good, bad, God the same Pt. 2

So while there is some serious bad happening around me, as I shared in my last post, there is also so much good mixed all through it.   Specifically good and clear sign of God at work. 

Isn't this the most precious photo?  Our little preemie niece Sweetness is doing so well she has been moved to an open incubator, is able to nurse at least a couple times a day, and has tripled her weight!  She is still having dips in her heart rate several times a day (called a "Brady") and has lung issues, and even when she is released from the hospital she will be in fragile health for the first few years of her life because of her lungs--a common cold could be life-threatening.  So I appreciate those of you praying for her--she is still completely in God's hands.  (I mean, so are all of us, and our kids, but you know what I mean. : )  Her parents also need a lot of prayer--their situation is so complex, as they left behind jobs and a non-profit in India and are trying to live in the States on an Indian salary; and are probably going to run out of insurance for Sweetness, and have been getting a run-around from Medicaid and another program so poor N, DH's sister, is ready to pull her hair out; and only two pediatricians in Colorado Springs accept Medicaid patients, but N does not feel they are qualified to handle Sweetness' special health concerns. . . .

And yet, in the midst of all the frustration and worry about the future, there is still the very real knowledge that things are amazingly good for them at this moment.  Sweetness' daddy works for a company that often sends him to the States, so has been able to continue working from Colorado Springs (that right there is pretty unbelievable!); they have had a free place to live all this time (although it might end at any moment, due to health concerns of the absent owner); and so far both N and her husband S have been healthy so they could be with Sweetness daily (esp. after hanging around us, that right there could be considered a miracle! ; ).

And more Good, so, so so awesome:

Remember Davids, whom I posted about last week?  Well, my friend Terry found a link to the blog of the family who is adopting him!!!  (I am linking the blog to my sidebar too.) I urge you all to go and read the first couple of entries, so you can see how divinely placed these people were.  I was SO excited to get top hear how Davids was snatched from a very bleak future, and am even more excited to get to continue the story with this family through their blog--what a priviledge to share in the unfolding beauty of their story!

Davids needed a last-minute miracle to save him.  But you know that saying that God is an "eleventh hour" God?  If the first family had adopted Davids on schedule, then there would not have been this world-wide recognition of the need for a miracle, and no pleas to the Almighty God to intervene and rescue this child.  Maybe the family would not have been a good fit, and Davids was delivered from that too, we don't know.  But the way this terrible situation happened ended up the perfect chance for the world to see God doing what He does best--rescue and deliver.  This might have been a routine international adoption that no one would have heard about.  Instead, because of the way it all unfolded, people all over the world are praising God.  He is so good, and His timing is perfect.

But reading what the mom wrote hit my heart another way, very personally.  I imagine these people had been listening to God tug at their hearts for years.  They listened, and acted, starting the process of adoption from Latvia.  Because they had listened and acted, they were in place and ready when God said, "Ok, it's time for you to be part of My Work."  This miracle was the direct result of obedience to God's calling.

I want to be those people.  I'm not talking specifically about adopting--it seems like all doors are shut to that one at the moment, so does not seem to be where He is leading.  I'm talking about readiness.  It is easy to say, "Sure, Lord, lead me according to thy will,"  or as I have been praying daily, "Please show us what you want of us, and give us the desire to do it."  But if we are always praying that while always sitting still, never starting to head in a direction we think He might want us to go, never venturing out in service to see if this is what He wants, then what do our prayers really mean?  It makes me think of the story of the priests who were told to cross the Jericho river into Caanan--the Scripture says the waters did not start to part until the head priest put his foot into the river.  They had to hear God and trust Him, and step out in faith before they were in place to receive all the blessings He had in store for them. 

Trust, like Love, is both a noun and a verb. So am I sitting on it, or doing it? 

I am not at ALL lucid at this moment--this darn cold is lingering, lingering, and my brain feels like fudge.  But maybe some of you are getting what I am trying to say.  I'd love to hear what God is telling any of you these days!