the best gift.

I’ve recently gotten caught up in Matthew 7:7-11. I’ve been stumbling over it, again and again, just not sure how to swallow it down.

There have been some times I’ve felt like I was holding bread–a great, good gift we were celebrating–and it turned out to feel much more like a stone.

And sometimes I had to drag it along for a long way, feeling the weight of it rather than tasting it on my tongue.

But He does know his children, right? So what I think is a good gift may not be; and he knows what it truly good for me…I’ve heard it. I’ve thought it, and I’ve wrestled with that, too.

I keep coming back to the question: if the receiver doesn’t feel like it’s a good gift, is it a good gift? “Good” becomes a painful word in that scenario. And I’ve even sat crying out that while I’m sure this is good, I still don’t know how to swallow it. If it looks like a stone, feels like a stone, sounds like a stone, just saying it’s innately bread is just maddening.

I digress.

I’m obviously still stumbling over it.

Recently, we learned some difficult news about our adoption process here in Thailand. I’m not sure I even know what to say, except that our whole lives here require miracle after miracle, and this is no different. If we see this come to fruition, we’ll just know without a doubt that it was Lord and absolutely nothing less.

And if we find ourselves waiting or find questions unanswered; if we find it just isn’t what God has for us–well, we’ll have to find a way to swallow that down, too.

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Fast forward to last Saturday, I sat snapping photos while Stephen played guitar, our little church group sang, and Yaminoo was baptized.

As I watched her say that yes, she believes in the Trinity; and yes, she believes Jesus died for her: I realized something. This is a good gift.

I have loved Yaminoo since we moved here. We met her within weeks of moving into the house, when she and her little friend group was just six years old.

And Yaminoo, she just captured our hearts. She often was watching her little brother, who we also came to love. She now watches her newest little brother, and we love him too. She spent countless hours in our home–in the mornings, during the day, and late into the evenings. She would often stay until 9 or 10pm, doing puzzles or playing games on a phone or looking over our shoulders at whatever we were working on. We knew her family life was rough at the time, and we just gave her a safe place to wait it out.

She was the first one to start cooking with me, and I loved it. She was always willing to help and just always wanted to spend time together. She was the first one we helped with a medical situation, taking her to the hospital when she broke her finger. She was the one that Stephen spilled an entire pan of (thankfully cooled) cooking oil on; right on her head and all over her.

I simply searched her name to find these stories I could link to, and the posts about her are uncountable. I’ve written for years about our prayers for her, our love for her, and the laughter we’ve shared together. In so many ways, she’s been a best friend for the past seven years.

And this week, she was baptized. This isn’t just a good gift really–this is the best gift I could have asked for. I can’t think of anyone I’ve prayed more for in the last seven years–I truly think I’ve prayed more for her than my own husband.

We have hurt for her and broken for her and celebrated with her and loved her so, so very much.

I might even say that her baptism is a better gift than getting a call that there’s a baby waiting to call us mom & dad.

And God knew that.

He knew I never would have guessed it. God knew I’d be sitting beside a beautiful lake, attempting to swallow losses in my own life while I watched her embrace her earthly father and her heavenly Father, and trying to reconcile the good gifts, the giving and taking, the mourning & rejoicing. He knew I’d be celebrating the greatest win in the community alongside one of our greater heartaches as a couple.

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We’re in a pretty beautiful season in the community.

While we’re still dealing with all the same–poverty, fighting, hunger, sickness, drunkenness, crime, unemployment–we’re also seeing God bless things indescribably.

We celebrated nine baptisms last week. Mwei Mwei is back from Bangkok; God arranged a free sewing training for her and provided a machine for her to sew at our house. San Aye is thriving–she has a new tooth, her children are healthy, her marriage is improving, she is learning new skills and she has a steady job. Flour & Flowers is successful, making ends meet and successfully providing part-time jobs for four women. A young couple paid off their loan after two years and started a savings account. The Breakfast Club is funded and we are the process of measuring kids and creating a system. Children and parents are filling our home four afternoons a week to play and learn.

So many good things. And watching Yaminoo’s baptism simply illuminated them all for me.

And I thought of John the Baptist. In both Matthew 11 & Luke 7, the Gospels tell the story of John the Baptist in prison. He writes to Jesus–whom he baptized, whom he declared “The Son of God who takes away the sins of the world”–asking if he is “the one to come” or if they should wait for someone else.

After declaring him the Messiah, he asks from prison if He is the Messiah.

And Jesus replies, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.” (Matthew 11:4-6)

For some, the Messiah looks like healing, cleansing, hearing, hope; and for others, it looks like prison. It looks like a life in the wilderness that ends in a beheading.

But “blessed is the one who is not offended.”

Blessed is John, if he is not offended that the Messiah to him looks like beheading. Erwin McManus paraphrases, “The blind see, the lame walk, the dead are being raised, but you, John, you are going to die.”

What if that is not so different for us?

People are baptized, women are able to work with their children, women are protected from abuse, children are able to stay with their families, hungry children are fed, second chances are being given, sickness is being healed, truth is being spoken…but you–you might not get what you want. You might study language forever. You might be tired at the end of every single day. You might not be able to adopt a baby. You might not have a family of your own.

But God is still good. And blessed are those that not offended by Him.

I don’t know if that is was God truly has for us; of course I don’t know–but I do feel like that is what he asking me to embrace right now. I feel like He is asking me to embrace the unbelievably good gifts and unbelievable miracles that He is handing us, day after day, in the community, and hold those in the same hands that are mourning the questions, the unknowns, and the fears in our personal lives.