A NEW NAME

From Susan:

 A number of years ago, I felt clearly led to write a book that recorded how the Lord has helped our family of 12. Having obeyed and submitted it to several publishers, it has received helpful reviews but is not yet in print. It is becoming clear that I can begin to pass on some of the best of our testimonies of the supernatural power of our Lord through this blog. 

Here is one of my favorite memories.

         

Needing a New Name    

Ironically, as I was writing, I was feeling absolutely overwhelmed by the needs of one of our children. My kindness was met with a deep anger that appeared to erupt randomly without warning, like some subterranean dormant volcano, totally unanticipated yet dumping destructive burning coals in its wake. Years of orphanage-living that leaves a love-deficit can make children go through stages of being as difficult to love as a bristly porcupine--when they are rebellious or disrespectful or angry or resentful or dishonest or indifferent or unresponsive. 

Yet amidst such circumstances, loving with God’s sacrificial love is precisely what God called Hosea to do, and precisely what I look to the Lord’s Spirit to enable me to do.  

Susan with some of her daughters, and grand daughters!

I remember that love is a supernatural quality and not a natural human trait. 

I must receive it. 

It is the kind of supernatural love God has for me that I long to pass along to them. A love based on forgiveness and acceptance. It is a love that I cannot lose. I ponder how nothing can separate me from the love of Christ (Romans 8)…certainly not my own sin or unpleasant behavior or  disparaging attitudes.   

I thanked the Lord for being allowed to see gradual changes emerging in the character of the daughter who was struggling so much with her anger.  But I was absolutely shocked one rather normal day, after I had been praying for about six months for her character to be transformed as much as that of Hosea’s children, so transformed that it would be as if she had a new name. 

She walked in after an afternoon with a close family friend, and she said, "I want to tell you all that I have a new name and my name is now Lana Grace. I do not want to be Sveta any more. Please be sure to only call me Lana Grace. Mama and Daddy, I want to ask your forgiveness for all the ways I have hurt you and disobeyed you and abused you. I did not understand. I remembered that when my Russian mama said she loved me I did not believe her. I could tell it was not really true. So I thought that you and daddy really do not love me.  But today I realized that you and daddy really do love me. All you have done for me is only good. Today when we were praying I cut those ties to my Russian mama. I forgave her.  The hole in my heart is gone. As we were praying today we had a chair that was there for the Lord…the Lord showed me that my Russian mom was trying to lead me to the wrong path, but that the Lord put a tall white wall up and He was on my side of the wall with me to protect me. He also showed me that He put shields all around me to protect me. I also realized that I have the same name as my Russian mom and every time I heard my name I felt kind of bad....like I was going to be like her and could not get away from that. But now I have a new name-- Lana Grace. My whole name, Svetlana, in Russian means "light." Mom, did you know that?  I can't believe how free I feel and what a wonderful day I had with the Lord; I was just rejoicing all day. Mom.....I am a new creation." 

Nothing short of a transformation in character, nothing short of a new creation, nothing short of the hardened and lonely becoming healed and whole, is precisely what emerges when we pass along to our children that authentic love. We, like Hosea, have received this love as it is poured out within our hearts by the Holy Spirit through our Lord Jesus. 

Hope in Our New Name

Even with all this, I can become despondently hopeless if I meditate too long on the plight of the 150 million orphans in the world today--drugs, suicide, prostitution, criminal behavior, isolation, discrimination, disease, abuse, exploitation…the list goes on and on. Figures of what happens after years of orphanage living in Russia are bleak:  the majority become either homeless, jobless, criminals, or suicide victims. Certainly, apart from the Lord’s supernatural intervention through His people, many orphans will face that same tragic fate that was faced by our son Jonny--death at a young age of a life full or promise. 

As it currently stands, vast numbers of the worlds’ orphans will die having experienced neither the love of God nor the love of family. Reversing such a desperate fate will require believers throughout the world to overcome impossible obstacles. Obstacles of our own personal natures such as ignorance, indifference, selfishness, prejudice, ambition, greed, unbelief; obstacles of a systematic nature, such as cultural barriers, governmental regulations, and ravages of HIV/AIDS; and obstacles of neglect and abuse, including open wounds of past emotional, physical, and sexual abuse, as well as the pain of alcohol and drug abuse.  And riddled through all these obstacles, the constant tensions between good and evil, hope and despair, light and darkness, life and death. 

