You are I, we are meant to be lights in a dark world.

Our lives are meant to be a story of hope. One that others can bookmark and use for the sake of encouragement. But, if we are battered by fear, we will be crippled and unresponsive to some of the great needs that are in front of us. With every fear, with each new dark report, there is an opportunity to trust.

God says we are the lights in this world. Cities on a hill. The salt of the earth.
We are the ones who celebrate because we KNOW victory is coming.

I live a mile from the most recent Ebola scare in Texas. Some gal read the news report off of her cell phone while I sat in a waiting room during my son’s dentist appointment. Every eye in the room widened. Anger flared in our hearts. We shifted our eyes about in fear. Panic in our hearts, real panic. I glanced over and tried to make more sense of the lives sitting in front of me. One woman, a bible on her lap, studying for her bible study. A man who gave a complimentary “Amen” when someone said something he agreed with. There we were, the three of us, Christians… so, so scared.

Somebody made remarks about the government, another about Nigeria, and I… I just sat straight up. All of the comments seemed topical to me. Speculations that did not help at all.

Something fierce stirred within me. I am tired of Satan layering blankets of fear on God’s people. So hoping that Christians will sense the urgency to stand right where they are and be a light in a slowly dimming world. Refusing to be slapped around by all of the “what ifs” and “what might happen” in the world today.

I am not trying to dumb down the real threats in our world today. I wash my children’s hands. I pray. I watch the news. My feet are on the ground and I walk around just like you do. But, I need to remember and I want you to remember …our hearts are His.

My concern for us is this….if we are so incredibly distracted and absorbed in our fear, we will miss out on this great big opportunity to shine. To show that Jesus has ransomed us and we are free. Free to really live life in a world that is so afraid of losing it.

Something happened about a week before that I will not soon forget.
I was in the heart of North Dallas when a monstrous storm flew in. My children and I stood in the back of a small 7-11 convenience store while the sleet and hail pelted the windows and shook everything around us. Honestly..honestly… in that moment I honestly thought that the building was going to be moved, leveled. With a child on each side of me, I backed up, moved away from the windows and moved closer to the floor. I cannot say that I did not feel the fear in my humanness, that my heart did not quicken …that I did not look at both of my children with sober, solid concern. I did. I did. But what surprised me was the unconscious presence of peace. Not scared for me. Not scared for the eternity of my children. Peace in the center of my soul.

I have let this experience sit with me.
I walked away changed. Really.

What if we could come to the point where we are no longer afraid? What would happened if we could stand with each other, fully surrendered to what is coming?
What would happen to the world around us if we could REST knowing that we are held, and that God is living in us, and our eternity is accounted for?

If we could live without that FEAR, we would be dangerous. DANGEROUS for the LORD.

God has never allowed there to be darkness without calling up great big, bright lights.
You and I …we are the lights.

Please encourage another person today. You may just give them the courage they need for the next divine intersection in their lives.
Let’s remind each other that we are all going to be just fine..that God is hemming us in on all sides.
Let’s quote the Scriptures and sing a new song to the LORD…
The one that conceived us, birthed us, and has carried us all this way.

Let’s be fully present in our homes and communities and live, trusting.
Let’s stand firm while all the threats in this world swirl around us knowing…
We are HIS and our eternity is secure.

“Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you.”
Isaiah 46:4

*photo by Mary Anne Morgan http://www.maryannemorganphotography.com

I had heard it all my life.  That Satan (the enemy) was against God, and surely, he didn’t care for me much either.  Because God had taught me, from an early age, that He was all I had.  Everything that was beautiful, or special, or granted to me was fueled by the merciful, loving heart of God.  I knew that without Him there would be no victory, no reason to hold out for a celebration.  I would never have fullness of joy without Him.  I have always truly believed it.

I have watched the enemy roam around in the middle of our trials and try to push our faith around.  I have observed the absolute brilliance of the Lord as He accomplishes His plans.  After contemplating both, I have come to this conclusion.  If God has created life (the starting line) and if God has conquered death (the finish line), then the only place left for Satan to play (and possibly win) is the middle field.

Satan plays the middle field because he has no power over the beginning or the end.

God promises us that if we rely on Him, if we utterly cling to Him, He will have the victory in our lives.  “But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Corinthians 15:57 NIV)  But in the middle, somewhere in the middle, Satan steps up and tries to make us question if God really can get us to the end.  Satan stands at every corner we turn handing out discouragement and despair, causing us to doubt and wonder.  We have plenty of time to come up with all kinds of endings of our own, in the middle field.  That is why the Bible tells us to be on guard in 1 Peter 5:8.  “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.”  We need to be mindful that the enemy stalks the middle field…the middle of a trial when we cannot see our way out, the middle of work we are doing for the Lord, the middle…the middle.

