Teen OUT of control or God IN control?

Last week our teen mom decided she was going to move out. No car. No money. No plan beyond moving. No listening. Met with the land lord Tom last night. Signed the papers. Handed over her $650.00 for her deposit and 1st month's rent. Got the keys. She's decided for now to leave Amiyah with us. She knows she needs help.

So now what?

Proverbs 16:9

In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps.

Tuesday night I knew she was really going to go through with her plan. So I decided that I was going to be as encouraging as I could be to her. You know I had to call on God's name to help me with this because the human part of me wants to scream and shout at her. Well, okay, the human part of me did do that and I think it made her more determined. So, I decided to give this to God. I was crying/praying about it on Tuesday night and I just asked God, "Please Lord, send someone to her. Put someone that is so in love with You in her path. Someone that will encourage her to draw near to You."


Last night I was at my parent's home and I told my Mom where the apartment is located. She turned and looked at me and said, "That is where the Daniell's live." She said it as if I knew these people. She went on..."You need to call Stan and Rachel because Scott and Amber are friends of theirs."

Let me just interrupt my Mom to say that NO ONE will ever convince me that we serve a "too busy for us" God. He listens intensely to our prayers. He cares about what grieves us. He wipes our tears as they fall. He pays close attention to His children.

Okay, back to my Mom...
"We met the Daniell's while working at a camp for abused kids. They sold their house in a nice neighborhood and purposely moved where God told them to. They are passionate for Jesus and target the lost around them. They do Bible studies in their home and everything."


I called my friend Rachel today.

Dear friends.
Are you sitting down?
Our God has placed my daughter not only on the same block as these people my Mom told me about, but directly across the street from them.
Did you read that????
DIRECTLY
ACROSS
THE STREET from a couple who have dedicated their lives and marriage to reaching out to those in their neighborhood.
A couple that when God told them to go to this neighborhood, they went.
A passionate-on-fire -for-Jesus couple across the street from MY girl!
GOD IS SO GOOD!!!

My daughter will be living across the street from city missionaries!

Hee hee, don't ya love the God we serve? And Alyssa thought she had plans!


I want to believe with all my heart that this child is going to turn her life around and start making good decisions. She is very hard hearted right now, but breakthrough is nothing to God. He can breakthrough the hardest of hearts.
One word: PAUL.
So see, Alyssa Chealey's choices are not making the Almighy One break out in a sweat.

As I type away smiling my girl is the one breaking out in a sweat as she is upstairs with her friends loading her bed into the back of the pickup. In 90 degree weather. She had the nerve to ask her Dad to turn the air on. So she'll be comfortable while moving out against our wishes. Oh yes, let me run to the thermostat honey child.

She thinks she is moving in alone into her little one bedroom apartment tonight.

Wrong!

She'll be watched over 24/7 and it won't be me doing the observing.

Because of my girl's decision at age 9 to invite Christ into her life He will be her invisible roommate.

He will be the One to not only see her activity, but see the emptiness in her heart. The emptiness she is trying so hard to fill with everything but Him. He sees her. He watches over her and He misses her.


Proverbs 15:3

The eyes of the LORD are everywhere (even Alyssa's apartment), keeping watch on the wicked and the good.

Recently I opened the mail to find a form Alyssa had filled out in Jr. high at the age of 13 for Campus Missionaries. They keep these forms and mail them back to the kids when they graduate from high school to encourage them in their relationship with God. This is what her and I read together last week. Some of the answers had us laughing, especially the middle one. The last question gets my heart pounding harder every time I read it.

Why do you want to be a Campus Missionary?

To see my friends in Heaven.

What is your vision/dream for your school?

These 2 boys.

Briefly give a testimony of your born-again experience:

I felt clean and holy and in His presence.

Happy.

Tonight my heart again pounded with a little more thump as I read these words in her own writing because I know God is up to something. I know it. He hasn't clued me in on what He is up to, but her moving in across the street from this family is not a coincedence. No way. All God planned. So whether it takes 10 minutes, 10 days or 10 years for my daughter to surrender again, I choose to trust in Him. To wait with Him. He has strategically placed the Daniell's in a neighborhood that HE KNEW Alyssa would be moving to on August 8, 2008. As the book of Esther tells us: For such a time is this.


My dear friend Rachel gave me Amber's # and when I called her tonight she was so excited about this move my girl has made. She said they usually take cookies to the new people in the neighborhood. Please be praying for Amber and Scott and whatever God has up His sleeve. Little will my girl know that the cookies she'll eat will be made with hands that were folded praying for her. Our God is good.



Because I have been in her shoes before, I know sooner or later she'll miss what made her happy, clean and holy and it's nothing she is chasing after right now. So plan away sweet child, plan away.


I praise You Jesus. I love and adore You. I lean on You during this heart wrenching/joyful time and I thank You that eventually I came back to what makes me clean, holy and happy. You really are everything we need!

May my life reflect one who chooses to have faith that the God she serves has got a plan of Holy Interruption coming for her Prodigal Daughter. In His timing.

On my last post, fellow sister in Christ left me a comment and this is part of her sweet, encouraging message:

Allow me to share what God says about the matter of wayward children:

Thus says the Lord:"Refrain your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears; for your work shall be rewarded", says the Lord. "And they shall come back from the land of the enemy.There is hope in your future", says the Lord, "That your children shall come back to their own border." Jeremiah 31:16,17

Thank you Karan!! Isn't that an awesome Word?

Okay, better sign off and go help clean an apartment.

~Many Blessings~