What We Don’t Have, God Can Grow!

There is a line in one of my favorite chick flicks, “When Harry Met Sally” that I love. In context, Sally, a successful journalist who had not put marriage as a priority was with one of her friends daughters and they were playing “I Spy”. As they were “spying” different things on their ride, they suddenly spotted, “I Spy a Family” – and this brought the seemingly stable, happy Sally to tears – for even though she was in her early thirties, she realized “her biological clock was ticking”. I have always loved this movie, and Meg Ryan, who played Sallly, was so perfect for the part, for she made the whole early adult growth process that so many women go through so believable; I know I went through it!

I was not in my thirties however, when I came to “spy a family”. I was twenty-one when I had my first child and with her advent, my greatest desire was to have a family – a real family, not like the one that I had grown up in! When I gave my heart to the Lord, He told me clearly, that “if I would serve Him, He would save my family (my parents, brothers, sisters)”. As I look at my family todaY,  God  not only heard my prayer of saving my own family, He gave me a family, a real family – in abundance!

What is even better, is that God blessed me to see each one come into a saving knowledge of Christ Jesus. They are raising their families in the fear and admonition of the Lord! My heart is filled with such joy that the generational curses that I was born under, have been broken, and we are now generationally living for our Lord! My cup runneth over! The confused,  broken, empt vessel I brought to the Lord, as Bill Gaither penned, ” He made something beautiful of my life..”

I’ve told the before, I’ve told the after – but the in-between is what I want to share today - the days when we didn’t know how things were going to turn out. The days when we found out things we would rather have not known about things the children did ( I always prayed they would get caught in their wrong); the wonder in our heart when they brought this one home, or that one and said this is who they were going to marry; the many heartaches, disappointments, the many, many times that I failed to be a good parent ; the times “my foot almost slipped” – and I found myself giving up – feeling that not even God could fix the mess I was in.

In case I’m not making myself clear – the “family” I see today didn’t come in a big brightly decorated box – it grew, – one day at a time, one surrender at a time, through the tears, the heartaches;  learning how to give unconditional love to each one – born in or grafted in – taking one opportunity at a time to “see what God was going to do with “this”! And a whole lot of growing took place around the dinner table, on Sundays, at Thanksgiving and Christmas. Jesus was on to something, when He instructed us to “break bread together!”

Be encouraged today – whatever state your family is in today – keep seeing family – keep growing family – keep trusting the Father of family – He’s faithful!

⁵A father of the fatherless and a judge and protector of the widows is God in His holy habitation.

     ⁶God places the solitary in families and gives the desolate a home in which to dwell; He leads the prisoners out to prosperity; but the rebellious dwell in a parched land.

     ⁷O God, when You went forth before Your people, when You marched through the wilderness–Selah [pause, and calmly think of that]!–Psalm 68:5-7 (AMP)

Maria.