God is amazing and such an Encourager!
We were in Santa Cruz over the weekend to visit friends and also to do meetings for my work. We got to go to our old church and listened to a message on Trusting God. God provided four separate events to give Wes and I encouragement to continue trusting Him that day!!
First event:
It was so awesome because after church a lady came up to me and asked if she could talk to me! She wanted to know how we came to the decision to have seven children! She even said she had read my blog! Wow! What an encouragement! I was so excited to share with her our testimony of how we came to allowing God to be in control of our family I didn’t know where to begin. So, I started at the beginning of how God slowly showed us the truth of how He feels about life, creation, and children. It was such an encouragement to talk to her and hear how God is working in her life to and how He has been speaking to her heart about children. I shared with her about what a wonderful and incredible journey it has been and how I would never change a minute of it for the world. How contrary to what the world or even well-meaning other Christians would tell us, letting go and giving God control really does bring PEACE beyond all understanding. You would think it would bring fear and worry, but it actually brings the opposite...incredible peace that dissolves fear and worry as you learn to put everything in God’s hands and become ready for each new day’s adventures! It is always so wonderful to be given the opportunity to share our testimony with others and I see it as a gift to do so. It always reaffirms our conviction of trusting God in all ways. It’s so amazing, because as I already said the message for that morning at church was about trusting God! If only others could see that everyone needs to trust God in the area of family planning too and not listen to the lies of the world telling you otherwise!
Later that day while driving home to Cool we had another encouraging time while eating dinner on the road! God used complete strangers to encourage us and again reaffirm our mission and ministry as a family in three ways! We stopped at our favorite taqueria, Adalberto’s, in Stockton for yummy carne asada burritos and taquitos. We were busy being the “loud family” and enjoying our Mexican food when a lady nearby asked me “are these all your children?” I of course replied with a smile “yes.” She thought we had only five since two were in the bathroom, but I corrected her and told her we had seven. The other two children then walked in and she said with a smile that they were all very adorable - how sweet! Doesn’t it encourage you when people call your children adorable?
The second form of encouragement came from a man who was alone eating dinner next to us and had apparently been watching us while he was eating. He came up to us after he was done and said “hi, I just want to say something...I am a licensed marriage and family therapist and if every family acted like you did I would be out of business.” Wow! what a nice thing to say. We are always telling the children that others are watching ;) - sometimes we can be quite entertaining!
The final comment came from a guy as we were leaving. He said to me “Are all of these children yours?” Funny how that is the common question...After I told him yes, he said...”Wow! That’s awesome and such a great witness!” I couldn’t believe that he could actually be talking about being a witness to God through the number of children we had. I couldn’t believe it so much that I had to ask him to repeat himself. He then proceeded to tell me that he just had his second child and that he and his wife don’t practice any contraception, but are leaving their family planning up to God!” Wow! I was sooooo encouraged and he looked to be only in his early 20’s! I told him that is such a blessing to hear and then told him that God will bless him for his trust!
God is so good and what an Encourager He is! Thank you Lord for showing us early enough in our lives to trust you fully. Thank you for revealing yourself to us through encouraging verses in your Word and through the encouragement of complete strangers! You are a wonderful and loving Father who loves to encourage. I pray that I will remember that encouragement each day and also that I can become a better encourager to my own wonderful blessings.
No comments:
Post a Comment