Comfort or Conviction

"Daddy, I'm scared..."

"I'm right here."

"...but I'm scared..."

"We just want you to try."

That could be the start to any number of conversations we have with Liza, or God has with me on any given day.  We have many fears.

"Is it okay?"
"Is what okay?"

"Driving at night?...I'm scared."

This time it was on our one day ski trip to Beech Mountain.  She had never skied before.  The night before she was saying that she wasn't going to.  So we let her say it, knowing now, that she often rethinks those decisions based in fear.  On the way up the mountain in the morning, we told her we just wanted her to try; that she could stop any time she wanted.  "But I'm scared."  The tone of her voice and the quizzical look on her face asked, "Why would I ever do something that scares me???"  We said, "We know you are.  Everyone is scared the first time.  But we'll be right beside you."  She didn't argue.  She stood in line and waited to be equipped.

Does that sound familiar at all?  You've probably heard the expression, "God doesn't call the equipped, He equips the called."  Think about it this way: Why would you gather the equipment for something you never planned to do?  How many people go out and buy boots and skis and poles and goggles when they've never even conceived of a ski trip?  Liza certainly would not have come up with this idea on her own.  Her parents did.  I certainly would never have conceived of adopting from Ukraine on my own.  My Father did.  It wasn't until she got in that line that we began to fit the equipment to her.  As it wasn't until I trusted Him that He began to equip me to go.  Sure I owned some wool socks.  But that doesn't make a person ready to jump on a chair lift to the top of the Alps.  In the beginning I looked a little like Liza on the J lift.  Confused and terrified.  The lift operator walking beside her is saying, "Don't pull it; let it pull you."

 The four kids, that we've raised since birth, put on their boots, picked up their skis and got on the slopes without looking back.  Our nine year old son we had to repeatedly chase down and tell him to not be QUITE so brave.  Even the two girls who were walking outside to a snowboard lesson with a group of strangers, did so without any hand holding.  They know, because they have experienced, the promise of "I'll be right here beside you."

 In the end, she quit after an hour.  More to the point, she quit after one good fall.  Nobody has ever said to her, "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again."  But that's for next time.  For now, we are working on, "Just try."  Which she did.  The rest of the day and night, we praised her for her courage, because she's also never heard her parents say, I'm proud of you."  And we are.  So very, very proud.

 Things around here have been improving by leaps and bounds.  She is very much the sponge we often refer to small children as being.  She watches our reactions, praises and disappointments very closely.  Now when she wakes in the morning, she smiles as me because we told her that her countenance affects others.  When she hurts someone's feelings, she says, "I'm sorry" because we told her that everyone makes mistakes; and everyone needs forgiveness.  She has had dark days and we worried that she had been too fragile a flower to transplant.

But now the signs of life are greener every day.  She's going to be okay.  She has realized that not everything that looks scary, really is.

The are many moments when we really believe we have stumbled upon a hidden passage to the child at heart.  That maybe, though we missed those years, we haven't missed the girl.  The scars will always be there to remind her where and what she came from, but they will be just that; memories of wounds that have been healed by the Grace of God.

"Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and does not do it, sins." James 4:17.  This tells us that there are, indeed, sins of omission.  So the next time you are faced with the choice of personal comfort or personal conviction, CHOOSE CONVICTION.  Not everyone is called to the same challenges, like adoption, but everyone will be called upon to face their fears and trust the Father.  Get in line.  Get equipped.

...even when you can't see where it will lead.