Eyes Open For Miracles

The story of Abraham's near sacrifice of Isaac has always made me uncomfortable (Genesis 22). I hold dear to  the foreshadowing of God the Father's sacrifice of His only son, but I also hold a deep fear that God would also ask me to sacrifice my most precious to follow Him. I won't lie.  Don't even mention that I have a son named Isaac. I can't even process that. 

I've known from day 1 from this adoption journey that obedience to God's call to welcome our sweet girl home would include 8-12 weeks in Albania. In essence, I would need to quit my job and move my family across the world for three months having ZERO clue how the Lord was going to provide in the long list of not so small details. But also from day 1 the Lord had said "don't look to the waves, focus on Me".  Okaaayyyyy.  The details are waves. We'll just keep walking forward with blinders on...What waves? I don't see any waves.

For whatever reason, the details--the waves--felt big last week. I spent the evening researching my daughter's country; the notable summer heat, the rolling black outs, the intermittent lack of water even in urban areas, the language, that is frankly a tongue tying hot mess and I felt the tears coming. "Lord, THREE MONTHS away from home. What do I do with the house? I won't have enough maternity leave, I'm going to loose my job. Not to mention this is going to be hell on Isaac. We'll go, but this is going to ruin us".   All the Holy Spirit said was 'you need to worship me now".  Ok. Ok. I crawled into bed (next to Isaac's warm little body) with wet eyes and a desperate worshipful hum. 

The next morning I wasn't feeling much more confident, and called our adoption agency to walk through some details of 12 weeks of travel.  "Oh, hey Desiree. I probably should have mentioned this earlier (we've been in this process for three months already), but travel is only going to be 4-6 weeks max"  WHAT??!!!  I didn't know if I should kiss or slap the man!  (Thankfully, the phone prevented both.)  The happy tears came...finding someone to watch the house for a month would be a breeze; I'd have enough vacation time to cover an entire  maternity leave--I can keep my job AND have time to transition us all into our new normal-- and Isaac would be ok; we can bring Gramma AND a helper for a month and skype in for therapy appointments. This is actually going to work! 

And then the voice of the Lord: "You offered your sacrifice, I provided the ram. Keep your eyes open for the miracles".  

What a lovely promise. To walk forward with hope and expectancy. God WILL provide--the time off, the money, the resources, the emotional support, the physical health---He'll provide the ram to see us through this sacrifice. 

Praise you Lord!  What miracle are you preparing for us next?

Genesis 9 Then they came to the place of which God had told him; and Abraham built the altar there and arranged the wood, and bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. 10 Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. 11 But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” 12 He said, “Do not stretch out your hand against the lad, and do nothing to him; for now I know that you [b]fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.” 13 Then Abraham raised his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him a ram caught in the thicket by his horns; and Abraham went and took the ram and offered him up for a burnt offering in the place of his son. 14 Abraham called the name of that place [c]The Lord Will Provide, as it is said to this day, “In the mount of the Lord it will [d]be provided.”