No Blogging Fever Here

Well, I logged on to update everyone on the progress of the adoption and realized...I don't blog!   Yikes! November 9th was my last post!!  Well I warned you all, I don't blog.   I will, however, try to not wait three months before my next one.  Updating you on all the events leading up to this post will be short.  We had a series of situations in which we would accumulate almost all the money we needed to make the first payment for our home study, then sudden destruction would come upon us and we would need the money for something else.  Our car seemed to be the victim most often.  However we serve a BIG God.  This month we made our first payment and we began our home study process.  For those who are not familiar with the process, an agency social worker meets with you in your home several times.  They evaluate your family history, marriage, children and how it all works together.  Pretty easy, pretty straight forward.  This is the point we are in today.  Evaluating.

Last night Joe and I were filling out a questionnaire regarding what special needs, in our child, we would be willing to accept.  There where many questions.  The needs ranged from a lazy eye to Hepatitis C.  This was when this became very real.  This is when we had to truly be honest with ourselves.  There would be no "faking" your purity here.  This is a Christian's gut check moment.  Do you really have what it takes to follow Me?  I mean really follow Him.  Not just nodding of your head when the pastor says something that convicts you or that you think should convict someone else.  Not when you are worshiping to a song that truly does make long for the Lord.  I mean the "gut check" moment when you know you have to do something you CAN'T do.  As Joe read the list of diseases and malformations to me, my true nature became sickeningly clear to me.  Paul speaks of his in Romans 7:18-19.

                                        And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want  to do what is right, but I can’t.  I want to do what is good, but I don’t.  I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway. 

Wow!  Is that me!  So there I sat feeling like my answer should be YES to everything.  But, desperately wanting to say NO NO NO to every single one.  So there I sat, with no "good" answer for anything. So what now?  Well, I serve an amazing God who sees me for what I really am.  Not what I desire to be, not what I want people to believe that I am.  No, He sees the real me.  The ugly me.  The part of me that has nothing good.  So what does he "do" with that part of me?  He gave this passage in scripture to meditate on.  

Isaiah 6 

 In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple. ² Above it stood seraphim; each one had six wings: with two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. ³ And one cried to another and said:

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
The whole earth is full of His glory!”

⁴ And the posts of the door were shaken by the voice of him who cried out, and the house was filled with smoke.

⁵ So I said:

“Woe is me, for I am undone!
Because I am a man of unclean lips,
And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips;
For my eyes have seen the King,
The Lord of hosts.”

⁶ Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a live coal which he had taken with the tongs from the altar. ⁷ And he touched my mouth with it, and said:

“Behold, this has touched your lips;
Your iniquity is taken away,
And your sin purged.”

⁸ Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying:

“Whom shall I send,
And who will go for Us?”

Then I said, “Here am I! Send me.”

Did you read that!  The passage starts out with the Glory of the Lord.  So majestic that the Seraphin use their wings to cover their eyes so that they do not look on the face of God.  And what was Isaiah's response to God's glory?  Much like the one I had last night.  One that we all should have when faced with the true calling to be like Christ. The response Isaiah had, "Woe is me, for I am undone!  Because I am a man of unclean lips,  And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips;  For my eyes have seen the King,
The Lord of hosts.".  That simple questionnaire caused me realize that in the light of what God has called me to be, "I am undone".  I have nothing good to give.  I think my favorite part of the passage above is what Isaiah does with this realization.  He doesn't flee.  He doesn't get angry when faced with his own unrighteousness.  He realizes it!  What does God do with that?  He cleanses him through fire.  Yes through fire.  Not through a hug or an "I believe in you" pep talk.  No, through fire.  He burns his lips with coal.  He purifies the sin of his mouth through the coals of the alter.  That is when I realized.  I have been purified.  I have been touched by the coal of that fire.  That alter represents Jesus.  He was the sacrifice that cleansed me of all that junk I felt when Joe was reading me those diseases.  So, what is my response when the Lord says to me through an adoption questionnaire, “Whom shall I send, And who will go for Us?”?  It is simply, “Here am I! Send me.”