So, we'd seen Luke's face, but I had done what I could to shake it mentally. Just being honest.
Yes, he stole my heart. Yes, he was adorable. No, I could not forget him.
But his special need was just too hard for me in my mind.
And there was another problem. Luke was a he.
Don't know that I've shared this before, but Kevin and I were both very comfortable having only girls at home. We have four. In a row. Let's just say we have girl stuff.
And our one boy...well, he is out of the house. And our 18 years with him kind of left us feeling like a future of nail polish, dresses, hair styling, and dancing with Daddy was just fine. We were content to stay in the pink and purple zone.
Yes, I'd heard plenty of parents share their difficulties with their daughters...my parents included. Let's just say...I was every parent's nightmare. Really. I'm not kidding. I'll share my testimony of God's great grace toward me another time. But, all that said, we just couldn't picture "going back" to boys.
But I also knew that He'd been working on us both. Our adamant "no" of not-so-many months back was becoming..."if You really want us to, we will, Lord."
So, at the end of February, God clarified this issue about boys for me. I wrote about it generally here, now I can share the specifics.
Our pastor has been teaching through Exodus and that particular Sunday we were in Exodus 3, where God tells Moses He wants him to return to Egypt. I remember our pastor saying that God was going to send Moses back to the place of his failure. [Moses knowing that he was to deliver Israel from bondage had murdered an Egyptian task master. His fellow countrymen were contemptuous instead of grateful and Pharaoh made it such that Moses high-tailed it out of Egypt for Midian. Now, 40 years later, it was time to go back...to the place of his failure, failure to deliver Israel. It was time to go back to Egypt...where God would do the work through Moses.]
As those things were being taught, God was simultaneously speaking to my heart.
About boys.
He said, "Mandy, I'm sending you back. I'm sending you back to boys."
Oh, Lord, no.
Moses went through his list of excuses...and boy (pun intended!) did I have mine. You don't need to hear them here, but suffice it to say, I was not chomping at the bit about this word from the Lord.
I'm not sure exactly how the pastor said it, but he said something about Moses having a choice as to his response.
That's when God said to me..."Mandy, you are going back. Unlike other times in your life, this is not choice. The choice you do have is how you go back. Will you go like Moses (willingly) or like Jonah (need I explain?)."
Ouch.
Like I (sort of) explained in the Burning Cry Room post, I wasn't sure I had heard Him right given the in and out nature of hearing the teaching while sitting amongst mommies and babies. The Lord provided the opportunity to hear that particular message again...the very next service. In the sanctuary. By myself. (It is the only time I've sat through a whole service since bringing Lily home!) I think I was hoping I'd heard Him wrong. That I'd gotten it mixed up. That I was off.
Not to mention that if this is what HE wanted, I really wanted to be really sure HE had said it. I'd been asking Him to show me...and it seemed He was. But I wanted to be sure.
So, I sat through the next service. And heard absolutely nothing different!
That's where the story ended that post. But there was more.
On the way home from church, I told Kevin about what the Lord had spoken and how the second service only confirmed what the Lord had spoken to my heart.
Now, the girls always come home with a ream of worksheets from Sunday School. So, when we got home, Kevin was standing over the trash can with Anna Grace's papers doing the" Keep or Throw Away" interview. I heard him stop when he came to one of the papers and say, "Anna Grace, why did you write this?"
Anna Grace, kind of anxious to get on with playing, said: "I don't know, I just did."
Kevin: "Mandy, you've got to see this."
And this is what he showed me....
For "no apparent reason," Anna Grace had written the word "boy" across the center of a piece of paper. With "I do love Jesus" at the top.
On the day that the Lord told me He was sending me back to boys, He used my daughter to confirm His word and remind me that Jesus said, "If you love Me, you will obey what I command" John 14:15
He had answered my prayer for direction...and made sure I knew what His answer was. All I could do in the days that followed was be thankful.
In Him,
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