Grafting

"God sets the lonely in families."  (Psalm 68:6)

I read it again this morning.  And how true it is.

For He looks upon the broken, the rejected, the cast-aside, and He claims them as his own.

He sees the pain of the wounded heart, the fearful, the shamed, and He says, "This one is mine."

But He doesn't stop with "just" redemption.  He goes a step further...

He finds the one that will fit with another, and he brings hearts together.

He pieces the heart that vowed "never again" with another jagged edge, and together they heal.

This is my God!

I have witnessed His tenderness in lives all around me, as they have been grafted in to more than they ever dreamed possible. 

The woman with no family who found a Godly husband late in life. 

The man whose wife had left him and would not heed his pursuit for reconciliation, who now can't stop smiling as he looks at the second chance who thinks he hung the moon. 

The divorced friend who had never known the love of a church family, until now. 

The couple who tried for years to conceive, and now raise two precious ones that came into their arms through the joy of adoption.

And one who is very dear to my heart--my mother.  She, who thought life was over with a husband who did not want her and a baby just six months old.  She, who smiles triumphantly on the arm of the stepfather who raised me.  She, who knows that even the pain of rejection can be healed under the oil that flows from His hand.  She, who will soon celebrate thirty-four years of marriage to a man who looks at her as if she is the most desirable woman on earth.

God sets the lonely in families.

And it's that God who calls us to join Him.  To find the lonely.  To bring them into the family.  To wrap His arms around them through ours.  To say, "You're wanted here."  And to keep saying it until it is believed.

The Dream Business

I've started a dream list. 
 
Just a simple page with my dreams written on it.  The really big dreams.  The little dreams.  The ones that I can see come to pass this year, right alongside the ones I can't imagine ever really happening.
 
Staring at my list made me realize how many, many things would have been on that list just a few years ago, but aren't there now.  They're not there because they've already been fulfilled.  Oh, the joy to understand He's in the business of making dreams come true.
 
And I realized I want to be just like Him.  I want to be in the family business---making other people's dream come true.

I can start with the dreams alive in my own house, the ones that are dreamed up by the man I call husband and the four little people with big futures.

I can take it out of my house by investing in the dreams that dwell in the hearts of my friends.

I can look past the weariness in the eyes of the cashier at Wal-Mart and pray that the deepest desires of her heart would be met by the Meeter of All Needs.

Mark Twain once said, "Really great people make you feel that you, too, can become great."

Lord, please make me great this way.  It's a dream of mine.
 

A Dream Fulfilled

All my life, I've dreamed of owning a cottage nestled into a grove of beautiful trees--aspen trees, with a weeping willow thrown in for artistic measure.  And a stream running behind it, and an arbor leading into my flower garden.  The cottage would be a creamy yellow, with stone and ivy and a picket fence and flower baskets and...

And I live in West Texas.

It's where we're supposed to be, and I don't begrudge it for a moment.  But, I do occasionally peruse pictures on Pinterest of the perfect cottage and sigh.  A sigh for a dream that seems impossibly out of reach among mesquite trees and cotton fields.

And there are so many other dreams.  Bigger dreams.  Dreams that my heart still races after, even after the years have come and gone.  Even after the dreams have grown past the newborn stage, marched right through the teenage angst, and are now still seemingly unfulfilled as they approach middle-age.

New dreams are thrilling, because anything seems possible when a dream is born.  But, old dreams can hurt when "hope deferred makes the heart sick."  (Proverbs 13:12)

And that's why there are tears in my eyes as I pore over paint samples this week.

In honor of our tenth year of pastoral ministry in our city, our church has paid to have our house painted.  It's something we couldn't have done on our own.  A gift so large, it awakened a dream.

For I hold in my hand a paint sample titled simply, "Cream Yellow."

And as I sit in my front yard and picture what my home will look like when it's painted, I have to laugh outloud at how good my Father is.  To answer dreams.

For my stucco house will be a creamy yellow-- nestled in a grove of pecan trees, with a pine thrown in for artistic measure.  And a dry creek running behind it, with an arbor set into my picket fence leading to my salsa garden and a zipline...

A dream realized.  Maybe a little different.  Maybe even better.