Planting Sin and Expecting a Harvest of Blessing to Grow

So... I'm up early.  3 am to be exact.  Anyone who knows me knows that this is not completely unusual.  Anyway, I'm doing what I do when I wake up every morning....regardless of the time.  I make my coffee.  Sit down and turn on the news to see what has happened while I was catching a few zzzz's.  In the meantime I pull out my phone and catch up on Facebook too.  What has been going on with my friends and my world while I was sleeping...

A close friend is undergoing tests on his heart this morning. A few from the east coast have posted their encouraging words for the day.  Others have invited me to play games.  You know how it goes because we all see pretty much the same thing each day.  As I scroll down I watch videos of how to prepare crock pot meals that I "like" but will probably never try.

I keep scrolling.  And scrolling.  And scrolling.

A name comes up.  A family who used to be so strong in the Lord.  Used to be.  Used to be passionate for Jesus.  Used to be the loudest of amen-ers. Used to be at practically every Bible study offered because they were hungry.  And then one day, years later, things were not going like they thought they should.  One day they believed that they had spiritually surpassed those around them. One day they begin to entertain and even finally participate in negative conversation.  One day they "gave place to the devil".  The scary thing is that that is all he needs.  The evil one (as Jesus calls him) just needs a little opportunity in order to reek havoc. 

One of the things really sad is that I'm not sure they recognize that "havoc" has been reeked.  From the looks of their posts I'm pretty sure that they are pretty sure they are fine.  It does look like they're having fun.  You know....the frog in the kettle story.  Just a little heat at a time and you don't even realize...........you're being cooked. 

Hear me---I am not making judgments. I'm up early this morning grieving.  And interceding.  And warning others.

Yes, I'm grieving for them this morning.  I certainly don't know everything.  But I have seen enough in my 56 years to know what is down the road for this family if they don't WAKE UP.  I've seen too much bad seed reap too much pain and consequences.

We can continue with our religious lingo all day long....But the Bible says, "Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap."  The Apostle Paul penned this!  New Testament.  Book of Galatians.  Chapter 6, verse 7.  It's there.

In other words....Don't think you are fooling God with your religious rhetoric.  He has put the laws of the harvest into place.  He does not break His own laws.  WHAT YOU PLANT IS WHAT YOU GROW.  And you can't plant something and not tend to your crop.  You must also cultivate your seed.  You can't choose the way "that seems right to a man".  The Word tells us that if you do, death and destruction are what you will reap.

You want a strong marriage?  You can't do it without Jesus at the center of it and He is not at the center if He is not THE Foundation.  He's not the Foundation if you begin out by living together unmarried first.  I'm not talking about the ones who came to know Jesus after mistakes were made, I'm talking to "believers" who have chosen their own path.  When we know "the right thing to do and do not do it" it is sin.  Unfortunately, many plant sin and expect blessing to grow! 

And that's just one example.  We can all fill in the blank of what we want to produce.  Strong, truly spiritual children?  A godly marriage?  Health?  Stability?  Blessing?  Healthy relationships?  What do you want?

If you want to reap _____________________, then you plant and cultivate seed that will produce __________________.

I'm not making this up and it's not MY opinion.  It's Bible.  If you "sow" what feels good and right to us--but does not line up with the Word of God, we will receive Corruption as our harvest.  But if we sow things of the Spirit--which DO line up with the Word of God, we reap eternal life.  We can't become discouraged and choose our own ways because IF we are faithful to Him and His ways, we will reap HIS blessings.  Again Galatians.  Again, chapter 6.  This time, verses 8 & 9.

Come on, people of God.  He loves us so much that He literally laid down His life for us.  He lives for us............Let's live for Him! 

Does It Really Take A Village?

