She stopped cold, twirled her six-year-old body right in my direction and inquired, "What does that mean?"
"It means you made the wrong choice, and your ship is sailing away from you in the opposite direction."
"Is the ship full of choices?"
Her twin piped in quickly. "No, just all the good choices."
She rolled her eyes, turned away from me and proclaimed, "that wasn't the ship I wanted to be on anyway! My ship is a better ship", she points her finger down the hall, "in this direction!"
And right there and then I knew we were in exactly the same battle. I'm guilty of standing on this boardwalk, feeling like the perfect ship is drifting away from me right before my eyes. And there's nothing I can do, it's sailing away fast, and I'm stranded, helpless, without hope, without purpose. And I'm angry too, fibbing to everyone that my choice ship is really in the opposite direction.
But everyone around me is smart enough to figure that there is no such ship waiting for me in the opposing direction. In that direction there is nothing but blue sky and rough land.
Sometimes a girl just wants to board a ship and escape away. Standing still upon the boardwalk requires more faith than she can muster up.
But a Momma, she knows she chooses to keep standing on the boardwalk. She understands her broken dreams have nothing to do with her actions. She knows how abandoned hurts, how the name orphan resonates in her very soul. The enemy has made sure she fully comprehends alone.
This Momma, she chooses to take Him right at His very Word:
"I will not leave you orphans;
I will come to you."
John 14:18
Standing tall on this boardwalk is leaving me sunburned, angry at times, and feeling abandoned. This boardwalk is beginning to creak beneath my weight, and just might crumble apart right beneath my feet.
But no matter how much I feel like an orphan, forgotten and alone, the truth is written firm. I am an orphan-no-more. He will not leave me. He will always come to get me.
Yes, she and I, we are chosen. We are orphans-no-more, despite our attitude, our belief (or lack of belief), our disappointments, our failed expectations. Our ship full of all the good choices is not sailing away on the high sea. Our ship is not the make-believe ship our brains falsely manufactured sitting on top of the mountain in the opposite direction.
Our ship, the only ship we really want to board, the ship of our dreams, the true ship of escape and purpose, is coming. And the captain has already stolen our hearts away, and offered the greatest choice ever given.
No orphans board His ship.
Orphan care, and orphan-no-more care is serious business to Him.
This Momma will choose to believe this truth, and wait for His ship.