Yet we worship a God for whom no obstacle is insurmountable. For Him, nothing is impossible. He is the one who still, today, replaces the old creation riddled with the names of 'rejection' and 'abandonment,'  for us and for them, with His New Name, engraving instead, 'beloved' and 'children of the living God.'

Those who were not my people I will call 'my people,' and her who was not beloved I will call 'beloved,' and in the very place where it was said to them, 'you are not my people,' they will be called, 'children of the living God. 

And what does all this have to do with us? 

We simply are called to copy Jesus, who says so simply and so profoundly in Matthew 19, "Let the little children come to Me, and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God."  

It may take time, and it is not our first call to let them "come to me," but to let them "come to Jesus." He has open arms and will receive them when they are ready. 

We must not despair over those not yet ready.  We pray they will be given eyes to see His open arms, through ours. 

FROM ATTACHMENT DISORDER TO ATTACHMENT REORDERED

From Susan:

"I know it's not THAT papaya.....but I still can't bring myself to try it."  

Years ago, I used to love papaya..... 
until that fateful afternoon in tropical Costa Rica, when eating a bad papaya made me so weakly dehydrated from food poisoning that I had to suffer the repeated humiliation of being carred to the commode by my new husband.  

Even though that was over 30 years ago and I KNOW that today's papaya is not THAT papaya, my stomach still turns in disinterest at the sight of one.  

My papaya story has helped me understand how some of our children felt after having suffered great harm at the hands of their first parents; while we know and they know that we are not THOSE parents, the experience of fear and rejection and self-protection often seems woven into their very framework. 

And all of these emotions often come to the surface during the teen years, when each of us has to work on figuring out who we are. 

One particular day I was surprised to hear these words from my beautiful, outgoing, winsome,16 year-old, "Every day when I look in the mirror I always am wondering...."
"Wondering about what?" I asked.
"Wondering if she every thinks about me and remembers me and wonders how I am doing."  

The 'she,' of course, was her Russian mama, whom she had not seen since age 4 when she was taken away from her home by the authorities.

It was during this same time period that outbursts of rage would sometimes arise like an unpredictable thunder storm. I would hear things like, 
"You are NOTHING to me! I am going to tear up those x*&$@# adoption papers and you will be NOTHING to me! NOTHING!"  

I cried because I felt so deeply saddened and confused and desperate for some comfort from above, and for some wisdom and insight into the cause of such outbursts, and for some leading about how to respond in love. 

Only later did I come to understand reflection. She was reflecting what she felt in that mirror: one feeling rejected naturally reflects rejection. And as the mama or daddy, at this moment we can choose to reflect rejection or distance or judgment or anger or disdain BACK to them, OR we can, instead, reflect Jesus' unconditional and indestructible love to them.  

In other words, we can respond out of who God is and not out of how we feel (read Ezekiel 20 in the Message!...you will see this 4 times!).  When I think about reflecting who God is, I think of being gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. 

It is as if Jesus is ever whispering to us, "Copy me, not them." It is what Paul says in Ephesians 1 "Be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love."

I think of this as attachment reordered.  God's love helping me respond rather than react.

Allowing me to reflect Him, not them.  

And with time, we are seeing they have this same attachment reordering that I do.....becoming secure in how much God loves them, in spite of the failures of even those they most expected love from.

So how did all this end up?

After years of rebellion, this same child tells me Sunday night, "Mom, you are the person I try to copy!" 

Amazing grace....aaammmmaaazzzziiinggg grace!!!!

OF LOST SHEEP AND WAYWARD PRODIGALS

From Susan:

Bean-Bag Tag!

We have lots of Hillis family variations of hide-n-seek. My all time favorite is beanie-bag tag, in which the person who is IT counts to 50 while everyone else hides in a dimly lit basement or outside at after dusk, and then tries to run and catch everyone else by throwing the bean bag at them and hitting them with it. Since I am slow but have a pretty good aim, this is a game I could actually win from time to time by getting everybody OUT! Every one of  you remembers the joy of finding the person who is hiding, lost to our sight! 