I don’t know how many of you are “sports” families but we certainly are!  In Georgia, Randy is probably known for being an excellent basketball player as much or more as being an excellent preacher!  Soon after moving to California he ruptured his Achilles and had to have surgery so his high tops have been retired—for the most part.  I was “just” a cheerleader but our three daughters and son have followed in their dad’s footsteps and played basketball as well.  Olivia and Zach both played other sports so we pretty much had something going on in a gym or at a ball field most of the year during the time they were in school.  Some of our best family memories revolve around some type of a ball!

All combined we’ve had 27 coaches, over 80 teachers, 1 children’s pastor, 5 youth pastors, 4 grandparents, and countless other friends and family who have partnered with Randy and me in raising our children.  I know that a lot of Christians disagreed with Hillary Clinton’s statement many years ago that it takes a village to raise a family but I happen to agree with her on that one!

I’ve always believed that my children had great things ahead in the destiny that God planned out for them.  It would have been near to impossible for Randy and me to instill everything in them that they needed for this journey if we had not had help.  But God, being good like He is, gave us many wonderful people to assist us.

Now with that said, not all of the folks who were in my kids lives have been Christian nor were they all necessarily who I would have chosen.  But, they were who we were given and I’m truly thankful for each of them.  They each made special deposits in the kids' lives that formed them into who they are. 

There were times through the years when a teacher or a coach gave instructions to my kids that I wasn’t particularly pleased with.  There were times, for instance, when one of their coaches would call a particular play, or play another kid instead of mine or any number of things that can happen, and we would completely disagree.  “What in the world is Coach ________ thinking!?”, we may ask ourselves.  But never one time did we say this to our child.  In fact, quite the opposite.  We backed our coaches because they were the leaders of our child’s team and we did not want to undermine them.  We did not want to strip their authority to our child. 

My husband is quite vocal in the stands.  My kids loved it (or were at least used to it) but I’m pretty sure the referees pretty much dreaded him being there. 

Randy and I were raised in the South—the old South and are extremely competitive.  In Georgia, almost everyone was pretty vocal and loud at ballgames.  When we moved to California, we stood out.  The fans here, for the most part, were much more passive and ….not as loud. 

My daughters were in a new high school and playing for a wonderful coach that had not quite figured out her strange new family.  We were at a Christmas basketball tournament in Santa Maria.  As my girls were on the court during their game, Randy was doing what he had done for about 10 years.  He was telling Olivia things like, “Don’t pick up your dribble” and any number of other things.  Our coach became very frustrated with Randy and asked him (from the opposite side of the court) to stop coaching Liv from the stands.  Randy immediately became quite.  He had not realized that he was being a bother to her. 

After the game, our daughters were crying and furious and wanted to go home.  They were upset that their coach was upset with their dad—their hero.  Randy firmly told the girls to be quiet and settle down that this is their coach and they will do what she says.  He told them that he should not have been doing that because it had been a distraction.  And of course, he quickly went to find our coach and apologized to her. 

This coach is one of our favorite gifts that God brought to us for our daughters.  She is an amazing Christian and we all still stay in contact.  She’s contributed so much into Olivia and Destiny’s lives that no one else could have and we are forever thankful for her. 

But, I have to stop and think what would have happened if Randy had responded differently that day?  What if he had been arrogant and stubborn and become angry at her?  After all—these were his daughters!  If he had told that coach “a thing or two” about …. Whatever….we would have missed that deposit that only she could have made into our kids lives!  We would have robbed our daughters of something and someone precious who helped form them.  It was important that we had her back as much as she has had ours through the years.  

Our coach learned that her weird Southerners were her greatest supporters! 

The next year as she led her team, our team, to the State Championship, we were, of course, screaming the loudest!

2003 CIF Southern Section Champs!

Too often today, we become dismayed at our educational systems and our recreational organizations and complain that teachers, coaches and youth pastors are not doing their jobs.  May I present that if we, as parents, were doing a better job of supporting them and not undercutting them, our children would respect them more and it would alleviate most of the problems. 

