Status

Nice morning for a breather and just to catch my friends and prayer warriors up out there on how all is going.

Physically, things are going as well as I can expect.  My back though weak, is still hanging in there - week three out of my back brace!  Just have to be careful constantly!  Kidneys and liver are still not functioning completely, but enough so that I am not on machines....

Mentally, I am struggling through math.  It is not pleasant and the kids run when I have to do homework or take an online test.  Yeah, it is not pleasant.  And it is really not too helpful having people say things like, "oh that is so easy (i thought you were smarter than that!)".  Just love those backhanded helpers.

Emotionally, I am on top of the world, my daughter can finally identify with me.  We are talking major miracle here!  Still no idea where all of this is going to lead - other than to healing, eventually.  I have often thought at how I would have approached this oh so differently, but then again, I am not God and He does ultimately know what she needs in order to heal.  For example, if a person has an extremely hard time with the concept of "father", don't you think God assigning the role of uncle or grandfather would have been oh so much better for me?  But, no, I am to be her father.  Yeah, I see the correlation between father and our interaction with God, but it is like waving a red flag at a bull all of the time.

Spiritually, I am damaged goods.  I am exhausted.  I do not like fighting, I do not like making people mad at me.  I am more of a "please can we not be emotional?" kind of person.  But, of course that is not my life for the past 90 days.  In ignorance I step on toes, mine get mashed, I have cried more tears this past three months than I have in probably two decades!  And I was really down over the weekend.  But, daughter's mother texted me the quotation "not by might, nor by power...".  Look up the passage.  And interestingly, Gaelic Girl called to share the exact same verse yesterday!

Poor Zerubbabel.  I have always thought of him that he really got the short end of the stick in his obedience to God.  Trying to herd cats is really not fun, not wishing to infer that the Hebrew remnant were cats but that they were just about as hard to manage!  And yet that is the whole point of his testimony scattered through the Old Testament books.

Zerubbabel was not given an envious task, it was probably 10,000 times tougher than mine, and yet equally as unmanageable.  Had he of done his duty by his own might or will, nothing would have been accomplished in the rebuild of Jerusalem.  ".....but by my Spirit says the Lord of Hosts.....", yeah.  Think on that.  The remnant were harried by their less than friendly neighbors whom would pop over to raid, kill, steal and burn the progress of the rebuild.  It was only through the workings of the Holy Spirit anything was accomplished at all!

And as it is with New Daughter.  There is nothing I can do, in and of myself, to help her heal or even to show her where to go.  It is only through the Spirit's usage of this (I am learning) fragile shell of a man.  I know she does not see the miracles in her life taking place.  I know she counts me for nothing.  But, I also know the constant chipping is beginning to reveal my daughter.

Everyday, I fear she is going to bolt.  This is not easy on her, heavens! would not be so on any of us!  So, I can appreciate the resilience she shows every day at starting again, never knowing where the day will go, never knowing if she is actually going to have to kill me or not!  :^)  Yet, the world has plenty of devices to distract her and so the progress is painfully slow.  And I continue to be amazed at how many of those distractions can come from christian resources - to continue to separate her from what it is she needs to be doing with me.  American Cultural Christianity, the ADHD christians on the block..... Sigh.  I would rather sit down with her 24x7 and just hammer everything out - and yet we advance, then run, then advance and run, then blow a gasket, advance, and repeat as needed.

Someday, maybe she will let me post a picture of her again, father and daughter.....  We are a long ways from that day, but that does not change the pride I have in her nor the love to call her my daughter.

Keep up those prayers.