The Prodigal Daugther

Fot the first time in my christian walk, I truly feel like the prodigal daughter. And I am not even sure I am returning. All I know is that I desperately want to return home into the true presence of the Father. Oh, I know He is right here. I know He has been right here beside me while I lived my life for the past 14 months, while I got married, while I became a wife to my husband and a mother to my son. I know just as He ordered each one of my steps, He accompanied, protected, led and encouraged me along the path. Did I always feel His presence? I guess so; or at least some part of me trusted in it. Did I always acknowledge it when I should have? Probably not. And therein lies the problem. Not in the "should-have". God doesn't operate with "shoulds". But I know He rejoices in a fully surrendered heart, and I am not sure I gave that to Him every step of the way for the past 14 months of my life. I was too caught up with being elated, mesmerized, and simply happy with all the indescribably joyous turns my life took in the past year and a half. Do I think the King of Kings didn't rejoice with me? No. I know for a fact He did, for I know He "weeps with those who weep, rejoices with those who rejoice". He operates completely independant of our faithfulness to Him, and oh, what a reassurance that is to me. I know that the God of the Universe danced right beside me and Haden on April 11th, our wedding day. I see Him sitting on the couch in our newly built living room, listening to our conversations about what parenthood was going to be like, and I see Him smiling at our misconceptions about how having a child would change our lives. I see Him get in the car with us each one of those sunday mornings that we went out to visit yet another church, trying to find a place for us to call our "church home", and giving us thumps up or down, directing and leading us to where He determined we would be most blessed for the time being. I am pretty sure there He was, in the delivery room, whispering into Haden's ear:"it'll be alright, just trust in me", when Elias' heartrate dropped incontrollably and I really needed my husband to encourage me and remind me of the Lord's provision. I can see Him sing a song of love when Elias was finally born and our tears were flowing freely to the rythym of our new baby's strong heartbeat. Oh, and how I see glimpses of Him every time my gaze meets my husband's, the love of my life, or every time I look at my little angelboy, whose helplessness and dependence on me makes me feel like the greatest superhero.
And as frustrating as it is to wait for a green light to travel to Germany and finally see my family again, I have no doubt that the Lord of Lords Himself is sitting in that immigration office, saying to the case worker: "not yet".
The parts of me that our awesome Creator created to look beyond the obvious, to understand beyond the explainable, know without the slightest doubt that God has been there every second of every day of my life for the past 14 months.
It's just that....I feel like I haven't always been there. My head and my heart have been preoccupied with such simple bliss and excitement that I have failed to recognize the source of all that bliss and excitement too many times. And you know what? I don't even really believe that God minds so much. Because, like I said earlier, He was there every step of the way, and He rejoiced with me every step of the way. But it was me who missed out. I missed out on so many opportunities to enjoy closeness with my Creator simply because I was too preoccupied to see His Hand in it. That's why I feel like the prodigal daughter. I look at all the almost inconceivable events that have taken place in my life, and I know so clearly how God orchestrated each and every one of them. But when I think back to going through all those events, I see the million opportunities I missed to be in perfect communion with the King of Kings, and I grieve.
So here I am, at the beginning of a new year when things are finally slowing down, and the fairytale life that the Lord has given me is finally starting to feel real - raw, emotional, grateful, and slightly regretful - ready again to enter into an up-close-and-personal relationship with my Creator. Ready to allow Him to enter into aspects of my consciousness again that were closed off to Him by my own choice and hedonism for the past year and beyond. Ready to sacrifice the "My life is great I can do it on my own" attitude for the familiarity of something so much bigger and stronger than me. Am I truly willing to give up my pride, my untouchable happiness, , my pseudo-autonomy for a life-changing, complacency-challenging allience with my King of Kings?
I guess the next few weeks will tell. Here I am Lord - meet me where I am at, and take me to places I have never even imagined before.