God did not give us a spirit of fear

My spiritual memoir, But the Greatest of These is Love, has been out for over six months now. I am encouraged by the responses of the readers and thankful for those who have contacted me to share their reactions to my faith journey with God through adoption. I appreciate the cards, emails, and calls from friends. I have been surprised by the messages from complete strangers:

"We have lived such parallel lives . . . I adopted my two daughters from Russia, my second one also in April of 2002. I felt like I was sitting with you on the plane at Dulles!"

"I have always felt a nudge to adopt."

"Your story has made me question what I might have missed by not "listening" to God."

I even received a phone call from an apologetic gentleman who thought he might be out of line for using my home phone. I was, however, thrilled to hear from him, especially when he said my book was "phenomenal!"  He used that word to describe my little narrative! And people I have never met have blogged about my book, and written reviews on Amazon! I am humbled by this attention. I am also amused by the common description "honest" used in many of the correspondences, as if I could be anything but truthful when I am writing about my experiences with God. He is the main Character who knows this story better than I do. I could hardly make it up, especially by making myself look less like the self-centered mother I was, who wanted no part of God's up-close-and-personal invitation to join Him in taking care of the least of these, in my case, an orphan. Another common adjective used in describing my book is "powerful." How could I have given this book "power" apart from God? It is impossible. 

My fondest hope is that you will read But the Greatest of These is Love and be encouraged that God's will for our lives is infinitely richer than the safe lives we can plan for ourselves. The biggest obstacle to action is fear, and fear is always the enemy. "For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline." (2 Timothy 1:7 NLT) All profits go to Orphan Care Resources, an organization that trains Christians in Russia and Ukraine to step out of fear and into faith to care for and adopt the orphaned children of their countries.

Please feel free to contact me on my home phone at 301-829-nine-zero-zero-four. Leave a message and I will get back to you. Everyone has a story. I would love to hear yours.  Find me on Facebook to read some of the public posts about my book and see photos from my journey.  I would appreciate your "like"s and comments. 

Embracing God's invitation

Welcome to my inaugural blog. Everyone has a story. This blog is about mine.

Moments when you believe, or know, that you have heard a word from God are difficult to describe. My moment hit me with the force of a lightning bolt. I didn't see it coming, nor did have time to take cover. Never before had I encountered the God who is not silent! I was left singed and smoking. God had stricken me with one enduring, unthinkable directive: Adopt an older boy from Russia.

I was not eager to embrace God's invitation.  Hadn't He noticed that I already had three children? Two were teenage girls, for God's sake! And my precious eleven-year-old son had been the baby too long to     relinquish that coveted role willingly.

I limped along for months, licking my wounds, blind at first to the reality that the lightning bolt had ignited a shallow faith and was transforming it into one that was electrified! During the months I spent in self pity and deep despair, the God of the universe was at work, reordering my life. What are humans that He is mindful of us? I have no idea! My human brain doesn't stretch enough to comprehend that immense, overriding Love for selfish creatures like myself.

I started writing But the Greatest of These is Love while I was on the runway preparing to depart for Russia, still seeking an escape route. That tense experience became my first chapter.

I have been a lifelong writer, as well as a visual artist. Writing is like painting with words. As a kid, my journals were engrossing and therapeutic.  My notebooks of letters-never-intended-to-be-sent let me resolve issues and achieve perspective. Writing this story was no different. In the process, I saw God in places I had missed with just my visual sense. Sometimes sentences and paragraphs seemed to write themselves, exposing more of this personal God with whom I was becoming acquainted and learning to trust.

My desire for readers of But the Greatest of These is Love, and this blog is that they will trust that God’s Divine plan for us is infinitely richer than the confortable little lives we can plan for ourselves. God has been here all along. My motivation for writing this book is to make Him visible.

“If the journey did not include a few unexpected detours, we would hardly need faith,” Philip Yancey, Reaching for the Invisible God