Maely’s first checkup went well and the doctor plans to take ex-rays on November 17th to see how well her foot is healing. It won’t be until he has evaluated those ex-rays that we will have an idea when she will be released from the doctor’s care. Until then, we will be praying for her physical, emotional and spiritual healing to continue according to God’s plan and timetable.
So that brings me to today’s blog entry. Now that Maely’s immediate healthcare needs are being taken care of, our concern has now shifted to matters of her spiritual wellbeing. While she was here in Washington with us, Pat and I managed to communicate with her on a relatively basic level but we were not able to discuss deeper spiritual matters due to our rudimentary knowledge of Spanish and her inability to speak English. Consequently, I found myself on numerous occasions unsuccessfully trying to craft a message in Spanish that would explain to her just how much God loves her and explain all that HE has done to bring her to the US. Time passed too quickly and her surgery date arrived before we could convey the message that God had put in our heart to share with her. She is now recuperating with her host family in Los Angeles, and it will be another 3 to 4 months before we get the chance to share this message with her in person.
Although we check in with her once a week, phone conversations are even more restricting than our face to face conversations were….and not near as much fun! I have heard that effective communication is made up of 55% body language, 35% tone of voice and only 10% verbal content. So needless to say, I am frustrated with my inability to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with her over the phone, and since she cannot read or write, in Spanish or English…..you could say “what we have here….is a failure to communicate”
In spite of all of this, I have felt led by God to write Maely a letter in English and post it in this blog. It has been said that God works in mysterious ways….so writing a letter in English to a little girl 1,000 miles away, who cannot speak, read, or write the English language, and then putting that letter into this blog definitely qualifies as “mysterious ways” in my book. It’s almost seems like putting a message in a bottle, and casting it into the sea in hopes it will eventually get to the right person who can read and understand it!
However….God said WRITE… So, I will do what I’m told, and let HIM provide the message as well as the means to get it where it’s supposed to go and in accordance with HIS purpose. Isn’t it an amazing testament to the glory of our omnipotent and omniscient God that HE chooses to achieve HIS perfect will through the feeble efforts of HIS imperfect, blind, bumbling and often obstinate servants….like me? I for one am just grateful that HE has provided so perfect a salvation that even I can’t screw it up! Okay….so where do I begin? I know, I will start off with something creative, profound and original like: “Dear Maely”,….how am I doing so far?
Alright, perhaps I had better hand the keyboard over to the King of Kings and let HIM take it from here. Here is the message that God is putting on my heart to give Maely on HIS behalf.
My Child,
I want to share with you the boundless and unconditional love that I have for you, and reveal the plans I have made for you since before the beginning of time. I have known you before you were formed in your mother’s womb and anxiously awaited your birth that I might reveal myself to you. I knew the moment you first drew breath and I heard your very first cry as you stepped into time. I knew you would enter into this world with a handicap that would make you different from all the other children in your village. I knew that your mother wouldn’t be able to deal with your infirmity and that your grandmother would have to rise to the occasion and raise you like her own daughter. I knew that the children in your village would avoid you and sometimes make fun of you and I saw every tear drop you cried as you hid in shame at their taunts. I know the pain you felt when rejected by the people in your own village and I know the depths of loneliness you have endured as a result of those years of neglect. I have felt your every heartache as if they were my own. I suffered these things with you because I knew one day the benefits you gained from these trials would make it all worthwhile. I knew your deformity would cause you much sorrow and loneliness for the first 11 years of your life, but I also knew you had the will and the strength to not only endure these trials, but to emerge from them better, stronger and most important of all, better prepared for the tasks I have prepared for you.
One day, you will look back on these first painful years of your life and see that I was there with you, sustaining you every step of the way. I have great plans for you little one and I long for you to get to know me as I have known you since before time began. For this reason, I have prepared for you a savior, my only son who gave his life as a ransom for you and all who would call upon his name. He is a gentle savior, full of Love, full of Power, and full of Grace. It is my spirit that is tugging at your soul right now, confirming in the inner most recesses of your heart that this moment is the very moment you were born for. If you will open the door of your heart and invite my son Jesus into your life, the years of pain and sorrow, emptiness and loneliness, fear and uncertainty will be swept away in a torrent of peace and love that will become an eternal monument of my covenant with you. He promises to never leave you, nor forsake you from this moment forward. If you will listen to the gentle voice of my son Jesus and ask him to take away all your sins, He will take them upon himself and you will become holy, pure and righteous in my sight. You will become all that I have created you to be, and you will be my child through this age and beyond into the eternity that I have prepared for you.
I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I have declared the end from the beginning and from ancient times the things that are not yet done. My counsel shall stand and I will do all my pleasure. You are my beloved child and I have shared your pain and born your sorrows since birth knowing that one day you would be lifted up. According to my will and my time table, I brought you out of your village, to travel to a distant land and be healed. I knew your journey would touch the lives of many and your story would lead others to know ME and accept my son Jesus Christ as their savior. I have prepared a mighty work for you little one and if you will embrace my Son as your savior, you will experience a love that will drive you to the ends of the earth spreading my word, you will gain wisdom beyond your years and you will be given the faith to move mountains in MY name and to MY Glory. For you, my daughter, all my love from eternity past, through the present and into eternity future,
Your loving Father –
I AM!
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