Living With Impossible

"He's too little," the nurse told me. "Life looks pretty impossible. I hope he makes it, but he's got a big battle ahead.."

I reached through the incubator wall to touch his tiny arm. I was ready to fight for this newborn baby boy, to battle alongside of him. It would be weeks before I could take him home from the hospital, but in that moment all I could think about was how much grace it took for God to send this precious, valuable child into my world.

The hardest day for a foster mother is not the first day, though those are indeed memorable. The child so lost and afraid, the newborn failing to thrive, the teenager angry and rebellious. We rescue our child from those problems through consistent sacrifice and diligent love.

The hardest day is the day you watch them walk into their life journey without you.

Life can be impossible. You look at your life and whatever it is going to take to get through a particular hardship, you're empty. There's not enough energy, not enough endurance, not enough hope, not enough fight.

Sometimes the apostle Paul faced circumstances too impossible for him, too.

"We don’t want you in the dark, friends, about how hard it was when all this came down on us in Asia province. It was so bad we didn’t think we were going to make it. We felt like we’d been sent to death row, that it was all over for us. As it turned out, it was the best thing that could have happened. Instead of trusting in our own strength or wits to get out of it, we were forced to trust God totally—not a bad idea since he’s the God who raises the dead! And he did it, rescued us from certain doom. And he’ll do it again, rescuing us as many times as we need rescuing. (2 Corinthians 1:8-11, The Message)

Are you lost and afraid? Like a newborn that is failing to thrive, are you dying on the inside? Are you using your last ounces of strength to rebel in anger at the God who is able, but seems to have left you without hope?

That little newborn and I battled through the pneumonia, the drug withdrawal, the pessimists and severe eating difficulties. With hands painfully cramped from feeding him slowly through a tube, arms and back aching from rocking him and a voice gone from singing to him we battled forward. I faithfully prayed and waited. I worked alongside angel armies when only the God who is able could rescue this life.

God is faithful. Even when we are not faithful, God is faithful. He sent his own precious, valuable son, Jesus, into the world to rescue you. He is the God who sees, the God who loves, the God who is able to do more than you ask or imagine he can do in the impossible.

Stand back and see what he will do for you this day. Don't walk into your life journey without him