Holding .............

There are lots of things on my heart and mind this early morning as sleep eludes me. My "to-do" list is long as I prepare to fly to Maranatha, Michigan tomorrow to join our team for the April 2012 "The Journey" (http://www.ohmin.org). There is time, and those things will be completed. Those are things I control, can manage, fix and complete.

There are many things my heart is holding now that I can neither fix or control. I've spent time listing those to God. He is the Master fix-it-man and knows just what needs to be fixed and exactly how to fix it. The reality is He may not repair things to match the longings of my heart. I will hold that reality and in the midst of that hold faith and truth in His plan.

The list of prayer requests is long and hard. Dear friends are struggling with difficult family issues and adult children's choices. Early death has come to the son of friends back in Illinois. Word of needed cancer surgery for our niece gives our heart a jolt.

Among my own adult children there are needs, hopes, dreams and hard things. We have trauma building with the critical injury of our daughter-in-law Buket's brother, Volga in Turkey. It appears God is taking us on a difficult journey into the unknown and dark nights of medical emergency, uncertainty of outcome and holding hope in the midst of difficult news from the doctors.

Even though I can trust God's plan in the lives of my children and their families to draw Him closer to each of them, that trust doesn't totally erase my longings of a less painful journey for them. There's a balance between trusting, handing it over to God and holding all those things in my mother's heart.

I find hope in the photo to the right. My hands are formed in prayer and compassion around the hearts of those many on my prayer list this morning. The cross in the middle of the heart created by the holding hands is where I need to be centered today.

There are many words floating in my head as I type...... hope, concern, pain, longing, trust, uncertainty, reality, heavy, hard. The one that seems to surface the loudest lately is holding. I am holding a lot, but God is holding me. Those are my hands forming a heart around others, but those are also God's Hands forming a heart around me with them His promises to me noted by the cross in the center.

A friend shared this passage with me yesterday and it is my hope as I hold on and let go and find a good balance between the two.

The passage is from Isaiah 43: 1-7. I've personalized it a bit....

Do not be afraid for I have ransomed you. I have called you by name, you are mine. When you go through deep waters and great trouble, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown! When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up; the flames will not consume you. For I am the Lord, your God, The Holy One..., your Savior.

Others died that you may live. I traded their lives for yours because you are precious to me. You are honored and I love you. Do not be a afraid for I am with you. I will gather your children from east and west, and from north and south. I will bring my sons and daughters back from the distant corners of the earth...."

Holding hope.......