To Heed His Voice

literally.



I hesitate to put fingers to keyboard. I know...more than I ever have due to the past year we have lived.....that this world can be full of love and kindness and uplifting each other up in prayer but I also know that just as fully as it can be engulfed in encouragement it can also be overcome with criticism and judgement from others. I know most people...large families specifically...would never bring themselves to blog these types of incidents but I find it not only important but life changing and yet another way that the Lord comes redeeming and saving......the effects from difficult, seemingly devastating lessons He has taken the time to teach us over the years of parenting.



Many people have the tendency to judge critically, to say that one has too many children by the time they get to a point where they cannot keep track of the ones for which they are responsible, that our parental ways are lax or, in general, that we should've paid more attention. I find in this though, as I have pondered it all since it took place, that I personally know of dear friends from only 2-3 children all the way up to 11 that have situations that occur that could have been prevented in some form or fashion. One family having lost their 2 year old on an east coast beach. After intense search efforts police found him a mile and a half down the beach unharmed. Another family in which their 2 year old wandered down their long hilly driveway away from the rest of the family and was turned into police after stopping traffic on an enormously busy Keller street. CPS was brought in to investigate the family. Another whose 2 year old drowned in a small pond after wandering away from the gathering at a family reunion. In these stories and many others unmentioned I have also found that the large families are the ones most harshly judged due to people carelessly presuming it is due to lack of ability to care for all of which God has blessed one with, their reliance on older children to look out for younger ones and so forth. If nothing else after all of these years with many children I have discovered that we have that many more people aware of what is taking place and that many more eyes to watch and minds aware of the circumstances around them all.



But if there is nothing else I have learned in this journey of our's in parenting it is to stay desperately in tune to the presence of the Holy Spirit. He breathes, He speaks, He is audible if you listen, if you have ever taken the time to learn how to listen and learned how to obey. To make obedience paramount in my own life and to teach it to our children is probably the one of the most crucial things one can accomplish in parenting. To raise up a generation that knows the staggering, life altering importance of obedience within their lives. Over and again as we continue to discipline our children and teach them to write the law of the Lord on the tablet of their heart and to meditate upon it day and night we have taught..."if you cannot obey the very audible voice and instruction in front of you that you can see and hear and touch how will you ever learn to obey the voice of the Lord that you cannot hear or see or touch?" God can do nothing with a defiant spirit until it is broken, an apathetic heart that does not rely on Him for every breath that it takes, an untrained ear that fails to hear. He has to be real to them in every way. He has to be something that they are so in tune with that they can see Him in what they do, they can feel Him in every way and every choice they make, they learn to hear Him as audibly as they hear us as their parents. Obedience is paramount in life...for when you cannot fall into obedience you are worthless to the work of God. It is then He must break one and how much better to be broken now than in the years to come when there is so much more at stake in life. Right now it is isolated to their small selfish hearts that every child is born with, their pride and the privileges they receive as part of living within the family. Those may be stripped as they are taught wisdom, discretion, obedience and the truths of life but it is not their marriage or their children or their careers at stake as they are brought to humility before the Lord. And someday it is very possible that their lives or the lives of those they love may hang in the balance of whether they have learned to hear and obey the voice of God.



I didn't act on it when I heard His voice and our entire family paid greatly. Because of my apathy, the shunning of His voice and my wayward heart that saw no importance in obedience we have a daughter that was raped and beaten. We have all walked down a devastating road that could've been avoided had I known what it was to act immediately in obedience...not to question, not to doubt, not to push aside the voice of the Holy Spirit. But through it all I have grown in ways I would never have grown otherwise and Brad and I have learned deep within our hearts that we are to instruct our children in the way of the Lord to teach them all that we know and to educate them so that they may be raised up into the Solomon's of the world...those that are wise and mature in their youth, that know and understand the principles of the Lord and have written them in their hearts at an early age so that they may be used greatly in the Kingdom for the purpose God has for each of their lives.



But in learning to obey and despite how hard the road has been perhaps it was the loving correction of the Lord so that the mistake was not made again. Perhaps the lives of one of our children was not lost because we have walked down the road we have. I have learned what it is to obey the tiniest command. From losing Ivye's beloved puppy and learning to pray and listen for the answer of where to look...learning to obey when I hear and being led directly to it....to even smaller things of being told to pick up something in the floor I might would have otherwise walked passed. A penny here, a pencil there, the little overwhelming things continually strewn out but His voice that says to pick it up right then. What catastrophe was avoided I'll perhaps never know...but I obeyed. Or maybe they were just practice runs to make a habit of quick and immediate obedience so that when the time really comes action is quick and without question...which brings us to early this past week.



