Happy New Year! Fruitful Labors for 2012

I keep a day-timer each year and for the past several years I have included in the daily "to-do's" everyday gifts from God.  As I look over the years events day in and day out, I am aware of God's goodness and mercy to my family.  It's all unearned, just pure grace and this thought occurred to me.  "My life is not my own."  Each December the 31st, God is faithful to set my sights for the next year.  Is this my theme?  Then the Holy Spirit, with the help of a concordance, brought me to this verse.

"For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.  If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me.  Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell.  I am hard pressed between the two.  My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.  But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account."  Phil. 1: 21-24

I love the part that says, "If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me."  These Holy Spirit inspired words were written so long ago and yet today, December the 31st, 2011, they hold powerful, life shaping meaning for me.  What joyous labor I have ahead for me in my family, my church and my community.  "The Gospel". 

(Prayer 1)  O God, please let me live my life in fruitful labor towards my husband, my children, my church and my community.  Let it be joyous and let Your strength, Jesus, flow through me and out of me in this coming year.  Let Your Gospel be proclaimed in my life and through my life in all ways accessible to man as only You know how.

Peter will have his first evaluation for services at the Berks County Intermediate Unit (BCIU).  Because he will be home schooled we already have an opportunity to share the reason "why" with all the folks at the BCIU.  He will also be followed by CHOP (Children's Hospital Of Philadelphia), and the Trisomy 21 program for the following God-ordained reasons.  1. Asian child with Down Syndrome  2. Adopted child  3.  Home schooled child.  They want to walk through life with Peter so that his life and his uniqueness might be used to help others.  We are just at the beginning of this journey with Pete and already his life will be fruitful for others like himself and for the Kingdom of God. 

(Prayer  2) O Sovereign God, designer of our fabric, take Peter's life and use it for your glory and the benefit of others of his population.  May his life inspire many to rescue orphans just like him from orphanages all across the world and let his voice first praise your name in all endeavors and then offer hope to others who are willing to be imitators of your precious Son, Jesus Christ, the ultimate Rescuer!

Eliot is a very precious 5 year old.  He has suffered 2 significant losses, the deaths of 2 grandfathers, in the past 5 months and one very profound gain, a brother!  This friendly, loving boy started to act out in ways uncharacteristic to the situations and his family or so we thought.  Thanks to Bethany Christian Services (BCS) and the post-adoption support group offered locally, we have found helpful tools, answers to puzzling questions and a way to the heart of the matter in Eliot.  By God's grace, Eliot is able to give a voice to the crazy feelings (his description) inside his head and we have been able to "train him up in the way He should go. . ."  Eliot, more and more, has peace about his little life and he knows that God is the giver of that peace.

Emily will be 21 this year.  Already the comments of going out and drinking "legally" have come up and the anti-parental authority statements.  But, by God's grace, Emily heeds our counsel and doesn't need those things in order for her to know that she is an adult.  God has brought her this far by grace and He will lead her safely through this life and home to Him.   (Mom thought)  Why does legally becoming an adult mean that you should lay aside reason and act like a child?  Megan will be 19 in 2 days.  She has committed to go on the mission field in April to Guatemala to help out with an orphanage there.  She has chosen a path of no "higher education" at this time and works at Chick-fil-a part-time.  Again, by God's grace, she wants to help me out in the home and be a blessing to her brothers learning by my side.

(Prayer 3) O my Strength, I will watch for you, (in all ways pertaining to the training of these precious children You have blessed us with) for You, O God are my fortress (and inside the walls of Your fortress, show each of us the paths You have for us to walk for Your glory and our good)

This year Thommy and I will be celebrating 22 years of marriage.  These years display God's faithfulness, steadfast love, and abounding grace.  Our marriage remains the greatest and best gift God has given both of us next to Christ. We have said good-bye to our dads and hello to a new son.  We cried out to our God for provision to bring Peter home, for wisdom in coming alongside our daughters as they continue to grow in their relationship with Christ, help for Eliot and his heart towards God.  By God's urging, Thom stepped out of leadership for a season in order to help us navigate all this change. (So grateful for the obedient child-like heart that Thommy has towards God and his devotion to God's Word.)  And through all of this, God answered our prayers with more than we could've asked or possibly imagined.

