The Glitch Not Heard but Felt

 I lost my words. 

 Somewhere in the midst of busyness, the words left. My mind is weary and my heart is heavy and the words went away from the chaos. 

 Not much exists when you enter survival mode. It is a place that is not necessary especially as a believer. Survival mode is where you go when you set faith aside and try to eke out an existence on your own. 

 There...I said it. The plain, ugly truth. 

 One day that I cannot pinpoint, the glitch happened and there I have been wandering day after day without an ounce of trust in God. Many days I told myself the right words and listened to right teaching but it bounced off the borders of Survival Mode. Here I am now heartbroken and more weary than ever wondering how it happened. 

 Could it be my worry for my two grown children? Could it be my sadness for my husband's struggles? Could it be the pain mixed with joy for my adopted son? 

 Yes. Just yes. But, even more so, it is my forgetfulness of God's holiness. 

 A lot of days I think about adopting our son. It is hard not to. The process evokes in many people a sense of awe for adoptive parents, which most would shake off like a wool coat on a summer day. No badge of honor is necessary for adding to my family the sweetest little soul made in God's image. Besides, in the reality of adoption is a quiet secret. Adoption is sadness and joy coexisting always for the child and the adoptive parents, even if they do not acknowledge it. Joy is abundant and love, too, but there is the persistent knowing that the child came from someone else and the loss is real on both sides. Jellybean is my child in every sense except that he was birthed by someone else. He has history in his genes that tell of another family and to try and deny or cover it up would be dishonoring and wrong. We are his real family. We are just not his biological family. But, as his family, we will walk with him through that struggle when he is ready.

 If it sounds like I went on a random tangent, let me tie up the loose ends. God adopts us through the work of Jesus. It is a perfect adoption but not without a sense of loss. You see, the separation between God and man is real and felt by us all. We were once with God and then came sin. We love our sin and although there is the innate sense of having a Creator, we also have a strong bond to our depraved flesh. When we are redeemed, we still battle with the desire to stay attached to that old bond. God willingly gave His Son to redeem us and that loss is much greater than we know, hence, the reason rejecting Jesus brings such great condemnation. 

 Choosing Survival Mode when I have such a great and loving Father is spitting in the face of Jesus' work. Yet, God walks me through the struggle to bring me back in love and there are no words for that.