Hot west Texas summer day. Temperatures soaring above 100 as they had for the past few days before. Children ran and played in water to find relief from scorching sun, Vortexing husband outside in shop sanding, taping, spraying...truck keys in pocket, me inside with younger napping children spending the hot afternoon cleaning, mopping, laundry. Van and truck sitting under tin roof in shade but not much relief to be found from the soaring temps...even vehicles under covered parking turned into ovens.





Sweet tiny girl tucked into crib sleeping the hot afternoon away, squirmy wiggly little 2 year old pleading to go water slide with the older ones. In my preoccupation I gave permission to forgo his nap that day and off he bounded towards freedom, sun drenched day and slippery surfaces with water. I continued on in my cleaning vigil.



5:30 instructions were given to turn off the fan within the room in which he napped so that he could gently wake up. News came that he was not napping. No recollection of the fact I had freed him from bed 2 hours earlier. So, more instructions given to go wake him again and that he was indeed sleeping and had probably gravitated to a different bed before falling asleep. It only made sense given the fact he had been absent for 2 hours. Our sweet happy, ever present Gavin. The one who plays with everybody but always without fail returns to play by my side or follow his beloved daddy around. I clean bathrooms, he drives trucks, trailers and motorcycles in tile squares beside my feet, I detail kitchen and he plays in the living area on car mats beside me, I get on computer and he drives fire trucks, ambulances and trucks with loaded trailers on the desk by my side. As I now type this he stands beside me making an engine bay out of the Jr Mint box he confiscated from the trash. My ever sweet, ever smiley, ever present one. The one who disappears for 10 minutes at a a time only to return to play by my side....my sweet little buddy.



Believing older ones were not doing a good enough job at searching beds I went to go wake him. As an empty room greeted me it was then I remembered that I'd allowed him to go free and slip n slide with the others. I looked at now done with day's job, sweaty, hard working husband and asked if Gavin had been by his side...as he loves to hang out and "spray" his trucks as Vortexing husband sprays the big ones. He had not seen Gavin all day. I fought off the rising panic as I realized it was now 2 hours and 20 minutes since I'd allowed him from bed. All that time just assuming he'd fallen asleep when he went absent from the others and missing from my side. It wasn't like him to not come back and play by my side or to not be with Brad while he worked. Entire family was instructed to start a search as we called and called his name in vain. Thinking he might have fallen asleep in some strange place, under beds, favorite hiding spots and forts were searched all to find nothing and no answer from him. The longer we called the more terror overtook my trembling heart. Something was desperately wrong.



Strict rules are followed as all vehicles and trailers stay locked at all times. But keys were gathered and the van was unlocked and searched for the possible breach of safety and forgetfulness that may have occurred. Nothing. Sweat poured down us all as we called for him and searched in the heat. Scenarios began running through my mind, knowing deep within that something was indeed terribly wrong and he was in danger. I thought through any open bodies of water in the near vicinity, which we have none, and every other possible thing that could've happened. I ran to Brad's truck to assure myself it was locked and undisturbed as children ran calling for him and Brad's voice echoed through my head as he called his name and searched the front.



Thoroughly panic-ed at this point I lifted the handle of the truck and peered through to make sure all doors were still locked. They were and there was no movement within the tinted windows as I called for him. I abandoned the truck to move on....and it was then I heard His voice. The same voice that told me to get up that night...the same voice I ignored so many months ago. The mistake that cost us so very much in life. Listening this time I turned around and went back to the empty truck. I fought off the dread and the tears and looked carefully and thoroughly through the window. There, in the back, in the floorboard, behind the driver's seat lay his still, 2 year old body. I began to cry and felt as though I could no longer even breathe as I pounded on the widows and called his name. I screamed and I cried as I beat windows and called him, but he didn't move. I couldn't leave but I needed keys. I ran to find the closest person, yelling for them to get Brad and to fetch keys. I returned to the truck to find him sitting up crying....a far cry from the scene I had just taken in with his little body motionless in the floorboard. He climbed to the front seat crying and saying over and over...."I want out. Mama, I want out." Grayson returned almost immediately with the keys as trapped 2 year old was trying to pull up on the lock. He managed to pull it up about the time Grayson hit the unlock button. I opened the door that he couldn't seem to open and pulled him from the hot confines of the truck. His body so drenched in sweat that my hands kept slipping over him as I tried to hold onto him. Water poured from his head and he was blinking profusely trying to see through the continual sea of salty water pouring from his forehead. His tiny underwear so wet that it dripped and when I stripped it off of him later I rang it out like a washcloth.



