in new ways. I joyfully and tearfully release her to His watchful eye and perfect plan. She has already declared by her actions over the last few months that His ways will be the theme of her song wherever she lodges (Psalm 119:54 NIV). She will experience His ways in another part of the world, and it will change her song. It will be bolder and it will be rich. I can’t wait to hear it.
And I will sing a new song . . .one without the echo of fear and control that so often come from my momma’s heart. I want to sing a song of bold faith, as my dear friend did and still does, that God’s ways and character are the anchor of my journey, no matter where He takes me.
“Your decrees are the theme of my song wherever I lodge.” Psalm 119:54
