Faith - Day 3

The very day we found out Aaron's mom was denied for coming to the States for the wedding, Rachel found a quote (by Anne Lamott) on her facebook page that said when God is going to do something wonderful, He always starts with a hardship and when He's going to do something amazing, He starts with an impossibility.

Great timing? An encouragement from God to trust that he's going to do something amazing? I know it's possible it wasn't meant to have anything to do with our situation. And yet, in my heart of hearts it gives me hope. Yes, God can take an impossibility and turn it in to something amazing. I've seen him do it.

The other night I told my friend, Terri, that I know God does amazing things, because I HAVE SEEN many of them. Her reply? "God always does amazing things. We just think it's particularly great when they line up with what we want."

hmmmmm. That is certainly true. We tend to think things are especially amazing when we get what we want. But for me, I think it goes even deeper than that. I want to KNOW God. I want to really know him, and I want to believe all the things he wants me to believe. And when a situation like this arises where it has to do so much with relationship, everything I know about him tells me that surely he wants this as much as we do.

So then if he doesn't make a way for her to be here... if it doesn't happen... it's not so much about whether he does amazing things. I still know he does. The question that will keep me up at night is "Do I even know him?" When everything I think to be true turns out to be wrong... it makes me wonder if this relationship that I think is so very close is in fact lacking. He knows everything about me, but after all this time do I still not know him like I thought I did? That is the underlying fear.

Surely we spend our whole lives getting to know God, and still we only scratch the surface because there is more depth to him than is humanly possible to imagine. But the parts that I've seen, the love that I've known, the heart that has drawn us to him and to each other... I can't imagine that he wouldn't want to make a way for Aaron and his mom to finally be together on this special day. I can't imagine his heart would not be for the son who desperately wants to see his mom. Even Oprah, in all her limited humanness, would want that.

So my quest for faith has become this. A quest to know if I know God. A quest for him to show me more of himself, and to show me what to believe. My desire is to know you, Lord. Reveal yourself, reveal your heart, reveal your love.

I can't bring myself to believe this is the final word on the situation with Aaron's mom. I'm holding out for the amazing things that God will do.