February 2006 Newsletter

Dear Friends and Family,

It was almost midnight and I had just gone to bed. This past week I had been struggling to try and figure out how to deal with an especially difficult situation. Often people we are trying to help aren’t very honest with us, fearing that they will either disappoint us or that we won’t help them if we know the truth. The trouble is, I tend to know the truth, when it counts. Not many people are able to deceive me. Perhaps at times I am over confident in my ability to discern the truth, and then at times I get nervous that I may be wrong. In this case this is why I had been wrestling with this one for so long, fearing to confront in case I am wrong and not wanting to be wrong in this situation. As I was lying there, trying to decide what to do, again (yes, I had prayed a lot about this one) I thought how people often wonder how or why we do what we do. My mind began to wander and I thought of some of the close friends that we have written about in our correspondence to you these past few years. I was wondering do we sensationalize what we do in order to make us look good. I began thinking, Is this really such a stressful calling, or do we create the stress for some twisted sense of wanting to be needed?

Then I wandered into the realm of wondering how other people live. Then the faces began appearing. I thought of the 15 year old boy, now labeled a drug dealer, arrested three times in the past few months. I remembered telling him the story of the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe when he was six, and him accepting Christ. After him came the young pregnant girl, a convicted drug dealer, struggling with addiction. I remembered when she was 9, taking her out to buy shoes for her birthday. After that came three friends, all of whom had recovered, miraculously, from major addictions. I remembered my first ever Bible study in Philly with one of them (the photo is still by my desk). I remember Christmases with another, the look on her face as I opened the present she gave me. I remember the third as a young mother out in the snow as I came to “pick her up”, having no where else to go. I also remember all three of them encouraging me when I was down, sharing hope with me. I wonder how they are, where they are. I know where they all live, but are they home, or out wrestling with their addiction, losing the battle again, as I know they all did in these past few weeks. There images are pushed out by that of the children I know who have been molested this year, already.

Finally, I go and look at my daughter, knowing the court case may be postponed again. We haven’t explained the details of it all, what it all means. I say that she is not ready, but I maybe I mean that I am not ready. We were talking about dogs the other day, and that you needed a male and a female in order to have pups. Her questions were quicker than my answers, and she arrived before I knew it. “So how come if you need two people to have a baby, I only had one?” My phone rang and she was distracted.

Sometimes I lie awake at night and wonder why I have trouble sleeping. Often I awake in the morning and wonder why my head is pounding, when the day hasn’t yet begun. I wonder why riding my dirt bike seems so relaxing when it is so intense. I wonder why I seek distraction when I have so much “work” to do. Perhaps I am yet to understand who God really is, and why I am here. But here we are, and here we will remain, until He sends us on, or brings us home. We won’t give in, because somewhere, deep inside, I know He really does care, not just about us, but about the faces that keep me awake at night.


In His Service,

Coz, for the family