Abigail is well into her journey with her Father and as you can see in this picture she is enjoying the journey so far! In my previous post below you will see a picture of Abigail Jewell Walker sound asleep a few weeks after her arrival.(Take a second and scroll down to see her pic) I have always loved pictures like this one where I get a living illustration of real trust. Abigail didn’t know alot of things yet in that picture but whether she knew it or not she was one little bundle of needs. She is fortunate enough to have loving parents that care for her needs and they also provide a healthy mixture of wants and loving correction where it is needed in her life. As a result of this Abigail is thriving mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually. Creating a healthy environment of love and trust isn't always easy. Satan loves nothing better than to throw a 'monkey wrench' into Abigail's healthy environment of love and positive reinforcement. Why, one word or act misunderstood between any member of their family could result in a week long ( no make that month long...year long?!) 'set to' between any of them and the snowball gains momentum until Abigail's world doesn’t feel so safe anymore. Her family is there but her experience of security can be shaken until everyone in the home regains the harmony needed to provide the security everyone needs to feel it again. Thankfully most 'monkey wrenches' are worked out in a couple of prayerful rounds of intentional communication. Actually I did not intend on making an example out of the Walker family but I did want to bring home the point that just as Abigail's picture is one of absolute trust and dependence, Father wants us to depend on Him in just the same way every single day of our lives, its just plain ole wise to live this way. It may sound simplistic to believe this much less live like this but in reality its the only way. Father is the only one who knows all of our needs even before we do much like a thoughtful parent anticipates their child's needs. Father is also there to clean up any messes we make. If you've ever been told, ''You've made your own bed now you have to lay in it'', I feel sorry for you. That one lie, believed, has the potential to produce years of agony and misery and performance based living until you come to understand what David did in Psalms 56:9b where he cried out, 'this one thing I know, God is for me'. Wow! I love that! God is FOR me! Today Abigail 'knew' this and demonstrated her trust in me during a time of correction she was experiencing with me. She kept pushing the buttons on our DVD player and when I told her to stop the first time she slapped at the button in a bit of defiance to my words. As I corrected her first reaction she then tried another approach to regain her sense of 'rightness'. She proceeded to slap at herself while simutaneously spitting out her pacifier. Note the similarities to our responses as adult children to Father's loving corrections. When she spit out her pacifier she looked at it longingly as if to say, "Ok, if you want me to give up my security I will". But was that what I was asking her to do? I encouraged her to pick up her pacifier while reassuring her of my love and still helping her to understand that button pushing was not the thing for her to do and finally she reached up her hands for all she was worth and cried out for me to take her and hold her! Yea! I had won her heart! She no longer wanted to keep pushing the buttons nor did she want to inflict pain on herself to appease my 'percieved wrath'. She finally realized that where she really wanted to be was in my arms experiencing our fellowship we had had before she started pushing buttons. What 'buttons' are we pushing that Father may be trying to tell us to stop pushing? We may be pushing other people's buttons like Abigail was on 'my' DVD player. He is faithfully and lovingly correcting us and wants is to understand it as such. He even tells us to reach out to Him boldly where we will find His mercy that He is waiting to give us and ask Him for His help when we are made aware that what we are doing is something that is not wise and not of our new nature as His child. Because Father is FOR us we will NEVER experience condemnation from Him. HE WANTS US TO GET IT RIGHT! He is there to help us get there...oh yea, and all of this by all of the power He possesses to bring about the change. If you find you are needing to change for Heaven's sake don't keep on doing the same thing like Abigail did on her first attempt. Secondly, don't condemn yourself or inflict any kind of pain on yourself thinking that that is what you need to do or worse yet, what Father wants. Rather, for ALL YOU ARE WORTH REACH UP TO OUR FATHER WHO HAS ALREADY ANTICIPATED YOUR GREATEST NEED WHERE YOU ARE RIGHT NOW AND HE WILL LOVE YOU and do whatever it takes to get you TO THE PLACE YOU NEED TO BE ...in His Arms.
Thanks Abigail, I needed someone to teach me. MawMaw Susie
For a wonderful testimony of an adult child finding and experiencing the Love and Mercy of our Father you can listen to the podcast 'Living in the Arms of Mercy' by clicking on The God Journey podcast archives under MY FAVORITE LINKS here on my blog. Scroll til you find Living in the Arms of Mercy. Listen and be forever changed. Blessings.
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