Silent, but Not Still (part 1)

I have a horrible, terrible, no good, very bad habit. It leaches into my soul, and sucks out all my joy and peace. Worse, it causes me to doubt my amazingly good Savior... For although He is often silent, He is never still.

I forget His protection.

I forget all the times He has circled me around, arranged minute details, and marshaled the forces of man, emotions, and circumstances to work everything in my favor. I always forget it. Always.

And so, to remind myself, I'm going to share an amazing, unbelievable, huge blessing that God lavished on us.

One month ago.

In the city of Philadelphia.

We landed in Philly after a 3 hour delay, frazzled, bedraggled, and navigating a mass of interstate in a car that refused to shift higher than third gear.

Philly drivers are not nice.

Welcome to Philly... where they have to have street signs that say, "Don't Go Until Green" so that people remember they can't go on red. No joke. 

But, in little to no time, I stooped to their level, and was honking and waving angrily with the rest of them. Scott, appalled at my complete lack of Christian charity, attempted to navigate us to smoother waters and quieter streets.

To no avail.

Philadelphia, as it turns out, has some pretty seedy areas. As we got lost (on the south side of Philly, which is like the south side of every other city I have ever driven through), we looked in Mid-West horror out our car windows at electrical wires criss-crossing the street, draped with tennis shoes and grocery bags. Random, scantily-clad women walked in front of our car, with little to no concern for whether or not they had the right-of-way. As I drove by one house (a vivid, peeling fuchsia facade), I almost came out of my skin as a little child tumbled out the door, wrestling a pit-bull for some prized possession. The whole block erupted in pandemonium, and the scantily-clad women crossed the street a little more quickly. The neighborhood, crammed tight with houses, was full of trash, debris, and lost people.

Prayer answered.

You see, Scott and I had been praying that we could go to Gary, Indiana. The inner-city, the poorest of the poor, had weighed heavily on our hearts since our introduction, through a failed adoption, to the lifestyle of people who didn't even have the hope of material comfort, let alone the hope of eternal salvation. But attempt after attempt had resulted in door after door being slammed in our faces. Gary didn't want us.

Or rather, God didn't want us in Gary.

Lucky for us, God picked us up, and moved us to another "Gary." So while some people may have seen pit-bull fights, dodgy wiring, and a terrifying car-ride as an example of God forsaking them... we were elated to see God's continued plan for our lives. In Philadelphia.

But that wasn't all He was doing...


(to be continued)