On Saturday, Randy and I were sitting outside in the front yard, reading and drinking tea with frequent interruptions from little people. I had to go inside and change a diaper, and when I came back out, I noticed concentration on Randy’s face and how he scribbled a few words down on a piece of notebook paper. Do-fa-sol.
“Are you transcribing the birdsong?”
He was.
He wrote the melody line into a new song called Wings of a Dove. (You can hear it in the link below. This song ministers to me deeply, and I hope it does the same for you.)
I have a strong sensation of being carried by God in this season of my life. I think it is because I am coming to realize how helpless I am without him. My life as wife and homeschooling mother of 8 children is full of impossible situations. Without God’s insight, there are not enough hours in the day. Without his provision, there is not enough money in the bank. Without his stretching, there is not enough of me to go around.
But he is with me. He has given these children into my care. He has made a way for them to come into this world. And he cares deeply about their lives. And so he gives insight, he provides, he stretches and shapes my life into the posture that can best serve them, season by season.
I have been saturating myself in the autobiography of George Muller, a German-born missionary to England, who, in the mid 1800’s built orphanages that housed over 10,000 children, fed them, clothed them, taught them scripture and nourished their souls. What was remarkable about his work is that he didn’t have a penny to his name. There was no board of directors, no committees. He never told anyone of the financial needs of the ministry, but only prayed earnestly to God for every need and waited on God to supply. The lengthy autobiography (I’m listening on audible, and it is over 14 hours long…) is a detailed account of God’s faithfulness in meeting needs at just the right moment. My favorite story is on the day that funds were at an all-time low, and at lunchtime, there was no food in the house for the 300 orphans. He had them all sit at the tables and he thanked God for the food. Within minutes, the baker arrived, saying that he could not sleep the night before thinking about the orphans, and that he had gotten up and baked them bread. Shortly after this, the milkman arrived at the door, saying that his cart had broken down outside the orphanage, and all of the milk would spoil before it could be fixed. And so the children were well-fed and the prayer of blessing was answered.
Muller wrote extensively on faith. In regards to depending on the Lord alone for provision, he said, “This way of living brings the Lord remarkably near… I have never had a greater awareness of the Lord's presence than when after breakfast nothing was left for dinner, and then the Lord provided the dinner for more than one hundred people; or when, after dinner, there was nothing for the tea, and yet the Lord provided the tea-all this without one single human being having been informed about our need.”
There are times when, as humans, our needs are so great that we do not know how we will live through them, and yet we are incapable of doing anything at all except living. Like a long, hard labor, we are focusing on the breath and trying to get through the waves of contractions until they pass, knowing the next will come harder and faster than the last.
But faith can see the end of the story. In birth, it is the baby’s face. In times of physical need, it is the season of plenty. In the soul-weary waiting, crying out to God for deliverance, it is seeing a prayer answered and a promise come to pass.
There are times when we look around us and all we see are impossible situations. But this is the moment where God carries us.
“Faith does not operate in the realm of the possible. There is no glory for God in that which is humanly possible. Faith begins where man’s power ends.” (Muller)
If you are at the end of yourself, you have never been in a better position to see God at work. If you are in an impossible situation, cling to him and and let him carry you.
From the Podcast:
Faith and Miracles Podcast #29
Are you going to have more? How do you feed them? How do you do it? And the often-implied but never-spoken–why??? When people see us with our eight children, they are curious. This podcast episode is a read-aloud of the 6th chapter of my book, The Sacred Everyday. I am sharing it today because it is full of stories of God’s faithfulness to our family. (I recorded this before I published my book. At the time I didn’t know if I would ever have the book in print or not, but I just wanted to share the words, and recording a read-aloud seemed the easiest way to do it.) I hope you enjoy.
Sending love this week, and a prayer for faith where you most need it,
Mackenzie
My book is now available on amazon or wherever you buy books. Or if you prefer a signed copy, you can buy them directly from my online shop.
Umbrellas Journal now available. (8 x 10 inches, 108 pages)