Treasure in Surrendering

For those of you who have followed our blog for a long time, you'll notice that certain themes continue to surface such as faith, surrendering, and hope. That's probably because you don't simply master an area in your walk with God or stop facing the challenge. For the past week Nadeem and I have again been dealing with the issue of surrendering everything to God. The HR department contacted Nadeem's boss to find out whether or not Nadeem will be back at work by December 24. At that point he loses his current position at SunTrust and will have to apply for a new position. Nadeem loves his job and doesn't want to lose his position. We deeply long to be home for Christmas. We have been challenged to give up all of this to God-our desires, our wants, our plans.
There is an inspirational story that has circulated the Internet about a father and his young daughter. The father gave his little girl a necklace of plastic beads to wear when she played dress up. She loved this gift and kept it with her at all times. Every night during the bedtime routine, her dad would ask her if she loved him. She was very close to her dad, so she always replied with a hearty YES! Right after that he'd tell her that if she loved him then he wanted her to give him her cherished necklace. Every night she would refuse and hold the necklace a little tighter. Finally one night when the father went to tuck in his little girl, he found her sitting in the bed crying. When he went to her, she held out the plastic necklace. She was ready to give it to him. He hugged her and produced the real treasure-a true pearl necklace. He said that he had been waiting for that moment to give her something even more precious.
When I first read that story, I didn't like it very much. I thought the dad was cruel to torment his little girl like that. Why not just give her a nicer necklace as a gift? Why put her through all of this agony? Over time I've come to really like the illustration. I think we often see our Heavenly Father in this incorrect way, as tormenting us and holding out on what's good and precious, as trying to take away what we really love. The story tries to illustrate the truth of the treasure in surrendering.
Last year God called me to give up my teaching job that I loved with no idea of how or when we would become parents. It made no sense. I didn't want to do it. I cried every day. Every time I cried I thought of this story and believed that God had something better if I'd just obey Him and surrender. Please look at the two recent photos of our precious gift! If I had held onto my job, we wouldn't be here with Kalina. Trusting God can be so very difficult, but faith pleases God. God loves to bless His children.
Nadeem and I have struggled mightily with surrendering. We constantly have our own ideas of how everything will work. If we surrender our finances to God, then He will surely send us home before Nadeem's paycheck ends. If we surrender our desire to have our own children to God, surely He will bless us with our own biological child. If we surrender our fears about the trip to Bangladesh to God, surely He will bring us back home after three weeks (or even two!).
God's ways and thoughts are not ours. Praise God for that! He knows what is best for us. He only asks us to trust and obey.
Nadeem and Ayesha returned from the Home Ministry office this morning with....drum roll please....the "no objection" certificate! Yahoo! Praise God! Applause! Cheers! It's actually a small piece of paper with a pretty green and red emblem at the top. All this work for a tiny piece of paper! God already said, "I have no objections to you bringing Kalina to the USA! In fact, it's My plan!" Now we're seeing His plan come to fruition in the natural.
Tomorrow Someira and Ayesha leave for their trip to India. I've told them that I'll say good-bye once we're on the airplane to come home. They, however, plan to say good-bye today. So many of you have written to tell us how amazed you are at the kindness of this family. We feel the same way. God has used them as His hands and feet to help us get Kalina and to welcome us as family for all this time (15 weeks now if you're wondering). We hope to be home soon...but we also hope to surrender the timing to God who already knows the perfect plan.
Thank you for praying for us and standing in faith!