First Place!

Hello, all! I'm still in a bit of shock over this announcement. Apparently, I won first place in CLASSeminar's blog contest this year!

Umm…enough said? Do I need to say anymore? First place seems descriptive enough. Anyway, here is my winning post for your enjoyment! (By the way, the prize was a scholarship to CLASSeminar's Writers' Contreat in November. Super excited about that! Here is a link to an explanation of CLASSeminars if you are interested, also).     CLASSeminars

A Different Door

“Sit down, brother. Would you like some tea?” the little girl holds a plastic tea cup towards an empty chair across from her, “Yes, sister, I want a cookie! But I have to go get the baby a bottle, first.” She gets up from the table and skips across the empty yard and up the front steps, into her house. After grabbing a play bottle from her bedroom, she stops and leans on the arm of the couch, kicking her legs in the air.

“Mama, I want some brothers and sisters.”

Her mother smiles and takes another towel from the basket of clothes she is folding. “Then you should pray for some.”

So the little girl did, every day, for what seemed to her like years. First it was one sister, no, a brother. Then it was two, no, four sisters, and five brothers. Now, that would be perfect. An even ten kids to share her wonderful parents with. How exciting! And now all there was to do was wait for her mother to announce that the first baby was coming . . .

That was me, ten years ago. There was no doubt in my seven-year-old mind the Jesus meant it when He said, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” [Matthew 7:7] I was sure that, if I asked enough, God would give me what I asked for.

But I never got those four sisters and five brothers, and my mother has never had another baby. Though I knocked and knocked and knocked on that door, it never opened. Sometimes I wondered if what Jesus said was really true. When I look back, though, I am very glad that door stayed closed.

You see, when I ask God if we can go somewhere, I usually have a detailed map in my head of how we are going to get there. When I ask God for a gift, I generally have a “flawless” strategy for how He's going to give it to me. I always do my planning from the ground, and I am only ever thinking of one person . . . that's right, me! But God makes plans from the sky, where He can see everything, and He thinks about everyone involved.

Like I said, I never got my ten siblings in the way I imagined. Later I found out that it was because God saw something I didn't – three little kids roaming their neighborhood, digging through trash cans, starving not only for food, but for love. He saw three precious gems who needed safety, security, and a family. He saw two girls and a boy that I now call my siblings, my answers to prayer.

So, did Jesus really mean it when He said, “ . . . knock and the door will be opened to you.” ? I think He did, only sometimes, it isn't the door that I'm expecting. It's a door that is much, much better!