Bossing our hearts.

As we come up on the girls hearing this Thursday, and with all that has popped up in the case in the last three weeks, I find myself struggling with so many emotions.  In the up and down and back and forth it is so easy for me, in my mind, to exchange emotion for truth, and lies for what I know to be true.

 

I have had to constantly center myself with what I know is true.

With what I have been promised.

With the love that has been lavished on me.

 

I feel angry at Bella and Tootaw’s Mom for the continued trauma, the seeming lack of judgment for the girls’ good.  And while I think that unjust things that hurt His children make God angry too, I have to remind myself,

Better a patient man than a warrior, a man who controls his temper than one who takes a city.  [Proverbs 16:32]

and to

Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every from of malice.  Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.  [Ephesians 4:31-32]

 

 

I feel afraid of what will happen at the hearing on Thursday.  That they will extend this hell for my children instead of allowing us to heal.  But then I remember,

Have I not commanded you?  Be strong and courageous.  Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.       [Joshua 1:9]

For I am the Lord, your God, who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear; I will help you.  [Isaiah 41:13]

 

 

I question why my girls have to go through this.  Why it has to hurt before it gets better.  But He reminds me,

The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save.  He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.     [Zephaniah 3:17]

And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.  God is love.  Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.  [1 John 4:16]

 

 

I think, what good could come from this?  Why not just restore this now?  Why not just redeem what is broken here?  And lovingly, but firmly, He rebukes,

Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?  Tell me, if you understand.  Who marked off it's dimensions?  Surely you know!  Who stretched a measuring line across it?  On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?  …Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the deep?  Have the gates of death been shown to you?  Have you seen the gates of the shadow of death?  Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth?  Tell me, if you know all this.  [Job 38:4-6, 16-18]

 

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.  [Romans 8:28]

 

 

 

 

So, we will go into Thursday trusting – bossing our hearts and our emotions that are so unreliable.  Knowing that He loves us, and that He has a very different, infinitely more wise, perspective on all that is happening.  I will be praying that they set a hearing for TPR, but will rest in knowing that whatever happens, He will use it all for His glory, which is our good.