A tragic surprise ending to the motherhood I always envisioned

My husband, Dave, was determined to move to the mission field, but I wasn’t sure that was God’s will for us. Yet God seemed to be silent—for months. Oh, how I needed to hear from Him! 

The biggest issue was leaving our children. How could we live half a world away from our son and daughter for four long years?—and then another four years? 

Silently I cried out, When I became a mother, I did not plan to walk away from my children after only twenty-one years! 

I always dreamed our children and grandchildren would live nearby and that we’d get together often—but now, this! This felt like a tragic surprise ending to the motherhood I always envisioned. 

At the same time, I knew how much Dave wanted to join Wycliffe Bible Translators. We had worked with Wycliffe before—in South America, when our kids were little—and I believed wholeheartedly in their work. 

When I thought rationally about working with Wycliffe again, part of me felt okay, but I could find no peace about leaving my children. I feared I might die of a broken heart if I had to live so far away from them. What should I do? 

For months, I asked God to show me how to balance my responsibility to my husband, our children, and my Lord. 

And finally—finally!—I sensed some direction from Him. I sensed God asking me to do something similar to what He had asked Abraham—to place his child on an altar as a sacrifice to Him. God’s request would reveal to Him, and perhaps just as important, it would reveal to Abraham, whether God was Number One in his life. 

God told us in the Ten Commandments, “You shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3). Jesus called that the first and greatest commandment, saying, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30). 

I knew that God wanted, and deserved, my highest loyalty, and that He didn’t want me to let anything or anybody—not even my children—take priority over Him. However, I knew those things in only an academic way. 

The time had come to move beyond mere head knowledge and to apply those principles to my real life. 

I thought of the times I had felt God’s tug, and the accompanying pain in my heart, while I sang the words—sincerely, I thought—“Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.”* 

My all. Had I really meant those words? My all? Even my children? 

God seemed to stand there and ask if I would give highest priority to Him and His plans for me rather than to my plans to live near my children. 

But I had questions. First, when Abraham obeyed God and put Isaac on the altar, He let Abraham untie his son and take him home. If I, figuratively, placed my children on the altar, would God “untie” them and give them back to me? Or did He want me to sever my relationship with them? Or, could there be something in between?       

Eventually I knew what I had to do. 

One by one, I placed each person on an altar I had pictured in my mind. I began with daughter Karen. I had to let go, offer her up to God, walk away, and grieve for a few days. 

I repeated the process with son Matt, and then my parents. I did the same with our possessions, our life in Port Angeles, our home, our job security, and our income. 

This month-long process left me emotionally spent but, afterward, I could fill out the application to Wycliffe Bible Translators.  (from  Chapter 2, Grandma’s Letters from Africa) 

Oswald Chambers wrote, “Sometimes we have to look up mutely to God and say ‘I don't understand it at all, but go on with what You are doing.’” Those words surely capture what I felt during those months. 

Chambers went on to say, “That marks a real stage of learning to trust in God.” I was so emotionally and physically exhausted at the end of the month-long grieving process that I couldn’t have put my experience into words, but looking back now, I suppose Chambers was right—I was indeed learning to trust in God. 

Chambers continued: “Spiritual experience has begun; suffering has already deepened the soul.” 

On his Facebook Page, My Utmost for His Highest, Chambers asked—asks me, asks you—“What is God doing that defies understanding? What do I hope to gain by resisting? What can I hope to gain by trusting?” (Christian Disciplines)

*“When I Survey The Wondrous Cross,” Isaac Watts and Lowell Mason, in Baptist Hymnal, ed. Walter Hines Sims (Nashville: Convention Press, 1959) 99.

 

 

Still wrestling down that elephant in the room

Let’s continue looking at that elephant in the room. Last week I noted that Chuck Swindoll nailed it when he said, “Sometimes people and things can become too important to us. We grip them with closed fists and white knuckles, and God has to pry open our fingers to loosen our hold.” (Abraham, The Friend of God) 

God was trying to pry open my fists so I’d hold my young adult children less fiercely. And it hurt. Oh, yes, it hurt! 

But God asked many people before me to loosen their grip on their kids, too. 

Think about Abraham. 

At first it makes no sense that the God of grace, the God of mercy, comfort, and unfailing love would ask Abraham to offer his son Isaac as a burnt offering (Genesis 22:2). 

God had promised Abraham this son, Isaac. God had promised descendants through Isaac—as many as the stars in the heavens. He’d promised to make Isaac’s descendants into a great nation and give them the Promised Land. He’d said that all people on earth would be blessed through Isaac. 

And yet God wanted Abraham to put Isaac to death? 

Now, God and Abraham had already enjoyed a long, close relationship, the type illustrated in Genesis 17:3—when God appeared before him, Abraham fell on his face. 

“Note the times when Abraham did not speak before God but remained silent before Him—not sullen, but silent. Awe is just that—reverential dread and wonder. . . . Awe is the condition of a man’s spirit when he realizes who God is and what He has done for him personally. . . . 

“Abraham’s posture is an expression of deep humility, trustful confidence, and pure joy—the characteristics of faith in God." (Oswald Chambers, Not Knowing Where; [emphasis added]). 

