Twists & Turns

Dear brothers & sisters, whenever trouble comes your way, let it be an opportunity for joy. For when your faith is tested your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow for when your endurance is fully developed you will be strong in character and ready for anything.(James 1: 2-4)

7 weeks ago this weekend I wrestled with my final decision to resign from my daycare position. I remember very clearly on the date of my last blog post crying before the Lord with my husband for 'open eyes to whatever I am not yet seeing'. Funny my expectation was for some ministry or social work related position to come flooding before me but instead that week was presented with one case after the other that opened my eyes to much of my life perspective surrounding children and families.  Unbelievably enough by the end of the week my husband looked me in the eye and told me the very words my heart knew I needed to be acting on but just wasn't ready to run with, "I think it's time" 

And to me I knew these words were more than just the words of my husband. From time to time I had been fighting the worst of my juvenile rheumatoid arthritis (JRA) in years.  For me  I knew my present line of work was aggravating the matter but just wasn't ready just yet to surrender out and into something new. I had been diagnosed with JRA in both of my knees in the fall of my 8th grade school year, something that changed the course of my life forever.  My mom's goal was to have my JRA under control by the time I graduated from high school and what do you know God did just that, if not more. At a point when my parents and I were faced with a very difficult and important decision medically I asked my doctor for some time to pray on the matter. He respected my request and so did my parents. I remembering working a young people's ministry weekend shortly there after, being very withdrawn and rather isolated personally at the time but stepping forward in faith and asking for prayer for my  knees and for the decision before us. After that weekend -not to mention many many prayers & tears spoken & unspoken in the in between times with and between my parents and others- I was confident we needed to go forward doing nothing other than entrusting the matter to the Lord. Again my parents were on the same page as me and the doctor respected our decision and all were more than happy to see that the decision was right. And since that time I've not had to regularly doctor or medicate for the irritation and inflammation of the joints had been under control. However since and during  my time in Nigeria I have noticed the aggravation but nothing like I had been while working these past 5 months. While I was living in Nigeria I happened to experience JRA in another form, through the life of my housemate, who surprisingly enough suffered from the same autoimmune disorder just more severely. Something I witnessed from her suffering was the chronic fatigue that often times came with the disease. 

With all that said I write this blog now to oddly enough ask for prayer. For many that know me that read this you know I don't particularly thrive on showing weakness. Most of us don't. But I need prayers for Josh and I to know how to get a handle on this matter for the JRA and the fatigue. This is not why I have now left Carol Leone's but its something that we have been much more sensitive and aware of because of my leaving. After a lifetime of medicating and doctoring for asthma, allergies, and JRA I at the age of 18 and in 'remission' having things under control have resented turning back.  We ask now that you pray with us for discernment and peace on how to handle the matter trusting God to handle it best.

I could end there but I hate to leave anyone hanging thinking differently than as is. I am and in fact in a ministry related social work field which is what we do believe God gave me the final swing just before my last days with the ones and some staff calling me "Mommy Beth or Bek".  I have yet to learn fully what it is God is up to with me joining a Christian foster care and adoption agency, but I must lean not on my own understanding, pray with me, that I acknowledge Him in all my ways (Proverbs 3) as I move about within this new agency beginning with the foster families, children, and biological parents with whose visits I supervise or provide transportation for in and around the Pittsburgh metropolitan area! 

And not just for that but please pray for Josh and I as we continue to sift through and discover new opportunities for us to love and serve in our area and around the world

BRJ

'I will live to carry your compassion to love a world that's broken to be your hands and feet and I will give with the life that I have been given and go beyond religion to see the world be changed by the power of your name' - The Power of Your Name, Lincoln Brewster