Two loved ones have passed away.  I couldn't help feeling jealous.  The scripture above says, "For to me, to live is Christ,  and to die is gain."  I won't deny the longing in my heart to see Jesus' precious face and to be with Him forever, Forever!  But Paul goes on to say, "I am hard pressed between the two.  My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.  But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account."  So here I am with glorious work to be done because for now, it is more necessary to remain.  And I stay on account of those that need to hear the truth, feel the truth, taste the truth and live the truth.  I don't know who all of them are, but God does.  I just look forward to meeting them in 2012.

(Closing Prayer)  Dear Father, Awesome God and Giver of all good gifts, "You know the plans you have for us, plans to prosper us and not to harm us, plans to give us a hope and a future."  I praise You for all the goodness you have shown to me and to those around me, my husband, my family, my church and my community in 2011.  Father we cry out, "Have your full way with us Lord and let our lives be living sacrifices to You, a pleasing aroma, as we enter 2012.  Let us live as Christ to those in our lives and those yet to come and Lord let our lives be full of fruitful labors.  In Jesus Name, Amen.

What it cost to say Merry Christmas!

"Have this in mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, thanking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.  And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.  Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." Phil. 2: 5-11

Every Christmas carol, every reference to Christ this Christmas has brought a lump into my throat and tears to my eyes.  This has been a year of difficult change both joyful and mournful.  And yet no suffering or sacrifice we have faced as a family can compare with what Jesus did for us on the cross.  When all the noise is quieted in my soul, Christ silently, quietly, humbly ministers and reminds of His first coming among man so many years ago.  He is the Foundation of my faith, the Shepherd of my soul, the Adopter of my life.  I am His and He is mine and nothing can ever change that.

Change has happened in our family.  We went from a family of 4 that lived in NJ to a church planting family that sows the gospel in PA.  We went from 4 to 5 when the call came to adopt Eliot from Guatemala in 2007, and just a few months ago, in July 2011, 5 to 6 when Peter was adopted and brought home from Hong Kong.  Lots of joyful change.  

Poinsettia Show 2011 - Inglin Family Singers

But along with the joyful changes in our lives God mingled in some sorrowful ones as well.  My dear father-in-law went to be with Jesus on the 14th of July, 2011, one day before we got on a plane to pick-up Peter.  What a decision to have to make in an already tense God-ordained moment for our lives!  God wasn't done sanctifying us though.  He wasn't done bringing true and lasting gifts to us.  God wastes nothing and His timing is always fruitful and good.

December the 8th my Dad, George F. Goley III, was discovered dead in his home.  The phone call came in at 10:30 pm from my brother.  I wasn't ready for this announcement.  You see, my dad wasn't a Christian although I had presented the gospel to him many times, that last time being after Thanksgiving dinner this year.  During the Thanksgiving celebration, dad was able to spend time with his grandsons and thanks to Aunt Connie, we got pictures of dad holding them.  But did he cry out to Christ for mercy as the thief on the cross as he lay there dying?  I won't know for sure until the day of Jesus' second return.  That's what grieved my soul.  Was I a faithful daughter of the Most High God?  Did I take the opportunities given me to tell my dad about Jesus?  Were my prayers for dad laden with pleadings for salvation?  By God's grace, yes, but in the torment of my soul was this question, was it enough?

God answered that through the counsel of my adopted family, the body of Christ.  My pastors reminded me of the faithfulness of God and His mercy that even the criminal that hung next to Christ, that had no more options left to him except to die for his crimes, would be shown mercy.  For in the moments leading up to Christ's death the thief confessed sin, professed Christ and in love Christ held out the Kingdom of God to him.  Could this have happened to my dad as he lay dying alone on the floor of his bedroom?  There is reason for me to hope.  The gospel is the power unto salvation.  Nothing can stop the plans God has for us, not even death.  Jesus conquered death!

So like Christian, in Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, the burden of all the what-ifs slipped off my back.  Jesus removed it.  What a precious gift this was!  It's His job to save.  He knows who will come and who won't.  He can even use weak attempts like mine of proclaiming the gospel to plant seeds in hardened hearts, like dad's.  He is the only one that can bring new life.   Peter is with us and having a great Christmas.  My father-in-law is truly celebrating Christmas for the first time face to face with Jesus, and perhaps even my dad. . . Ah, I so look forward to that day.  So saying Merry Christmas carried new weight this year for me.  Although my celebration of my Savior's birth is mixed with sorrow, it is none-the-less filled with joy.  It cost God everything for us to celebrate and for me to say, "Merry Christmas".  Jesus paid it all dear ones.

O Come let us adore Him,

O come let us adore Him,

O come let us adore Him

Christ The Lord!