Most of our lives are spent navigating “the middle field.”  Very few things that we really want come easily or transpire in a short amount of time.  Most of our dreams and our hopes come to fruition over the course of years, sometimes decades.  Whether we are praying for someone to spend the rest of our life with, a cure to failing health, restoration in broken relationships, an end to depression and self-hatred, or a release from the bitter root of anger, it takes time for God to work out the plans of His heart.  But, one thing is for sure…. He will accomplish the plans of His heart.  The Bible tells us this in Jeremiah 30:24.  “The fierce anger of the LORD will not turn back until He has fully accomplished the plans of His heart.”  Although the enemy prowls, the Lord is fierce.  He protects us. He defends us. He moves circumstances in our favor.  “But I will sing of Your power; yes, I will sing aloud of Your mercy in the morning; for You have been my defense and refuge in the day of my trouble for God is my defense” (Ps. 59:16-17).  The same God who delivered Jesus from the powerful grip of death to a glorious ascent is delivering us today.

If I had known what I know now, I would have expected oppression from the enemy when my husband and I decided we would like to start our own family.  After buying a pair of maternity jeans on Ebay and entertaining dozens of baby names, we glistened with hopefulness and waited in joyful anticipation.  A year and a half later, I found myself in the middle of an infertility specialist’s office analyzing the chance of my husband (David) and I having children at all.  I never imagined that someone could deliver such a set of sobering news to me…”The chances of conception were slim to impossible.”  I slid down in my seat unable to accept an answer that was so firm, so final, so devastatingly cruel.

After two rounds of in-vitro which required the maximum amount of hormone inducing medication, we had lost four viable embryos (babies).  One embryo from the second in-vitro attempt was held back and stored in the bottom of a nitrogen tank in hopes of being transferred in the future.  The doctors ran more tests, and one thing became clear.  We would need to move forward in a hurry.  My reproductive organs had aged prematurely, and I was not responding favorably to the medication that encouraged several eggs to develop during the course of one menstrual cycle.  David urged me to move my medical file to another doctor and try one more round of in-vitro, in the essence of time.

I was weary.  We were in the middle field.  Satan knew it.  I believed that God was with us, but I could not see Him.  Our lives had changed the day they mixed our reproductive material in a petri dish and the cells began to grow and divide and multiply.  David had become a Father, and I became a Mother.  Life had begun, and then, for some unknown reason could not continue.  I could barely breathe, much less entertain giving the reproductive process a third chance.  Had I not utterly loved my husband and wished for him to become the Father of our children, I think I would have said that I was going to retreat…take a rest, take a bow.  I would have sunk down in utter sadness.  With a tired, wilted heart I moved forward and transferred all of my medical records to another doctor.  When they ran a new, different set of tests, it became clear.  My immune system was compromised.  My body saw my own babies as a cancer and sought to destroy the developing fetus.  It was thought that I would be at par with every other “normal” woman if I was given an immune regulating drip before they implanted the next set of embryos in my uterus.

After going through a third round of hormone inducing drugs, several eggs were ready to be recruited.  Quietly, I told the Lord…”I cannot imagine handling another loss and I do not believe that my body can sustain a pregnancy.   I feel hemmed in on every side.”  When the doctor peered into my uterus to do a final check to see if my body was prepared to house the developing embryos, he saw a small polyp…a small tag of skin that had developed as a result of the medications.  He knew right away that the transfer would be postponed.  The embryos that had developed in the petri dish would be frozen for two years, preserved for another time.  The God of the Universe intervened in the form of a small polyp, right in the middle field of infertility.

Several years later, God would point me in a different direction.  After getting pregnant on my own and receiving the immune regulating drip, I miscarried a baby at six weeks.  Soon after, I would begin to entertain another option for our frozen babies…surrogacy.  On July 18^th, 2008, God did what only God could do.  He delivered a little boy into our arms after waiting for years in the middle field.  The most broken part of me had produced something whole.  Several years later, a baby girl would be born after spending six years in the cold, dry middle of a nitrogen tank.

David and I are the parents of seven children, two of which walk and talk and tumble around this world.  We are forever grateful for the way things have ended.  We are forever mindful that God did it.  He is still delivering.  He is still fiercely accomplishing.  He is the beginning and the end and He is reason we made it through the middle field.

If you are waiting for God to move in your life, please know….God is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us (Ephesians 3:20).

Amen?  Amen!