Easter Morning 2009

                      In the spring of 2009, I paced my kitchen floor crying out in utter hopelessness and distress.   This couldn’t really be happening, could it?   We had flown to Vietnam to pick up our 3 ½ year old son from an orphanage 8 years earlier.   The stress of raising a child with severe Reactive Attachment Disorder had taken a huge toll on our family of 5.   My husband and I felt we were losing our other children because of the chaos in our home.

We worked with all varieties of specialists and asked for prayer from the elders at our church.   I prayed for God to heal our son and help him fit into our family.   God answered part of my prayer.

He sent a family from our church to adopt our son, so we could all heal.   That wasn’t my plan.   How could this happen?   Our son had been with his new family for about 6 weeks at that point.   After not sleeping, my bare feet traced the hardwood paths I’d walked so many times as I cried to God.   The questions continued: Why? Why couldn’t you heal him in our family?   Why did you put us through this only to take him away?   This wasn’t what I wanted!   This wasn’t what we signed up for!

“Are you really asking me to give up my son?”

The moment I spoke, I remembered what day it was, Easter Sunday.   If I could have eaten the words as they flew from my mouth, I would have.   Suddenly I felt ashamed and braced myself for a lightning bolt, a 2X4, a frying pan, or any of the other objects I’d heard God might use “to get my attention” if I didn’t do what he wanted.   The exact opposite happened.   He related to me.   I heard a still small voice deep inside my soul say ever so gently,

“It really hurts, doesn’t it?”

My kitchen floor turned into hallowed ground that Easter morning.   The God of the Universe felt my pain and understood how my heart ached.   He wanted me to know He had been through it too.   The tenderness of the experience caught me by surprise.

I knew Jesus died for my sins.   I knew He raised Himself from the dead.   I knew He took away the barrier between God and me, and I could approach Him personally.   I didn’t realize He would invite me into His hurt or share His heart with me.   I now understand through experience that He will walk me through my darkest times with tremendous care and tenderness.

God is alive and powerful!

Jesus’ resurrection from the dead matters.

This post written by Colorado Life Coach, Carrie O’Toole