It is so natural as a parent to chase after our kids, literally and figuratively. 

There are times to chase, and as they get older there are also times not to go running after them!  

To Chase or Not to Chase: That is the Question!

I particularly struggled with this question when one of our high-maintanance kids was sneaking out of the house in the middle of the night at age 16, making irresponsible choices about school, and choosing friends who were corrupting her morals. 

Saying no to our yes, up to our down, right to our left, and generally speaking, exhibiting those unique qualities characteristic of kids with reactive attachment disorder--
at every step. 

I felt EXHAUSTED and FRUSTRATED and CONCERNED about where she would end up! 

I felt OVERWHELMED with the demands of homework and sports and music lessons and friends and life for 10 kids, particularly since 1 of them seemed to need more attention than all the other 9 combined! 

Faced with this conundrum, Brian and I were praying, "Lord, do we go after this lost sheep or do we focus on the disciples?"  

We kept asking in prayer for the Lord's advice and direction, as there was NO WAY to care for the other 9 wanting to head in the right direction AND to care for the very needy one who was daily being pulled into more and more danger and destruction. After several weeks of praying with no apparent answer, the Lord whispered to me by His Spirit ever so simply and clearly one morning while I was looking in the mirror and brushing my teeth and not even thinking of our conundrum:  
"She is not a lost sheep. Where is her face pointed? Lost sheep would point their faces toward home if they knew where home was. Her face is pointed away."  

Then I understood that Luke 15 contrasts the difference in what the parent/shepherd does with a prodigal versus lost sheep. He lets one go, and goes chasing after the other! All I needed to do was to just copy the prodigal's father in Luke 15. Let the prodigal go her way until she wants to return--

Trusting You, Lord, to be her Father as she wanders. 

Trusting You, Lord, to bring ours and yours home to Yourself and to us, once they come to their senses.

Then, after a few days, in our good Father's sweet way, the Lord added to this sense of direction by a paraphrase from Acts 19:9, 

But some of them become obstinate,...so Paul left them, [and he] took the discples with him. 

Another version expresses that last part this way, "he went on with the disciples."  

Brian and I experienced the living and abiding word of God that was exactly what we needed in this moment.  
"Many became obstinate, so he left them and went on with the disciples!"   

I do not expect this would be the same answer for everyone, but it was our Wonderful Counselor's answer to us in our particular situation. 

Please don't misunderstand this "leaving." We continue unchanged in our abiding and enduring love for them, and pray for them and keep the relationship with them. But our focus is on those who are disciples and on those who may be lost, whose faces are pointed towards home.  

And we continue to hold the prodigals tightly in prayer, believing that faith even as small as a mustard seed can move those mountains of fear, theirs and ours!

I wish I could say that life was easy from the day we fully understood God's answer to our prayer; it wasn't easy, but as Aslan says to Lucy in Chronicles of Narnia, it was "good!"  

So the end of the story is this: our prodigal did come home after many years of wandering, which culminated in two years on the streets of Atlanta when she was 19 and 20.  Now she is 23 and doing very well - we talk by phone almost every day! 

So let me close with a new appreciation of Jesus's word in Luke 14,

How often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! Look, your house is left to you desolate!  

Just this week end, yet again, I felt nudged to leave one of our kids to the Lord's care and allow Him to gather this sweet soul of my heart, rather than try to meet all the needs. I took a step away and let the Lord gather this treasure--and gather, He did!  I am amazed by the miraculous transformation that occurs with even mustard seed sized faith!!  

It does, indeed, still move mountains! Just dig that tiny hole of faith, instead of exhausting yourself with running!

May you and yours experience the Lord's Wonderful Counsel and Presence, this and every day!
Love eternal,

Susan

WHAT IF?

From Susan Hillis:

One of my favorite parts of today was the collect call I received at 7:30 this morning from the Clayton County Jail. It was my daughter, who calls me almost daily. She had an amazing testimony to share with me, but wait, I am getting ahead of myself! Let me give you some background....

