desires of the heart
Posted by: empalo <empalo@...>
I guess to me being given the desires of the heart is a bit conditional. First I must delight myself in
the Lord. What does that mean ?
Well, we are told in Isaiah 58 :13 (last part) and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways,
nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: 14) Then shalt thou delight thyself in the LORD;
and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: f
or the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.
So most of all delighting in the Lord is not doing your own thing, or finding our own pleasure. Its doing what
He asks of us. So when I ask God for something, I can rationalize till the cows come home, that this is
what He would want etc etc etc, but until I add to my prayer, Whatever you see fit for me Lord, it can be
difficult to seperate being the spoiled child asking for something, or the child who seeks to ask, "well you know
best, I will let you lead".
God knew I wanted more children, He heard my cries, my pleading with Him. He knew I felt like Hannah,
wondering if I was cursed or bad or not worthy to have more than my two girls. I prayed for signs from Him
that i would have more, I showed great faith, by even going so far as putting up a crib, waiting.
After all asking for something that is a blessing cannot be wrong. So I watched all my other friends fill
their quivers, while mine remained small. I had three miscarriages, but that did not stop my faith.
Then one day, I prayed in desperation. "O.K. God, please increase our family any way you see fit"
As soon as the words came out, I knew I had prayed for something greater than I had ever prayed.
My girls just looked at me after the words came out that night in our family worship. My husband just
squeezed my hand tighter.
The very next morning, the state of massachusetts called and said these words, "your husbands brothers
two sons have been removed from his home and are now free for adoption, would you consider taking them?"
We didn't even know they had been removed from the home.
Now, we have two girls and two boys, not the babies I had prayed for, but two young boys, plucked from
the coals. Both were a mess. The youngest one was violent and tried to kill me the first week with a knife.
If we had had a house full of children I am not sure we would have taken these troubled boys in. That sounds
cruel but the problems were serious and many sided. They had been abused EVERY way you can imagine.
Now, 8 years later, the oldest boy wants to be a preacher. He has a heart of gold. The second one, was
so seriously mentally disturbed we had no idea what the future held. But just this last month, he gave his
heart to the Lord and he really did. He is transformed, he was like the wild man in the NT who was living
with the pigs, but he is now a delightful christian young man.
So God gave me the desires of my heart in a round about way. I have more children to love, and at the same
time we played some part in helping these wounded boys find life. Much better than I could have planned.
When I finally prayed for Gods will, then the desires of my heart came to me as such a precious gift.
seeking Him always,
Pat