We’ve given these folks responsibility for our kids but we’ve robbed them of their authority. 

Our Coach Sally Orlando

We can’t be successful without them.  

After all, 

                 

it does 

take a village!

HOPE Does Not Disappoint

 “Through Him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand and we rejoice in hope of  the glory of God.  Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and 

HOPE DOES NOT DISAPPOINT 

because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”    Romans 5:1-5

If the sufferings we go through in life do not produce these things: endurance, character, hope and love, then our sufferings are wasted.  In the middle of our trials we were learning that hope in God does not end in disappointment! Isn’t that great news?

Over the next few days, Olivia began getting stronger and stronger.  She still looked like a frail little preemie with all of her tubes and IV’s.  However, once her recovery had begun, it moved fast. Of course, in the moment, it seemed like an eternity.  After all, I had two babies at home.  Jessica was just three and a half and Destiny was not quite two.

I was experiencing what most moms do.  Guilt.  I felt guilty about whatever I wasn’t doing. Guilty when I said bye to Jessica and Destiny to go to the hospital to be with Olivia.  Guilty when I left Olivia at the hospital to go home to my other babies.  The life of a mother, regardless of how much you do, there’s always much more to be done and something you’re not getting to.

A few weeks later, Olivia came home on a heart and lung monitor. There were so many hurdles to cross, but cross them we did!  This mommy was being required to rely on her heavenly Father to take care of her children when I had no power to do it on my own. 

Liv remained on her monitor for the first thirteen months of her life.  We had many alarms go off and we often had to coax her to breathe.  Eventually she learned that breathing was a good thing!

When Olivia was four months old, we were surprised that, regardless of the fact that we had been using birth control, we were now expecting our fourth baby.  I will say that not everyone around us was as excited as Randy and me.  Oh, the bliss of being young.  I remember that my mom once jokingly (I think) told me, “You don’t have enough sense to worry about anything.”  That’s so funny to me now.  Actually, it was pretty funny to me back then, which must indicate that it was true.

Number four was on the way. 

After a few complications in the pregnancy, we were able to hold off delivery until my 36^th week.  On March 14^th, 1988, four weeks early, Dr. Arshad delivered our son—Yes!  Our SON, Zachary Jordan Arshad Howard.  The night Zachary was born, Randy was as proud as a peacock, as they say.  Zachary was not at all a pretty new-born baby.  As Randy held him that night in the hospital he was smiling from ear to ear.  Zach was born with a bruised, crooked head and a bloody eye.  But that didn’t matter at all.  We had a healthy son.  He would be our last child and we now had an heir to carry on the family name.

He was born two weeks before Olivia turned one.  One month later, Olivia was declared healthy and no longer needed her monitor.  Our family finally felt secure and safe.  Of course, little did we realize that so many trials were ahead.  There would be many more times when we would have to use those “faith muscles” that God was developing in us to see our family reach the destiny that He had designed for us.

At that time in our life, we couldn’t have felt more stretched.  My father-in-law was serving time in prison; my mother-in-law lived with us; my aunt, who was more like my big sister, had suffered a severe brain injury from a car accident; Randy had lost his job shortly after I had quit mine; our pastor was asked to resign and Randy was asked to cover some of the pastoral responsibilities at our church. With all of that we had four children less than 5 years old!

Whew!  The memory of all of that going on at the same time just made me tired!

It was one of the most intense and stressful times of our lives but it was also one of the sweetest times because God was “schooling” us.  He was indeed giving us so many tribulations that He designed to bring about endurance, character, hope and love in our lives.

Afraid of Hope

Twenty-two months after the birth of our first daughter, on July 23rd, 1985, I gave birth to a second healthy daughter.  At first Destiny Ciera wasn't nearly as pretty as her older sister.  In fact, she looked like a funny little cartoon drawing. But, once again, I was completely in love! Jessica was the first grandchild for the Howards and as a young mom I felt like I had to share her with everyone.  So, I decided that Destiny was all mine.  After a few weeks the cartoon-face newborn look changed and she, too, was a beautiful baby.  She looked just like Randy with those big, round, beautiful brown eyes.  Destiny loved her big sister from the beginning and wanted to do everything that Jessica did.  Jessica reveled in holding her and even just touching her.  

