The promise of a white picket fence life.Our education and opportunity enhance the possibility of our dream life: home, two cars, nuclear family--mom, dad and kids, all with the same last name--as well as activities for those kids, gifts under the Christmas tree, vacations and college tuition.
We forget that if we are Christ followers, we are promised trouble in this life, and sometimes trouble comes by way of dismantling the white picket fence. Jesus says in Mark 8:
Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead. You're not in the driver's seat; I am. Don't run from suffering; embrace it. Follow me and I'll show you how.Right before his 14th birthday, a student from the school where I was principal came to live with us. His mom had been killed by his dad, so he virtually lost both parents at once--perhaps even harder that the parent left behind was in prison.
He stayed with us for two years and allowed me to be a mom to him--not his mom because he certainly remembered every detail about his life as her son--but a mom as the grace substitute that God provided.
I know I was chosen by God to accept those two years if I chose. He began to be on my mind in such a fervent way that I finally got up in the middle of the night and said to God, "What? What do you want?" The answer came softly,
Nash is in peril.When those words filtered in (in that inexplicable, Holy Spirit way), everything fit together, like double vision becoming crystal clear.
What if God didn't address the brokenness of this world with grace substitutes that he alone can see from his vantage point? One of his greatest brush strokes of compassion is searching the world over to bring together people who need and can serve one another in unlikely or unfortunate circumstances.
When the white picket fence life gets tarnished, our job as believers is to not deny God's grace, but rather embrace the suffering it alleviates, giving praise to the creative God who deals compassion into the card game of broken hearts.
Nash, along with his brother and sister, allowed God to use my children and me as substitutes through grace. They let God turn tragedy into spouses and children and successful jobs far beyond their wildest dreams. I am grateful beyond measure to have fit into the grace filter through which those children chose to view life.
In embracing God's substitutes, we may very well be building new and gleaming white picket fences in eternity, far beyond our wildest dreams.
Tomorrow: Undeniable First Love.
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