Room for God
“While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger because there was no guest room available for them.”
Luke 2:6-8 (NIV)
(a post from Natalie Gebhart)
“Do you have any more room?”
It was a short but pointed question that wasn’t necessarily directed to me in this group setting and context, but the moment it was spoken, I felt it hit my heart. My cheeks began to burn and my eyes began to well with tears.
The question had come from Pastor John Chinyowa as we were gathered in his home in Zimbabwe with our team from Help One Now and a group of local leaders from his church.
John and Orpah Chinyowa (Help One Now Zimbabwe Leaders)
Though I had just met John a few days prior and had just met these beautiful people from his church that very morning, we were gathering together to enjoy a meal and encourage one another by listening and trying to understand.
Knowing our time was limited, we quickly moved past the introductions and topical conversation, and started digging into the real issues and needs of their communities. We talked about race and inequality, extreme poverty, the need for education, corrupt government, sickness and need for healthcare, the volatile family structure and vulnerable youth who are likely to continue the cycle, and more.
Amidst these deep conversations around the table, John stood up and engaged the group by asking questions about what we’d been discussing and any insights we had gained. The people spoke up quickly to share. I listened intently. From my perspective, those around me were true Christian heroes doing hard things in the name of Jesus, and continually stepping up to serve the poor and marginalized, expecting nothing in return.
“Do you have any more room?”
was the simple question John posed to all of us. He paused for reflection and then added,
“Do you have any more space for God to enter in and work through you?
Can you give a little more to those around you in need?”
Though John delivered the words, it was God asking me directly,
“Do you have any more room to LOVE?
Can you make more room for me, and give more of my LOVE?”
The reason my cheeks were burning and eyes were welling, was that my heart had become hardened and scarred over the six years since we adopted our two children through the foster care system. The Hallmark adoption journey, where kids are healed and families are united through bonds stronger than blood, was not at all what our family had been experiencing. No. No. Not at all. The reality was many years of intense therapies, screaming, homeschooling, brain spotting, rage, aggression, fighting, medication, and more, and more, and more therapy. The reality was us co-leading the adoption and foster care ministry at our church, while inwardly aching and sinking - not wishing this anguish on anyone. The reality was having to remove our daughter from our home and put her into residential treatment in a completely different state in order to keep her safe and our family safe.
My heart was burdened and hard.
“Do you have any more room to LOVE? Can you make more room for me?” Those were the questions that God had for me that day in Zimbabwe. And that day, my answer was, “Nope! None! There is absolutely no more room here for any more of the pain, the grief, and the chaos!” The tears I cried at that moment weren’t only tears of conviction from the Holy Spirit, but tears of frustration and confusion.
“Really God?
Haven’t you seen what’s going on in my life...in my home?
How can you ask if I have more?
More room?
More love?!?
I’m at max capacity over here!”
Many times during the Advent season, my family and I read through the story of Jesus’s birth in Luke 2. I grew up in a Christian home and have heard, read, and seen this story re-enacted hundreds of times in my life. This year, while reading that same passage though, different words stood out to me. “She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger because there was no room available for them.”
“No room available?” I thought next. “How could that be? What could the people of Bethlehem be doing, or who could they be hosting who is more important than our Messiah? What could be going on in the world to distract them from the gift right in front of them?”
My mind went back to that teary moment in John’s living room where God asked me if I had any more room in my life and in my heart. Though my initial response was “no,” I knew that I had been given a choice and God was legitimately prodding me for an answer. It just so happened that the Zimbabwe trip conflicted with a “parent workshop weekend” at our daughter’s treatment center. In just a few days, I was parting from our group early and flying directly back to the States where I would meet my husband and daughter at the treatment center. Was I going to allow God the space He needed to work? Was I going to allow God’s love to reach into the hardest parts of her story and ours? Would I choose to move out some of the pain and create room for love?
All of Christmas can be explained in the word love. God sent His gift of pure love to us that first Christmas. God’s love descended from heaven as an innocent baby whose purpose was to walk this earth in complete love. This gift of love would extend beyond the manger when Jesus sacrificially gave His life as a ransom for the sins of all mankind. Emmanuel. God with us. Pure love in the form of a man.
And yet, “...there was no room available for them.”
2020.
There have been so many distractions and divisions, stresses and pressures, setbacks and losses, so much pain and death.
All of humanity is heavy-laden and buckling under the pressure of working at maximum capacity all these months.
As a Christian, I cannot operate that way. I am called to make room. I am called to move out all the truly trivial and unimportant constructs that society places on me and see what’s possible with God. This Advent season, more so than ever, I want to unload the burdens of the year and receive my King like a flood of love and light that will certainly steady me for 2021.
And what about you - do you have any more space for God’s LOVE to enter in and work through you?
Can you give a little more LOVE to those around you in need?
Do you have any more room?