After having these two little dolls to play with, I thought that our family was complete.  I worked as a customer service agent for DHL Worldwide Express but my life was my family.  At that time, with only two children, the girls were always dolled up in their pretty, fancy Martha Miniature dresses, big hair bows and clean, happy faces.  It was easy to take them out everywhere because they were so good and easy to manage. Back then I didn't understand what was so difficult about having well-behaved children.  I'm sure that God must have been a bit amused at what I thought I knew and He had a big surprise in the making for me.  

Twenty months after Destiny was born, we delivered our third daughter five weeks early.  Babies are born five weeks early often and can be quite healthy.  This was not the case for our daughter.  As soon as she was born it was obvious that she had serious complications.  My first clue should have been that she was as blue as a Smurf and very quiet in the delivery room.  However, when you're young, have only delivered healthy babies and are lying in a vulnerable position on the hospital bed, things don't compute very well. 

The neonatal staff at Georgia Baptist Hospital in Atlanta must have been in my delivery room within seconds because everything seemed to be moving at warp speed and slow motion at the same time. 

Our daughter was born shortly after midnight on March 31, 1987.  We had not chosen a name for a girl because Randy and my in-laws thought we should "think positive".  After all, Randy was the last Howard and we needed a boy to carry on the family name.

Somehow, early the next morning I made my way down to the neonatal unit and saw my daughter.  For the first time, it dawned on me that we were in trouble.  This was likely going to be a difficult road--at best.  Her little 6 pound 5 ounce body had needles and tubes going in and out of places all over her tiny self.  As I sat by the edge of her bed fighting to hold my tears back, the words of an old hymn came to my memory.  "I care not today, what tomorrow may bring, if shadow or sunshine or rain.  The Lord I know ruleth over everything and all of my worry is vain.  Living by faith, in Jesus above.  Trusting, confiding in His great love.  From all harm safe.  In His sheltering arms.  I'm living by faith and feel no alarm.  

Immediately I knew that God had given us her name.  Olivia Faith.  Living by faith.  Olivia Faith. 

That old hymn became our declaration over our wee daughter.  

On the morning of April 2nd, I was sent home from the hospital without my little girl as other moms beside me got into their cars with their new babies.  My heart was broken.

All throughout that day, Olivia had a barrage of doctors running all kinds of tests on her trying to find out what was wrong.  They knew her lungs were underdeveloped.   They knew she had swallowed a lot of amniotic fluid.  But babies do this all of the time and many come along just fine.  Olivia was not fine.  She and her doctors were fighting for her life.

After I got home that morning I made phone calls to the hospital every fifteen to thirty minutes throughout the day.  At some point I was told they were bringing in a cardiologist because her heart wasn't doing well and they couldn't figure out what was going on.  He should have the report ready by 5:00 pm.  At 5:00 I started to call for the report but couldn't for some reason.  I asked Randy if he would call.  He called and was immediately very quiet and serious.  He calmly hung up the phone and looked at me and said, "We need to leave and go to the hospital right now."  

I'll never forget that moment on Highway 42 heading toward Atlanta.  We were sitting at a stop light by the Starlight Drive-In Theatre.  I looked around at everyone passing by me in their cars and thought, "They don't know that my daughter is dying."  Randy gently interrupted my thoughts and said, "If God requires her life of us, we need to be willing to accept whatever He has for her and for us."  Through my tears I nodded and said, "I know.  but if she dies, no one better say to me that it happened because it was God's will.  I know that. But no one better say that to me."  I only wanted to share my pain with him because he was the only one in the same place as I was at that moment.

