I have a fascination with Moses.  When I started this blog I referred to it as my “Moses basket”.  It was intended to be used as a vessel in bringing us our adopted daughter.

Moses’ Mother put him in a basket and set the basket in a river.  He was found and adopted by the pharaoh’s daughter.  Moses married the daughter of Jethro.  Jethro was a priest and a shepherd and for the forty years before God appeared to Moses in a burning bush, Moses busied himself with tending to Jethro’s flock.  There is a Jewish story (midrash) that seeks to explain why God chose Moses to lead the Israelites.  The midrash tells that Moses was chosen to lead the Children of Israel because of his kindness to animals. One day he was bringing the sheep to a river for water and one lamb did not come. Moses went and got the little lamb and carried it to the water so it could drink.  Aligned with the heart of God, Moses cared about each individual in the group, and not just about the group as a whole. His ability to recognize the value of each sheep in Jethro’s flock proved that he was worthy of leading God’s flock.  If you want to read all about this portion of Moses’ life it’s covered in Exodus 2 and 3.  In this part of the book of Exodus, God is simply known as “Jehovah”.  The Great I am.  The Hebrew name for God is actually unpronounceable.  His greatness is to not to be truly comprehended, but experienced.

In our journey to bring Sofija home and in the twenty months that she has been our daughter, my fascination with Moses has led to many moments of experiencing the greatness of God.  God likes to place orphans in families.  God LOVES adoption!  God loves to find those stray little lambs and carry them if necessary to make sure they belong to a flock.  As a special needs Mommy, we call that INCLUSION!  How cool is it that our maker loves inclusion?!?!!

With that little piece of the heart of God in mind, I came across a story in the Bible yesterday that I haven’t thought about in a while.

Mark 2:1-4 ¹ A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home. ² They gathered in such large numbers that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and he preached the word to them. ³ Some men came, bringing to him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them. ⁴ Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus by digging through it and then lowered the mat the man was lying on.

Those four men who lowered the paralyzed man through the roof got it.  They understood and had a moment of experiencing Jehovah ~ The Great I Am.  Throughout our adoption journey we repeatedly experienced Jehovah-Jireh (God as our provider).  He gave us everything we needed to bring our daughter home and He has continued to provide everything we need to help her develop her God-given potential.  Yesterday I realized that God has allowed us to walk in the shoes of the four men who went to extreme measures to bring a disabled man into the presence of God.  I also realized that we are not done walking in those shoes.

The Great I Am has entrusted us with two very special gifts that require special accommodations in order to participate in our flock.  And… we have faith that Jehovah-Jireh has already provided all of the resources and manpower necessary to meet those accommodations.

Look out, Church!  We’re bringing our stimmers through the roof….