Where Does My Help Come From?

I had an entire post drafted, detailing some of the ways this foster care thing has been HARD, most recently in the last week or so, but I think most of it is best left unpublished....I've spoken it all to God already.

My character has been stretched and challenged, I've been hurt, I've questioned.

I've felt rejected as I sit around the dining room table with Z and his attorney and listen to him respond to her question of "where would you like to live" with I want to live with my grandma.  It hurts when I'm doing everything I can and more for him and still, blood is thicker than water.  I know this to be true, I completely understand it, and yet its hard to know and to hear.

In my weak times I desperately search for the easy button.  I try to convince God that He made a mistake in choosing me for this mission.  I list out my inadequacies to Him, hoping He will realize I'm not as big as He thinks I am.

I have a list of reasons why it was a preposterous idea for my name to even cross His mind for this job.  For starters, I don't even like kids.  Seems like that would've been a deal breaker.

But it comes down to just a couple simple things for me.  I am confident God called us to this time and this place.  I have to TRUST He will equip me, daily.

Though I don't like it, I think its good for me to live with the constant awareness that I can't do this life in my own strength.  Its also good for me to die to self, daily.

I'm so grateful to personally know the God who IS my strength, the God who has called me to something greater than myself....the God who loves kids, especially the orphans and the fatherless.

He thinks enough of me to make my vapor of a life count for something more.

So for the 200,000th time, I lift my eyes up to the hills.  Where does my help come from....the Maker of Heaven and Earth.

Lord, give me grace for just one day more.

I lift up my eyes to the hills.

    From where does my help come?

 

My help comes from the Lord,

    who made heaven and earth.

He will not let your foot be moved;

    he who keeps you will not slumber.

 

Behold, he who keeps Israel

    will neither slumber nor sleep.

The Lord is your keeper;

    the Lord is your shade on your right hand.

 

The sun shall not strike you by day,

    nor the moon by night.

The Lord will keep you from all evil;

    he will keep your life.

 

The Lord will keep

    your going out and your coming in

    from this time forth and forevermore.

Psalms 121