When we arrived at the hospital we had some of our family join us.  The neonatal staff called us in to a conference room to tell us that they had finally been able to diagnose Olivia.

Olivia had a condition called persistent fetal circulation.  Basically, in terms that I could understand, they explained that when a baby is in the womb, they do not use the lungs to move oxygen.  But once the baby is born, the lungs open up and move oxygen.  Olivia's body had continued to operate as a fetus after she was born.  The arteries between her heart and lungs had not opened up, allowing blood and oxygen flow.  Because of this her blood gas levels were plummeting and she was in a dire crisis.  They had only been studying this condition at that time for about five years so everything was experimental since they knew little about the condition.  Dr. Erkan recommended that she be put on a particular heart-lung machine in order to help her.  He said that there were only eight of these particular machines in the country at that time.  Two were in San Francisco, two in Washington D.C., two were in Augusta, Georgia and two in New Orleans.  After phone calls were made, it was discovered that New Orleans had a bed open and they could transfer her there.

Everyone began making preparations at once.  This would mean that a helicopter would move her to the local Charlie Brown airport where a Life Flight Lear jet was standing by waiting to fly her to New Orleans.  Randy would accompany Olivia and the medical team there.

As the team began to arrive at the hospital and prepare for the trip, Dr. Erkan and his staff continued to monitor our baby as she continued to grow weaker and weaker.  At one point, he sat us down and informed us that he wasn't sure that she would make the two-hour flight.  Her oxygen levels were dropping and dropping.  Her body was dying.  He also shared with us that she had been without enough oxygen to her brain for so long that she faced a strong possibility of being brain damaged if she did survive.  When the doctor delivered this latest news, I told God, "I can deal with that, just please let me keep my baby." I had Jessica and Destiny but two girls were not enough.  I needed all three of them.  Regardless of what was ahead and how difficult the journey would be, I begged God for her life.

We stood outside her little window for hours and hours and watched as these amazing men and women fought for our little girl's life as if she were their own.

Finally, with her traveling incubator in the hall, warmed and ready to transport her, I stood in grieving pain watching her drift further and further away from me.  Dr. Erkan walked out, visibly shaken and said to us, "I can't do anything else with her."  I quietly turned to walk away before they moved her.  If this genius of a man couldn't help, I finally realized that it was out of my hands.  Every bit of strength, fortitude, love and desire for her couldn't change anything.  All I could do is to place her back into the hands of her loving Creator.

I walked away from her room looking for a place alone to pray.  My sister, Tonya, quietly followed, stood at a distance and positioned herself to be available if I needed her.

It was very late that night and the hospital was pretty vacant.  I sat on the floor in the hall.  I sat there in surrender.  Not wanting to give her up, but knowing that was what was required.  I told my God, "If you want her with You, I'm ready.  She's Yours.   Whatever You say, I'm alright with it."  

Perhaps I should have had more faith and continued to speak healing over her.  I don't know.  I do know that I completely surrendered to His will and I was truly okay with whatever call He made.

As Tonya and I walked back through the double doors and looked down the long hall to where Olivia's room was, Randy hurried towards me.  "I've been looking for you."  My heart dropped.  I earnestly believed that he was about to give me the fatal news about Olivia.  I had just given God my permission to take her and I, at the same time, feared that He had taken me up on it.

Randy said, "You're not going to believe this.  They were about to put her in the travel incubator to move her and Dr. Erkan hesitated and said, 'Let's check her one more time'.  Her blood gas levels had jumped from just a few minutes before!  He's going to check her in thirty minutes again but for now, he's put everything on hold!"

I couldn't even react.  I was afraid to hope.  I stood watching her through the window. Thirty minutes later they checked her and once again, her levels were climbing.  The staff was cautiously excited that she was finally responding.  After a few more hours of testing her every half hour and having the same progress, Olivia stabilized and the transfer was cancelled.  We knew that we were witnessing a true miracle.