I'm a very blessed lady.
There
has not been a day that I remember when I didn't know Jesus and all he did for me.
I was the daughter of a Baptist
minister who at the tender age of ‘as soon as I could talk’ I would be found singing “gone, gone, gone gone, yes my sins are gone”,
to the amusement of those around who
would wonder at the level of sins that this nearly two year old had experienced. A glimpse into my future maybe. To a teenager struggling with her desire to
be cool and fit in, so much so that my life ended up as a battleground of who I
really wanted to be. Only it was never really a contest.
Jesus had won me every
time.
Zip forward years later, past the wonderful husband who only God would
have known would be so right for me, on to the call of God on our life to
open our home and work with young people and amidst that, our two gorgeous
girls. And here was I with a huge dose
of enormous love, more than I could ever imagine, alongside hopes and dreams, fears
and an unfathomable sense of responsibility. You know that feeling. With the biggest hope and dream being that my
girls would know Jesus as their Saviour. So often I would be found praying specifically for things but always including in my prayer ‘but not if it doesn't
mean they won't know you.’ There was
a lot of fear there I guess and not a lot of trust.
“help
them pass this exam but not if it means they don’t know you”
“help them succeed in this and that but not if
it means they don't know you”
“give them
friends, but only if they lead them to you”. You know that kind of thing.
What are your fears for those who you love?
For a beautiful teenage
girl?
And then sure enough, one of my
fears happened. I was in America, Alan was in another
state speaking at a ski retreat (some people get all the good jobs) and so alone,
without my man, I took a phone call and heard the words that you hope you never have to hear. “Mummy I'm pregnant!” My beautiful baby girl,17 years old, and all I could say was “I love you, I love you, I love you. We'll get through this”.
As I lay on my bed that night, not sleeping but a lot of sobbing, I felt
the crash of my hopes and dreams for her. I knew what it would mean. I was scared. I
knew she was scared. What now? What would
her future be? And I was angry too. You
see the father was a boy she met at the club we ran, for unchurched young
people, and we had always encouraged our girls to be involved, to come
alongside all young people, to love and
not judge. And now God why did you let
this happen? Her having dropped out of
ballet school because of injury and with time on her hands and him excluded
from school with time on his hands. I
knew there wasn't going to be a happy ending here. And there and then God gave me the verse in Romans 4 v 18,
'Against
all hope, Abraham in hope believed.'
'Against
all hope, Alyson in hope believed.'
I wasn't even sure what I was believing for, but I would hope.
When I told my friend and pastor of our church in America he said just
three words, and I have dwelt long and often on those words. He said. "Was God surprised?" Was God surprised? Of course not. But what did that mean for us, for
Hannah, for the baby Kai, because God wasn't surprised?
Whilst I was away in another country my dear daddy took his
granddaughter and enacted the love of our Father God and declared the forgiveness of Jesus
and my prodigal daughter melted under the robe of righteousness placed over
her. Jesus had won her. She now has tattooed on her arm
the bible verse 2 Corinthians 5 v 17 “Therefore if anyone is in Christ they are a
new creation the old has gone and the new has come”.
My prayers of whatever, as long as she knows you Jesus, often come back
to me as I watch her struggle sometimes, as a young mum. It was a dark moment and Satan desired to sift us as wheat, to rip us apart but Jesus had won
us. There was a greater plan that I won't totally understand what, how or why, but this I knew God was not surprised. He
knew.
I’m reading a book at the moment called 1000 gifts which summed it up so
well. “That which seems evil only seems
so because of perspective, the way the eyes see the shadows. Above the clouds, light never shops shining." The writer, Ann Voskamp, also includes these words heard by Julian of Norwich and written in her
revelations of love.
“See that I am God. See that I am
in everything. See that I do everything. See that I have never stopped ordering my
works, nor ever shall, eternally. See
that I lead everything on to the conclusion I ordained for it before time
began, by the same power, wisdom and love with which I made it. How can anything be amiss?”
I stood in the park one day watching my blond haired grandson play
football and I was reminded of many years before, at a ladies meeting, just like
this, there was a time of prophetic praying.
A lady gave me a picture; she asked me do you have a son. No I said. Oh. Well I have this picture of you in a park
with a blond haired boy playing football!
“ before you were in your mother's
womb I knew you.”
Was God surprised? Of course
not. For with him there is always hope.
As I read recently in the same book
1000 gifts:
“If we haven't lost Christ child. Then nothing is ever lost.”
