Promise of New Life

We have probably all fallen in to the familiarity trap during worship time at church. You know the songs and the message of the words become less powerful with each verse you sing.

I love to sing, I love a time of singing worship to express my heart to the Lord. I am glad that he loves my singing voice, but sadly it is not so appreciated here on earth! I am self conscious of my singing in most other situations but in church when we sing together I can belt it out without any feelings of being watched or judged. Eyes closed, it's just me and Jesus, a daughter singing praise and glory to her heavenly father.

I have written multiple posts about the song 'I surrender' and the place it has in my heart for being used by God to truly allow me to submit to Hid greater plans for my life. Before I was married I could barely choke out the words about giving up my dreams, because I had a fear that God had no plans for me to be married and if I voiced that I had surrendered to Him, I would be accepting my fate as a singleton. If that had been Gods plan for life, I trust he would have changed my heart, or walked very closely with me through life. I believe God used that song to bring to a place of gentle submission. I began to trust his bigger plan, and found peace.

And it was a long few years of continued submission to that grander plan before Jeremy came along. And what a gift. He was totally worth the wait. God's grander plan was best.

In more recent times, I have sung that song pregnant. I have sung that song, surrendering to God's plan, hopeful that that would mean a healthy pregnancy and a baby. I have sung that song during a miscarriage, feeling heave that surrendering to his plans was allowing him the space to bring healing, and overall I felt as though surrendering to His plans was a painful idea of never having a baby.

So as the familiar chords rang out this morning and the words just poured off my tongue I suddenly heard God's voice. "This is my promise to you"

What, Lord?

Then my husband who was leading worship sang out,

"I'm giving you my dreams, I'm laying down my rights
I'm giving up my pride for the promise of new life"

New life. Yes we have new life in Him but today those words held a different meaning. We can lay down our plans, surrendering to God because he has promised us a new life, a child.
It gave me chills. I can not do much more that surrender it all as we enter our adoption process. I cannot control if our fingerprints are accepted, I can only go through the process until they accept me. I have no control over when the rest of our home study stuff will get processed, that;s up to our social worker. I http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifhave no control or say over how long before we will be chosen by a birth mother, I have no idea who she will be or what her story is, I just have to trust that God is connecting our lives for a reason. But I can trust Him that this path is preparing us for the gift of parenthood and all the joys and challenges that along with that.

The promise of new life. Suddenly, this is my favourite song. No longer associated with grief and loss and pain, but speaking truth about the hope and joyful anticipation for the child we will one day call our own.

In case you don't know the song, or perhaps if you just need to hear it today here is a link to the song, I surrender by Marc James.