Ostensibly Chaos

Ostensibly: To all outwardly appearances

Chaos: A state of utter confusion

School has been in full force for two weeks now. Getting ready was no easy task, especially since my husband, Marty, & I were in Florida for 10 days and got back home the evening before school started! I know, crazy! To make it more complicated, my son, Chism, who’s an eighth grader and has disliked school since the first grade, was already beginning to complain. While in Florida my daughter, Brooklyn, who is a senior in high school this year, called from home to let me know she got accepted in the two Dual Credit courses she had applied for and, of course, was informing me it was time for me to pay for them.  That would have been fine and dandy except the college website would not accept my computer; therefore my efforts were unsuccessful. Was this an indicator of what’s to come? It’s been two weeks and guess what’s happened…

One of Brooklyn’s classes got dropped because it reached max capacity before I had a chance to pay; Chism was doing any & everything to get out of actually going to school; All the stores were out of the last bit of supplies we needed; & I didn’t have my before-school-devo planned out. Good thing God was in control because I sure wasn’t! Although I was praying, I began seriously interceding for my children! As I prayed, God allowed me to find out that either Brooklyn, her school principal, or I could ask the math professor if she would accept another student. With Brooklyn at school at the time, and thinking the principle would have more pull than me, I asked him if he would please contact the professor and ask on Brooklyn’s behalf. He basically said no and, I found out later, told Brooklyn to tell me not to call! Little did he know I had already sent the professor an email, talked to the assistant dean and the head dean. The head dean informed me that it was totally the professor’s decision but very out of character for that professor to accept more students. Before hanging up he told me that he would pray favor over Brooklyn that she would get in. I sent the professor a second email and still prayed. That evening I got call from the assistant dean saying he had been praying and that the professor had compassion on Brooklyn and accepted her! Did I mention this is a secular college?!

Praying about it before my kids woke, the Holy Spirit revealed to me exactly what to study with the kids therefore our morning devotionals have been going great! In addition to these blessings, knowing Ephesians 3:20, that God can do more than we ask or imagine, Chism openly accepted my challenge to pray that he’d begin to actually like school. Yep, you guessed it! More blessings! He got an extra class in his schedule in which he is able to do all his homework with a teacher on hand to assist. Having no homework, new students, and wonderful teachers, God answered all our prayers with “yes” and Chism actually likes school! Though our lives are not near perfect, we try to stay focused on the Truth and keeping in line with His will and even through seemingly chaos, God Speaks!

Blessings, Treva Hamm

Hopeful Adoption

Hopeful: Full of desire with expectation of obtainment

Adoption: The act of taking by choice into a relationship; especially taking voluntarily a child of other parents as one’s own child

This past Saturday, my friend Linda & I went to a local health food/ coffee shop. It’s a new establishment and we were in early so, other than one employee, we were alone. Linda and I recently completed our Bible study so we met at the bistro to decide our next plan of course. After preparing our tea and my muffin, the employee brought them out on a serving tray in ceramic dishes and introduced herself as “Tamika”. We struck up a cordial conversation with Tamika and she began to share her story with us. Tamika is a single mom of a 9 year old boy, Dee, yet she is not his biological mother.

You see Tamika has a sister who has never been married yet birthed 6 children. When her second child, Dee, came along she was going to give him up for adoption. Tamika couldn’t stand the thought and took him home with her. From that day forward Tamika has been raising Dee as her own son. When Dee was 4 years old his birth mother became angry with Tamika and told him that Tamika was not his real mother but that she was. From that time until now, five years, Dee has been struggling with the confusion of having an aunt who is his mother but doesn’t want him and 5 cousins who are biologically his siblings. They are mostly raised by Tamika’s mother, (also named Linda), and Dee and Tamika are around them very often but their mother has no parenting skills and therefore has little to do with any of them.

Tamika was at her wits end trying to convince Dee that he was loved and wanted and that although she didn’t birth him she was still his mother. I must admit after 35 minutes of listening to Tamika I was beginning to wonder if Linda and I would be able to complete our agenda and take care of the logistics of our next study. Then it hit me; here I was distracted by details of a study to help us live Jesus when the opportunity of actually being Jesus to someone was directly in front of me; a live wire and big talker who loved Jesus and her son. Linda gave Tamika some very sound advice on what to say to Dee and I strongly agreed. I think I saw a little bright light twinkle in Tamika’s eye – a ray of hope. It was as though she was being lifted out of the mud of confusion and into the brook of clarity.

Linda and I did get to line out most of our lesson and as we closed with prayer we asked God to give peace to Dee, wisdom to Tamika and growth to her sister. I pray that one day Tamika will be able to afford to legally adopt Dee so that he will not be hanging in the wings in his mind but will know exactly to whom he belongs. Just as we know we are adopted into His kingdom; we are joint heirs with Christ and we don’t have to be confused. Romans 8:14-17

I knew when we went into the shop that through prayer we’d figure out where to dive next into His pool of learning but I didn’t know that through a sweet, verbal clerk I would be quiet, begin to see where to minister, and would hear when God Speaks!

Blessings,

Treva Hamm