Brad rounded the corner as I set him down. He took him from me and all I could do was cry...tears of what had just happened, tears of what had just almost happened and tears that the importance of obedience had possibly just saved the life of one of our children. Maybe all of what we endured last year was to spare the life of one of them this year. He is a merciful God. Maybe had we never walked through the consequence of my own disobedience I wouldn't have known what it was to listen and obey 3 days ago.



We were protected that day. Its' not a matter of large or small families and what occurs. We have heard of one too many 2 child families absent mindedly leaving a baby strapped in a carseat in Texas heat forgetting to drop them at daycare or such with the outcome being death. It's not about what we didn't do but what we did do...what we have learned and what it is to walk in obedience so that He can effectively parent through us.



So many things that day transpired that made a difference in the outcome...so many ways we were protected and that his life was spared. Many summer days truck remains parked in sunny driveway with no shady covering as working husband uses car space to work and make trips back and forth from cabinets located behind truck parking. Had it been in sun the temps within surely would not have allowed him to live as long as he did in the shaded truck. And with little boy having slipped and slid in water for a few minutes before entering truck he'd undressed from his wet swimsuit but never returned back in to be redressed in dry clothes. So, he had nothing on to further the heat rising within his body but his tiny little underwear. It was in the hottest part of the day but still he was spared.



It was finally realized that while keys remained in working husband's pocket buttons had been pushed as he moved, bent over and stood back up over and again throughout his workday. Truck had unknowingly and very unintentionally been quietly unlocked.



I'm not sure why things happen....why some children's lives seem so very short as God's plans for them and each of their families are revealed, such as Steven Curtis Chapman's little Maria or Cindy's Joel or so many of the others that did not make it. Sweet friends of friends that realized as they readied for work in the early morning their 2 year old lay lifeless in their backyard pool, the family that had the family reunion incident. I cannot comprehend the ways of God and what His bigger plan is...so much higher than what we can imagine, the bigger picture that I fail to see. But I do know that we were spared and his little life was spared. And that maybe what we went through and the road we have walked over the past year taught us to listen and heed the voice of the Lord so that when this day came the action was quick and more loss did not come to us. That I can sit here holding is happy little self close to me and hear his contagious laughter and know his sloppy kisses...to hear the "Mama, I love you" and "You're so pretty".... the way he smells my skin after a shower and buries his head into me telling me I smell good. That we can see him grow and be everything God has planned for his life. To know the importance of raising him up and each of the others to know the heart of God at an early age and to respond to what He says. Oh that they may know what it is to walk in the paths of truth and to hear the voice of the Lord so many years before I ever did. That God can use them as He did Solomon and see the years we have spent teaching them the wisdom of His words. That we will raise up Davids and Jacobs, Josephs and Moses'. That they will be used as Amos, Jonathan, Paul, Silas, Aaron and so many others that impacted the Kingdom for His greatness....that followed His will so explicitly, harbored a great passion for the heart of God despite their fallible ways, that they changed the course of history and were so significant that God found them worthy of mention in the Bible. Oh that we will raise children that make a difference and know the heart of God intimately, where passion continues to live despite the apathy of the rest of the world...children of passion and fire....that have hearts that will not turn away from Him and will walk in obedience to His voice.



We are protected. He is a loving merciful God despite everything we have come through...the fire we have endured. He is teaching and molding and shaping us as parents just as we continue to teach and shape and mold the hearts and minds of our children. Let it be that I always have an open heart to walk in accordance to His will so that I may never stray from the heart of His extravagant love and mercy.


"Be it unto me according to Your will. Let me know fully the height and breadth and depth of Your love and grace and mercy. Let me walk in obedience all the days of my life. Show me how to teach our children how to follow the instructions given to them so that they may fully be used by You all the days of their lives. Thank you for sparing us and for sparing the life of one of our very own children....that there was not more harm and devastation done....that we have a little boy to celebrate. I am humbled by Your love for me and the way You pour forth in our lives. Even when we have walked through the valley of the shadow of death throughout the past year You have been with us in every way and You have proven Yourself faithful and true in every way. Let my life and the lives of my husband and children glorify you and bring You honor. You do reign and You are great. You are merciful and your loving kindness lasts for a lifetime. Though the tears may last for a night joy does come in the morning, and our joy has come. Oh God that we may know You in ways we have never known You, see You in ways we have never seen You! You are great. You are the one and only God. Let our children rise up as Godly nations before You. Great are the plans you have for us....You have brought us back from the place from where You sent us into exile. I have sought You and I have found You. Great are Your works. Let our children walk in integrity and righteousness and speak truth in their heart. Let them honor and fear You. Turn their eyes upon You. I have trusted You through it all and have trusted in Your loving kindness. You have dealt bountifully with me. Great are Your mercies toward me."