An Elephant and a Mouse

Please join us as we welcome home Austin Stone partners (S. and K.) serving in the Middle East. We will be having a welcome reception in the cafeteria after the 11:00 service on Sunday, September 20. A light lunch will be served.

To receive updates, or for more information on how to support them financially, through prayer, encouragement or service please contact their Advocacy Team leader, Cort Hascall at corthascall@gmail.com.

For the past few weeks, GTB has been having even more trouble than usual sleeping.  He no longer likes the dark, he’s afraid to go to bed at night, he wakes up in the middle of the night scared and sad.  Its heartbreaking…and annoying…and God’s using this time in GTB’s life to convict my heart of so many, many things.

The first night after we returned from vacation, we put GTB to bed as usual.  He cried..which is not usual but not highly unusual either.  Toodus asked if I thought we should go check on him, and my reply was, “We just got back from vacation, he’s probably just adjusting.  Let’s let him cry for a few minutes to see if he’ll know we’re getting back into the regular routine.”  Sure enough, after five or ten minutes, he stopped crying.  Awhile later I went to sneak into his room to grab a diaper for Deuce and a sad little voice said, “I was crying Mom.”  I replied, “I know, baby, I heard you.”  To which he replied, “I cried about you Mom.”

My heart broke.  I knew what he meant.  He had cried for me, and I hadn’t come.  He had cried wanting my comfort and protection, and I had let him down.  All because I was worried that if I went to him once, I would have to go to him every night until he left for college (or something like that)…and that would be an inconvenience to me.

So what did I learn?  My heart – though saved by Jesus Christ – is still inherently selfish and sinful.  I care much more about my own comfort, my own time, my own needs than I do my child’s…call me a terrible mother - I am. But, unlike myself, My God – who has saved me by Jesus Christ – longs to comfort me, to protect me, to sing sweet songs over me.  He is never worried about time, he is never too busy, he never fails to come when he is called, and he never fails to answer those who cry out for him. By the grace of God, I am the mom of two amazing little boys…and I desperately want to love them, comfort them, protect them.  But I will inevitably fail.  God never will.  He is our perfect Father.

The bottom line:  We will always fail, but God is always faithful.