We were sitting in a circle talking about the joys/struggles of adoption with 10 other adoptive parents from our church when I heard the scream.  All of our children were about 100 yards down the hall in another classroom being watched in the church nursery. It was not a “call 911” scream, but a scream that you know can only be soothed by the child’s parent, not a babysitter getting paid $10/hour.  If you are a parent, you know the drill:

  1. You hear the child cry from down the hall
  2. You quickly assess whether or not the child’s screaming is your kid, all the while thinking “please don’t be my kid!”
  3. If it is not your kid, let’s be honest, you feel a sigh of relief and can sit back and enjoy the conversation
  4. If it is your kid, maybe I am the worst parent ever, but there is this subtle annoyance that I need to step out of the room, walk (because you know when the scream demands a walk or a run!) down the hall the length of a football field, and soothe your kid back to a functional state

It was not my kid that was crying. I was able to take a deep breath and relax for a second before I realized how God would have responded, or rather, how God does respond to us.

  1. He is not surprised (Psalm 139).  When we cry out in pray, God is not in the middle of a Golf tournament with the rest of the Trinity. He knows right away. I remember a quote from John Piper (I think) where he says “God is not an ambulance driver who shows up at the scene of an accident and needs to quickly scramble to save, He is the surgeon who makes the first cut” It is a warm blanket for my soul to know that God knows all and is sovereign over all.
  2. 2.     We are all His children (Galatians 3:26). I was amazed at how quickly I could hear the cry and immediately think “not mine.” Phew! Not so with our God. We are all His!  What a blessing to know that because of Jesus, our God invites us to call Him Father!
  3. God does not get grumpy when He has to intervene, He gets glory (Psalm 106: 7,8.) When God has to step in and save, he gets glory. How could God be annoyed/frustrated/grumpy when His actions toward us produce glory for Him? It is comforting to know that I am not an inconvenience to God.  He is a better parent than me!

 PS: Though this says I (Linsey) wrote this blog post, the truth is may loving husband actually did. It was an act of kindness to help me out since I had many things I needed to do for today.