That’s important information. God made His request within the context of a trusting, personal relationship. 

The NIV study Bible note for Genesis 22:2 reads: “Abraham had [previously] committed himself by covenant to be obedient to the Lord and had consecrated his son Isaac to the Lord.” 

Given that, God’s request of Abraham seemed based on, and a result of, Abraham’s willingness to “walk the talk,” to follow through on his covenant and commitments. 

One key to understanding God’s bizarre request is the burnt offering. The NIV Study Bible explains: “The Hebrew word for ‘offering’ used here [Leviticus 1:2-3] comes from the word translated ‘brings.’ An ‘offering’ is something that someone ‘brings’ to God as a gift (most offerings are voluntary, such as the burnt offering). . . . Anyone could offer special burnt offerings to express devotion to the Lord.” An NIV Study Bible chart defines burnt offering as a voluntary act of worship, an expression of devotion, commitment, and complete surrender to God [emphasis added]. 

God asked Abraham if he’d offer up Isaac voluntarily, as an act of worship, as a gift, as an expression of his devotion to Him. 

“The Lord put his servant’s faith and loyalty to the supreme test, thereby instructing Abraham, Isaac and their descendants as to the kind of total consecration the Lord’s covenant requires” (NIV Study Bible note for Genesis 22:2). 

“The very nature of faith is that it must be tried; faith untried is only ideally real, not actually real. . . . God proved Abraham’s faith by placing him in the most extreme crisis possible, for faith must prove itself by the inward concession of the believer’s dearest objects.” (Oswald Chambers, Not Knowing Where) 

God asked Abraham, as part of their covenant, to give Him his dearest and best so He could give Abraham gems and buried treasure: His better. 

This was God’s supreme test of Abraham’s faith and loyalty. 

This was a pivotal point in Abraham’s life. He could do what God asked, or he could pretend God had not spoken. 

Abraham was about to discover if indeed God was his first priority. 

And as for me: God was offering me a glimpse into whether or not He was my first priority.

 

It seemed all wrong

God was asking me to die to the dreams I’d always embraced—dreams of living close to my kids. 

He was asking me to move half a world away from my daughter, Karen, immediately after she graduated from college. 

He was asking me to move half a world away from my son, Matt, a year out of college, and his wife, Jill, and the grandchild they would surely give Dave and me soon. 

In Chapter 2 of Grandma’s Letters from Africa, I wrote that leaving Matt and Karen hurt more than anything I’d ever experienced. 

A couple of years before we moved to Africa, Dave asked me each day, “Have you filled it out yet?” 

“It” was my application for Wycliffe Bible Translators. I knew Dave wanted a different job. Maybe his current one lacked purpose. Or perhaps he suffered from a mid-life crisis. All his life, he yearned to avoid mediocrity, to break out of the status quo. Probably all those factors led to  his urgent need to serve God in Wycliffe. 

For some reason, though, I couldn’t fill out the application. I tried several times. I placed my pen on the application, but I couldn’t fill in the blanks. 

Finally, I figured out my problem. I didn’t want to apply to Wycliffe. I didn’t want to get rid of our furniture, our treasures, our possessions. 

I didn’t want to dismantle our home. The house I could leave—it needed repairs—but I didn’t want to tear apart what it symbolized—“home.” We had raised our children in it, we had made memories in it. 

I didn’t want to live far away from my mother or Dave’s parents. I didn’t want to say goodbye to friends. 

I didn’t want to leave Port Angeles, with its forests, mountains, and sea. 

I didn’t want to give up the security of employment, income, and health insurance. 

But mostly I didn’t want to leave my children. 

Everything within me cried out that they still needed their parents. I recognized they didn’t need us the way they did when they were little, but I believed they needed our behind-the-scenes support to transition out of college and into the world of professionals. 

Dave didn’t understand my thinking. 

But how could he not feel what I felt? 

Matt and Jill would have each other, but our Karen would be all alone. That just didn’t seem right. In fact, it seemed all wrong. 

But sometimes God works in mysterious ways. Here’s what was going on—dear Chuck Swindoll nailed it: 

“Sometimes people and things can become too important to us. We grip them with closed fists and white knuckles, and God has to pry open our fingers to loosen our hold.” (Abraham: The Friend of God) 

That’s what was going on. And it hurt. Oh, yes, it hurt!

 

Waiting patiently for the Lord

 

My health has hindered me from blogging lately, but I want to say “Hi” anyway.

Psalm 27:4 cheers me on. It gives me HOPE: “Wait patiently for the Lord. Be brave and courageous. Yes, wait patiently for the Lord.” I know He is good, He is with me, and He has good plans for me.

I’m deeply thankful that I have God’s word in my own language, especially at times like this.

I can’t imagine what life must be like for those who don’t have Scriptures in their own languages. They must feel so cut off from God. Maybe they wonder if He even knows them or knows of their needs.

That’s why Dave and I moved to Africa—so those without the Bible could eventually have it—possess it, cherish it, live by it—in their heart languages, the languages they understand best.

I hope to be back soon. If you think of me, please pray for my health. Thank you.

 

P.S. Please tell your friends about Grandma’sLetters from Africa. Buy two copies for your church—one for the missions committee and the other for your church library.