My Hefty List
 

As a mom of 10 kids there were many 'what if's' that I considered from time to time when they were young, in moments of anxiety. What if one of my children grows up to make those kinds of choices that land someone in jail;  what if one of them makes the kind of choices that lead to a serious infectious disease like hepatitis C, or what if one of them makes the choices that lead to a teen pregnancy? My 'what if's' formed a pretty hefty list.  (There were many other 'what if's that never occurred to me in my wildest imagination, which I have indeed faced, but that will be the story for another post).  My insightful husband would comment from time to time, when I allowed words to grant expression to my worries, "Sweetie, I would much rather have a prodigal than an older brother." While given those two options, I agreed, however, my real preference was simply that we raise 10 disciples.

I Focused My Energies on Loving Her

Well, one of my 'what if's' did in fact come to pass.  And I, ever bent or Rescue and Hope and Restoration, have stood in awe to see the gracious Hand of God reaching out and touching my dear sweet young adult child as she walks into danger! This daughter (who had RAD characteristics growing up) has lived in various Atlanta hotels and been in and out of jail five times over the past two years. She is in again right now, this time for violating probation. Deeply hurt before we adopted her at age 10, the combination of counseling, all the love we could give, faith, and careful attention to school environment, just were not enough to bring her into full healing and wholeness. But they were enough to connect us so deeply that she knows, even now, that we continue to be her family.  In fact we were just planning last night which of us will go visit her at the jail this week. The Lord was also so tender, to connect her deeply to Himself during her 8 years in our home before she decided she was in love with a homeless young man in downtown Atlanta and would be living with him. When every attempt of mine to push her away from him ended up pushing her away from me instead, I determined to place my energies and focus rather on loving her, keeping the relationship, praying for her, and encouraging her to walk into the future God has for her.

So, from the Jail, we have these wild conversations several times a week.  Right after she went in this time, we sent her a Bible through Barnes and Noble (jails have a nice system for allowing this!), and she was delighted.  Soon I was hearing stories like this:  "Mommy, I have lots of people reading my Bible; I read it an hour at 4 in the morning when they get us up for breakfast and I read it an hour after lunch. Hey mommy, can you send my friend T.... a Bible just like mine so that we can study it together? Her prison number is xxxxxxx." (And in the background of my mind I almost chuckle as I am hearing John Valjean from Les Miserable belting out the famous measures from "Who am I?.....Two-four-six-0-one.") And I wonder, what kind of hearts may be hiding inside those bodes down at that jail.....

The Voice in the Vent

So here is my story from my talk with my daughter this morning: 

"Mommy, I am thinking of leaving my boyfriend when I get out of jail." 

Surprised, I say, "Oh, sweetie, I think that would really help you walk towards putting God first in your life, and using the talents He has given you.  You have such an amazing gift of mercy and service.  What has caused you to think of leaving your boyfriend?"

She replies, "Mommy, I have met a boy here through the vent (this is how guys and girls talk to each other - through the heating vents!) He is a strong believer and he reads his Bible every day like I do and we are talking about what we are reading. I told him my mommy and daddy want me to like a different boy who is following God and who doesn't live in a hotel and who has a job and who will take care of me. Well, mommy, he said, 'I think your mama is right and I agree with her. When you get out I think you should decide now that you are not going to go back with him.'"  Inside, I thank the Lord for putting this wonderful voice speaking truth, into her life.

I then tell her about the Andy Stanley talk I listened to yesterday on how much Jesus cares that we use our talents - that it doesn't really matter to Him whether we feel like we have a lot of talents or a few; it only matters that we use the ones He has given us. And I read her Matthew 25, the Parable of the Talents.  After I finished, I mentioned I expected some hard meetings at work and asked her to pray for me before we said goodbye.  Her prayer went something like this, "Lord Jesus, thank you for mommy and thank you that You are going to help give her wisdom today in her mind and in her words. I pray she will feel You helping her with her meetings and she will be able to have peace. Thank you for the food you give us and for how much we have, when so many people have so little. Amen."

And do you know what?  The Lord did for me today just what she asked of Him. I seem to have lost my fear of the 'what if's.'