I was hoping we could title this edition "epic, giant, huge, amazing, steps" but there aren't many moments like that in the lives of families that we get to say those words.
Our fast has ended and my kids are amazing. They learned everything I wanted them to learn. They now care for the house almost completely, they are all self sufficient, even my 11 month old and they are kind, respectful, diligent, thoughtful, compassionate, self less, perfect children that wake up longing to do everything they can to make the Burgess home peaceful and wonderful....
Oh yeah, that would be amazing. Then again, maybe not. Part of me wishes that this experiment caused that to be true, but then when I think about it, I realize part of the joy of being a parent is seeing these perfectly individual people become gradually more amazing each day. Their worth isn't measured by my idea of what they should be, but the joy is in the journey of discovering who they are and why God gave them to our family, because they will each add something epic, giant, huge and amazing to our family if we choose to embrace each others awesome-ness, warts and all.
The experiment itself was totally worth it!! We started out heading in one direction, but surprisingly ended up somewhere totally different.
Back at the beginning of the year when we began talking about doing this experiment our lives looked a certain way. We were living in relative peace, we noticed some troublesome patterns in our kids, and ourselves and we thought gallant thoughts and dreamed giant dreams about how to make ourselves better. Then the LORD stepped in and when we began the journey we thought we were headed north but we ended somewhere totally different.
When we began compassion was one of the issues we wanted to emphasize. We thought a 3rd world country would be a logical place to explore as an outlet for our experiment. As we got caught up in the daily in's and out's of the experiment another place of need began to arise and just like good sailors we had to adjust our sails to catch the wind of the season we are in.
You see, we began to see that compassion starts here at home. My Dad has been battling a giant for over 7 years now. He has bravely faced cancer, a giant that took his Dad home, and one that millions of others face every year in our world. When it attacks someone you don't know very well it's a shame, when it attacks someone close to you it becomes personal. Isaiah 58 says that a true fast is not just giving up food and being hungry, but actually doing something to help others (my paraphrase). One of the most important ways to fast is to "not turn away from your own flesh and blood"vs. 7. That seems pretty easy for most of us, but when your own flesh and blood is fighting something bigger than yourselves, something that has stolen millions of lives over the years.... it seems impossible. YET we still don't get to turn away.
So, we fight! We put on our compassion and we say "this seems impossible, but we won't back down, we fight!!!" What in the world does that look like???? Well for us, it looked like praying daily for my Dad. Not just Daniel and I, but bringing our kids into it. We believe the Word of God is powerful and effective, so we read the Word and proclaim scripture over my Dad. We believe we serve a good God, who is rich in compassion and mighty to deliver. We haven't seen cancer defeated very often, but we have seen it, so we grab a hold of those testimonies and we pray from a place of hope that causes our faith to grow. Our kids got it!!! They went after their grandpa's healing in prayer right along with us! Have we seen a full healing for my Dad? Not yet, but we aren't done! The fact is we were able to quiet the noise of our lives enough to go after something together as a family that was worth going after! That was unifying, it was compassion in action and it was epic.
Now I know what some of you are saying. "What if it doesn't work, what if you don't see the fulfillment of your prayers?" I still say, it was well worth it!!!! We aren't telling our kids this will look a certain way, but it is breeding hope in my parents, in my kids and in people that are watching. When hope is born we always win because it causes each day to be easier than it would without it! When the next battle comes we will stand up again and say, "we serve a good God who is rich in compassion and mighty to deliver" and we declare that the outcome isn't in our hands but His. Success isn't measured by our standards. I know exactly what will happen if we don't pray. You never know what could happen if you do!
We learned as a family what it was like to go after something together. The Bible says that "one can put a thousand to flight and two can put ten thousand to flight". There is something really important about the issue of agreement that is so world changing. NOTHING gets done in this world for good or bad without agreement. My kids felt the joy of going after something as a family and they really got it! The battle isn't over. We aren't fasting food or TV anymore, but we also aren't ever going to go back to how we used to be. We know what it looks like to fight for something worth fighting for. Our next battle may be even more personal, I want my kids to know they CAN do something instead of feeling powerless. The world tells us we can't do anything, the Bible tells us something different.
We've given ourselves a mindset that declares success isn't the outcome, but the process. When the doctors gave up on my Dad's case we started saying "alright, who can we call to help us?" We can't just throw this in God's "lap" and say heal him or else I'm going to be offended, hurt and angry at you. He welcomes us to agree with His Word and partner with Him in this battle. I know He doesn't "need" us, but He's chosen to use us and I love that! So if you develop a need that is too big for the doctors and they send you home to die peacefully saying "hope you have an easy time of it..." we want to be ones that you call for hope. Our world looks really different as a family when we clothe ourselves with compassion and say, "let's do something about that!"
Hope is born and that is always a success.
