I spent so much time this week walking around the premise of what God's Word had for me. I was trying to establish a channel or message that would communicate how people could connect with God through prayer. All week I've struggled to formulate an outline or direction for that topic, but I wasn't willing to abandon that topic as I knew my heart was focused on prayer.

Did you ever have a parent come in your room as a child and tell you to get up, it's time for school. Only to have them come back again in ten minutes, but speak with more authority. If you were a kid in the house I grew up in, there was no third time if you catch my drift. Tone spoke volumes. Well, the Lord came in for a second time this morning while I was in the shower. I could tell this wasn't the first time He tried to get my attention on the matter. I think it was a tone issue. This whole week I was concentrating on how to teach people to pray and talk with the Father. It simply never occurred to me that He wanted me to talk about Him speaking to us.

I caught it last night about 1:15. Four hundred and thirty-five times in the book of Exodus and Leviticus you read the phrase, "Then the Lord spoke to Moses". I was trying to draw the connection as to how Moses attained that kind of intimacy with the Father. Then, while I was shampooing my hair... it dawned on me, he didn't. The Father attained it with him.

Through circumstance and hardship Moses was forced to draw from the Father. He had no other place to turn. He couldn't do it alone nor was there anyone in his life that could have helped him lead these ancient day rednecks. God was speaking to Moses and Moses had the privilege to respond. Moses didn't initiate the burning bush, pillar of fire, pillar of smoke, conversation on Mount Sinai or the manna and quail. Exodus 31 says it well, "When He had finished speaking with him upon Mount Sinai, He gave Moses the two tablets of testimony". God was pursuing Moses. We have spent so much time figuring out how we are to pursue Christ and at times we have failed to emphasize just how much He is pursuing us.

The Midnight Hour... 6/26/2006

I wept tonight. I wept in the arms of my wife over the life of a little boy. Our little boy. A little boy that was born into distress and placed by God into our home to be called my own. A little boy that was created by a big God, an awesome God, who knit together and knew him in the womb of a women I may never meet. At 11:49 tonight I came to an understanding of Acts 16:25. Midnight is the darkest hour of the night.

Today will forever remain in my mind. I'm sure over time I will remember it in ways that carry much different emotions than those that I feel right now. You see, today my wife and I sat down in a small room around a diminutive round table with a bright young geneticist from Childrens Hospital. I walked into this setting with a confidence, an heir that communicated outwardly that I was prepared for what I was going to hear. I was wrong.

About twelve weeks ago I held my son tightly in my arms as three physicians carefully drew blood from his pale little arm. As he cried for daddy to make them stop I whispered in his ear, "everythings gonna be alright, daddy has you." What neither of us understood in that moment was the purpose and scope of what they were testing for. I heard the term Fragile X, but that meant very little to nothing in my mind. I thought ADD or some hyper-activity disorder because we had already realized that this little guy was developing slower than most two year olds.

Before we ever came to the understanding and commitment to adopt these two little brothers we were aware of certain issues that this little champ was battling. We knew there were global delays in his abilities and skill sets. I had simply attributed all his setbacks to the neglect and abuse that he survived over the first two years of his life. But there was more to it, more than I wanted to hear or believe.

As the doctor began to tell Heather and I about their findings I felt a stripe across my back. Not a literal stripe, but an emotional one that cut deep. For three hours I sat there in a mental defiance of what I was hearing. These words left my soul feeling empty, beaten, scared like some dark, miserable and lonely prison. We were told our son would never be normal. That he would never be like other children. He would never be able to live an independent life of his own. That children like him would make great team managers, but never be able to be on the team. Hearing the words that my son would never be able to follow in my footsteps as a pastor or teacher left me broken.
I wept tonight. Not for me, but for this little gift that God sovereignly desired to place in my home for me to love. I can't wrap my mind around it. Honestly, I dont want to. I don't want to think of his limitations. At this moment I don't want to come to grips with the definitions and phrases of mental retardation and Special Olympics that doctors or science place on his future. All I know is God receives the glory.

Philippians 4:4-7, Ephesians 5:20, 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 call me to join Paul and Silas in their midnight hour and rejoice. I don't feel like singing, but I'm sure they didn't either. I dont know how to get out of this prison and neither did they. I know I'm right where God wants me in order for Him to receive the glory. This earthquake seems more real than a physical shaking of my surroundings. It hurts. But I don't want this to be about me, even though I know I'm intimately interwoven with this child that I call Son. I don't want this to be about some genetic deficiency that robs one of their mental capacities. I don't want this to be about what changes this places on our home, family or marriage. I want people to know Christ through this. I want people to see the glory of God through the smile of a blonde haired, brown eyed little boy that God has a plan for. I want people to see a big God, an awesome God. Somewhere in this I want to rejoice.

I wept tonight and yet through my tears and my emotion I heard my Father saying, "Everythings gonna be alright, Daddy has you."