Oh, no! I am married to Hurry.

You can live your life as the bride married to Hurry, having affairs with Not Enough, Always Stress, and Easy Cynicism.

My heart stopped because this is me. Don’t get me wrong, I intentionally fight this description every day but I fear I am not winning the battle. As much as I fight it, I am not yet immune to the hurry of my life, the not enough feeling that social media taunts me with, the always stress of being a wife, mom, friend, full-time teacher and founder of Oaks Ministries, and the easy cynicism that surrounds me as our country and culture are in upheaval and my environment is saturated with easy cynicism that rolls off the tongue with nary a thought all around me.

• Really? I am truly living above all of this like my book is titled?
• Really? I live entirely undeterred in my relationship with God in the confines of this chaotic world?
• Really? Not one person in my life is swaying me away from perfect focus?
• Really? Not one of my obligations is out of balance?
• Really? I don’t ever look at the life of someone else and feel less than?

I am flat out aware that I am not immune from such influences. As much victory as has been seen, there’s a long way to go.

I am not yet standing in full victory.

None of us are. Not even the apostle Paul: Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. (Philippians 3:13-15)

So I press on with a new prayer that is flowing from a freshly tweaked heart straining forward after being pierced by these sentences.

This is what I have been praying every morning with much better results:

Jesus, thank you for dying for the sin-soaked flesh in which I am housed because of original sin. Thank you for raising from the dead, conquering death once and for all, so that I can know that Your promise of a forever heaven is trustworthy and I do not have to live enslaved to sin. Thank you for sending me a Helper, the Holy Spirit, as another power to access besides my own feeble strength. Holy Spirit, saturate and flow through every part of me. Be what people experience when they interact with me today. God, I invite you into my day to surprise me with your goodness and perfection. Infiltrate my day with Yourself – in every relationship, every sentence, every thought, every decision and every aspect of my schedule. I trust You to run the day. I trust Your perfect sovereignty to reign over all the imperfect parts of my life. I lean into each part of my life and into You, trusting You alone with everything…every person for which I am concerned (name), every situation that worries me (name)…every iota of my life. Spin it all for Your glory, Your kingdom, Your eternal story. I am powerless except for You. All you. No me. May it be that way today.

Perhaps you are like me. As much as you have grown, as much as sin and worldly culture has lost as grip…

the fight is still not over.

Time for a newly committed stance.

Time for re-fueled resolve.

Will you join me?

Picture Explanation: Last year friends of ours met a foster child and began to pursue adoption. (I blogged about it a bit last December.) This month, he became their son.

Also this past week our family celebrated the ten-year anniversary of the adoption of our son! He is pictured here with a sweetie pie I dearly love who also has an adoption story related to our son’s.

Our son’s story has been told in my blog in 2014 and 2015.

I pray regularly that each day I become a better mom to him than the day before. And I consistently thank God for the honor of being called this young man’s mother. What a gift from God. He made our family better!

Adoption is beautiful. However, each adoption is also forged in struggle. After all, that is why God had to send His Son to make a way for us to be adopted into His family. We were in trouble and needed rescue from our sin. So I want to honor these adoption stories with the celebration they deserve but also continually extend respect and compassion for the birth families associated with each picture posted this week.

© 2016 by Oaks Ministries. All rights reserved.