His Ways

"Hey, look at my Facebook pictures."

 I read this in a text from Anna last week. I had looked at her Facebook photos and knew exactly why she was prodding me to do so, and I wasn't happy.

She had gotten another tattoo!

Ugghh! I have the typical old, mature mindset that tattoos are skeezy. She already had one tasteful (as tasteful as they can be), tattoo on her wrist. This one was huge, unmistakable, written across her upper back. Nope I wasn't happy at all. I just texted back, "I saw it and you know how I feel."  'nuff said! I wasn't going to let her goad me into a sermon that she would have known all the words to, and still would choose to ignore.

John wasn't any happier about the body defacing than I was. But, he also realized that there was nothing we could do or say to change things. She was 21 and married, so he said nothing about the tattoo.

What we failed to realize for several days, was that Anna's  tattoo was an answer to John's prayer. A prayer that he began praying for her about 9 years earlier. A Father's prayer said out of love and sadness over the way his little girl viewed herself. He had persistently asked the Lord to remind Anna how special, how lovely, how wonderfully made she was. Anna had a rough ride through teen hood. She struggled with negative self concept, which colored her whole outlook on life. We knew how beautiful she was, inside and out, yet no matter how much we told her, she didn't believe it herself. At this point in her life, John began to plead with the Lord to help Anna to see that she was indeed, "Fearfully and wonderfully made" (Psalm 139:14)

I'm sure as you read those words, you whispered a little, "A-ha!", at how the Lord had answered his prayer, but it took John about a week to get it. Finally during his prayer time, the Lord opened John's eyes. He shared it with me and we both praised God for his faithfulness.

He shared this with Anna at her family birthday dinner last night. She quietly smiled as tears came to her eyes, realizing both of her Fathers' love for her!

We had a special time celebrating our third baby's 21st birthday. After dinner, we had cake at home.

Anna had extra "help" blowing out the candles

As I pondered everything last night, I wondered how many other answers to prayers do I miss because I'm expecting God to work within my own framework, my own little box into which everything fits neatly the way I think it should ? Once again, the Bible's words are proven true...

 “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." Isaiah 55:9 NIV