Holes in Rooftops

I wake up several times a night to a baby screaming.  Screaming.  Screaming?  Yep.  He's a screamer.  I have had a screamer before so, I know the difference between a cry and a scream.  Joshua screams me awake.  He is loud.  It doesn't stop when I change his diaper, or get us all settled.  It is insisting he is hungry, and he wants what he wants most...to be snuggled.  I am in love.  I am in heaven.  I am over the moon.  I love this boy.  I don't mind the screams and the constant hungry demands and the NEED to be snuggled tight.  I am, literally, filled full of this crazy 4am-is-a-perfect-time-to-be-awake love.  This is the boy God gave me.  So special.  So fuzzy.  So tiny.

Nine months ago if you had told me the end of this birth story, I would have thought you had lost your mind.  If you had told newly pregnant me this boy would break and change my heart, I would have possibly rolled my eyes or faked a smile.  This was such a hard road for me to walk, the surprise baby (yes, we know how this happens...thanks for asking 5 million times)...It was too much.  It derailed everything.  All my plans stopped.  I was overwhelmed.  I was overcome with fear.  I was over 35, and clearly too old.  I was over it.

But, I have Jesus.  I am not dumb, and so I asked I think 992 people to pray for me, my family, my marriage, my baby, my kids, my heart, my journey, my sex life, my husband's heart, my life...And God's plan kept unfolding.

We found out the baby was a boy, and Joshua Clay Hooks became more and more real.  The book of Joshua became my Bible book of choice as I had to soak up all I could about the man my son was named after.  I began to hear about Joshua everywhere.  The story of crossing the river Jordan. The story of the walls coming down at Jericho.  The story of his faith when he spied out the promise land, and believed the Israelites could defeat giants.  This baby, Joshua, growing inside of me seemed to hold such promise from God.  I received messages about my son from people praying for him.  I met strangers who would hear his name and tell me my son would be "strong and courageous".  It felt huge.  It felt prophetic.  It felt like God's mighty plan was growing inside of me...

And I began to feel overwhelmed by this blessing.

And the doubt began to creep in.

And I began to start to wonder if God was certain that WE should raise Joshua.

I am a mess.  I am a wreck.  I am a broken woman.  I am clearly not the cream of the crop when it comes to parenting.  And I was about to parent four?  The doubt would bring me to tears.  How could I do this?  Certainly I would fail.

 

By the time Christmas had rolled around I had become a woman with a mission:  Stay Busy.  Check things off lists...cross t's...dot i's...plan every detail...plan this fear away.  Buy presents, celebrate Christmas, visit family, Grace's birthday, teach Junior Achievement, have a couple of baby showers, start delivering breakfast at Generation One Academy...Enough going on that I could fill the last month of pregnancy, and not have to face the growing fear that I was clearly not the one for this job.  I wasn't even a big fan of babies.  I like kids.  Babies are too little.  I was out of my league, and I drowned myself in plans.

 

On January 11th, God said, "ENOUGH!", and my surprise baby, Joshua, was born a month early.  My plans were shot.  SURPRISE!

 

And in those surprising hours of labor and delivery, God gently coaxed me toward one reality...surrender.  Surrender this plan to me.  Surrender this child to me.  You are right, Jackie.  You are a mess.  Surrender, and lean on me and I will give you all you need.  Surrender.

 

The moment I met my youngest child, my son, Joshua, my heart exploded.  I was so surrendered to this love...this boy...this heavenly creation wrapped in God's plan for this broken lady...Could the God of the Universe love me so much that He gave me a surprise blessing named, Joshua?  The love of Jesus washed all over me as I held my baby.  Oh I love that boy.

 

When times get tough or uncertain or I think I might fail, I become a realist.  I can believe all sorts of glass is half full things for other girls' lives, but for mine...I simply notice that there is water in the glass...and we'll see how it goes before deciding the half full half empty scenario.  Sometimes it doesn't leave much room for hope or faith.  It's just an easier pill to swallow than getting my hopes up and being let down, or wanting to succeed and failing.  If you burst every bubble before it can pop then you can never be caught off guard...or at least that's the theory behind my selective realism.

 

I want to be different lately.  I want to step outside of this comfort zone...have some God sized faith in my own crazy life...not just for others or for activities...for me too.

 

Mark 2 shares the story of a man paralyzed being carried by four friends to the place where Jesus is healing people.  The crowd is so full at the house that these men can't even get their friend through the door.  How many of us, myself included, would see the blocked door, see the heavy load we were carrying, say our plans were thwarted and call it a day?  How many times have I seen the seemingly insurmountable blocked door, and instead of surrendering and asking God what is next, I simply say, "Game Over."?  I am beginning to think I have missed out on some amazing Jesus stories in my life because of plans that changed and I could not change with them.  So here is where I fall in love with the story in Mark 2:  The four friends, carrying a paralyzed man, climbed the house and dug a hole in the roof and lowered their friend through the hole to be healed by Jesus.

 

WHAT????

 

Which one of the four had that initial faith and bravery to say, "Let's climb the roof!"?  Which friend looked at the man paralyzed and said, "This isn't over."?  Which one grabbed the rope?  Which one enlisted the help of others?  How long did they work?  Did they want to give up?  Were there shouts of joy in heaven?  You bet.  God himself cheered them on as these men, surrendered to God's plan of roof destruction and impossible entries helping weave an amazing story of friendship and faith...So much better than the original plan of walking through a door.

 

All of my doors lately have been blocked, and daily tasks, like door entry, have seemed insurmountable...And I am excited!  I have had to say yes to almost six weeks of meal delivery and blessings gracing my dinner table.  I have a morning savior who has taken my three older kiddos to school too many times to count, as I stand puffy eyed in my pajamas holding a hungry baby.  I have had to put things on hold, or say I will get to it later.  I have had to enlist the help of friends from all over to make daily activities still happen...as I say yes to scaling the wall of caring for a newborn again.  And, you know what?  This amazing story of friendship and faith is being born.  This amazing story of my life changing completely into this joyous, chaotic, messy surrender.  And it looks nothing like I thought.  And I don't want my old story back.  I don't want the story of the super organized mom who raised three kids really close in age as best as she could.  I don't want that story back at all...I want THIS story...the story of my family of six...four kiddos...one a surprise blessing who made us all walk past some really ordinary doorways and start dreaming of bigger Mission Impossible style entries...Those only happen with lives surrendered to Jesus...

 

 

 

I am in love with a little screaming baby boy at 4am.  His shouts are tearing open a roof or two, and allowing this family to see Jesus in a whole new way.

 

 

"Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus by digging through it and then lowered the mat the man was lying on." Mark 2:4