The Collectives

From Anna Livingston - April's Artist in Residence

On an Indiana farm, up on a low hill with cornfields and soybean fields as far as the eye can see all around, sits my best friend in her own cozy lady’s living room decorated in soft greens, comfortable furnishings and carpet surrounded by sewing projects, old family photos and her piano. She has pillowy soft skin, blue eyes and gives the best hugs that side of the North/South divide and she’s about 82. Barbara, my best friend and mentor (second mom, actually), has always been a farmer’s wife. To see Barbara, you wouldn’t for a minute think here was an adventurer who’d flown over to the other side of the world time and again to go and preach the Gospel to people in Thailand or smuggled in Bibles and encouragement in Myanmar. Gracious! You’d think she’d never left the county, let alone the country.

I can imagine how it was when she crossed the heavily guarded border into Myanmar after hearing word there was a woman who wanted Barbara to come encourage her Bible study group and, hopefully, bring much needed Bibles. Sweet Barbara is the SWEETEST lady I have ever met and few would guess at the band of steel at her center.

She reminds me so much of, “But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty,” 1 Corinthians 1:27.

Yet she, being mild in manner and knowing full well she is just a woman (not something the culture she was entering looked well upon), and an American woman at that, walked past armored guards without issue and took the most dangerous message on this planet to a group of women hungry for more about God and Who His Son is.

There have been many times in our own lives, mine and Stewart’s, where we wondered at just how on Earth God could use us as He has!

One instance was during the first adoption proceedings for two of our children. The adoption was in Scotland and, as was the case for adoptions in Glasgow, parental rights and responsibilities weren’t yet terminated because the council was trying to keep their budgets low and, at the same time, timelines for kids in care low by putting the prospective parents front and center in the battle to create a forever family. Talk about intimidating! Add in an incredible amount of complications + 1 lawyer we dubbed “The Viper” (she really did earn her name, that one)…

Stewart is just an ordinary man from Glasgow. I’m just a regular girl from the American Midwest. We’re, both of us, not particularly clever or witty or learned or artistic or… I could go on, but suffice it to say, we, neither of us, have law degrees and when our own lawyer (think “Andy Griffith” in demeanor and not an ounce of ruthlessness about him) tells us we are going to have to go up against “The Viper” on the witness stand in the fight of our lives for our children…

“Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?... For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness…” 1 Corinthians 1:20, 22-23

Yeah! Where IS the wise? We wanted THAT guy on the stand, not us! In fact, we wanted the test tube baby of Hulk Hogan and Sheldon Cooper to go on the stand to match wits and strength with “The Viper” and, should wits fail, pulverize accordingly!

Know what happened? Well… In the end, it was only me. Just me. Sitting below the high seat of the judge in a wooden box facing “The Viper,” the biological family still in the case (some of the family members withdrew their case by this point), professional witnesses for both sides, several other lawyers and guards and, oh… I can’t even remember. In fact, I can’t even remember what was said.

The night before I was to take the stand (“Andy Griffith” thought it best if I testified because Stewart might get a bit too riled by “The Viper”), Stewart and I prayed the only thing we knew to pray:

“You will be brought before governors and kings for My sake, as a testimony to them and to the Gentiles. But when they deliver you up, do not worry about how or what you should speak. For it will be given to you in that hour what you should speak; for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you.” Matthew 10:18-20

That’s what happened. Those exact verses Jesus spoke Himself were precisely what happened – to the point that perhaps it wasn’t for me to remember what was said. Maybe it was just too holy a thing for me to remember and to help keep me from claiming any of the good those words did.

Because it wasn’t me, please, PLEASE understand. No word spoken from my mouth, apart from my name, was me. It couldn’t have been. I was so utterly, TERRIBLY sick with fear of losing our babies. No WAY could I have done any more than a small, tiny-voiced answer to the question of my name. It had to be God.

And it was God. And it is God. This whole living life as a family of 8 (+1, my mom) is a confusing, scary, WONDERFUL ball of no-way-that-makes-sense. To the outside world, we look pretty foolish.

How can 2 people without full college educations expect to pay for and raise 6 children with such complex needs?

How can 2 people with such varied pasts, more moves (internationally and nationally) than years under their belts, carrying trauma themselves from losing children to miscarriage, multiple foster placements, infertility struggles and lengthy, horrific adoption proceedings stay married let alone stay happy together?

How can 2 people expect to live past 45 with so many health complications?

The world will tell us we need to do and be perfect and satiated in order to be ok. None of those things will help us find peace nor will it last longer than our world has left. No, give me Jesus and His upside down wisdom with Words so life-giving on one hand and which cut bone away from marrow on the other hand. He spoke it straight, our Jesus. He didn’t mince words and told us His Spirit was to come after He went home to Heaven to keep us, guide us and, as was in our case, silence the lying lips of “The Viper.”

I wish you could have been there, the day I sat on the stand. It’s no one else’s business what went on in the courtroom but I WISH you could have seen how God showed up with such power as to make the greatest world leader shake in their boots. It was that incredible, what my God did that day. The proof is our life today, our family today.

“My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.” James 1:2-5

What I hope Stewart and I have in common with Barbara is a willingness to let God walk us through the hardest times of our lives. They do come, you know, times so hard they feel like every bone in your body is being crushed by the weight of it. During those 2 years of court hearings, social worker visits, social work team meetings, court-appointed evaluations, other visitations with professionals and biological family – I permanently felt ILL. I didn’t count it all joy every moment of every day. Goodness, I did well get out of bed some days. Looking at the face of my children in happy, carefree times reminded me of the joy of testing because it meant the testing, our literal trial was our means to an end – our FAMILY. If getting and keeping our children safe meant going to court every day for the rest of my life, I’d do it without a second thought.

That’s the joy set before me – my children.

More than that, the joy set before me is knowing without even a hint of a doubt that God is WITH me. He isn’t leaving. He doesn’t have any other plans or more important work to get to. Right here and right now, in this minute and in the coming, He IS right here and will be. I never, EVER have to doubt whose I am and Who He is. He proved that once and will continue to prove it as needed until it’s my turn to go home one day.

There is wisdom not even “The Viper” could laugh at.

~ April’s Artist Spotlight from The Collectives - Anna Livingston

When faith is no longer inherited…

“We will not hide them from their children, telling to the generation to come the praises of the Lord, and His strength and His wonderful works that He has done… That they may set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God but keep His commandments.” Psalm 78:4, 6&7

“A good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children, but the sinner's wealth is laid up for the righteous.” Proverbs 13:22

Several years ago, my dad wanted to talk. I was visiting with my parents at this time of year, Dad’s 65th birthday, and he decided now was the time to talk about inheritance. Ugh… Talk about my heart dropping to the pit of my stomach. Dad wanted to talk about what was next, after he went home to Heaven, and what he wanted to happen with the inheritance he worked so many hard, long and frustrating years to accumulate. More than that, he wanted to talk about Mom and his hopes for her care when he could no longer do that himself.

I didn’t want to hear. I wanted to close my ears, turn and run. I wanted this conversation to stop. Money talks have always made me uncomfortable but THIS… This was something else. This was talking about my strong, quiet, funny, humble, goofy, stubborn, grumpy dad not being here anymore and I didn’t want to even think about it for a second! Dad did. He knew his time on Earth was short, a gift of foresight the Lord gave him, and he wanted to get this right for us, his children and his greatest work on Earth.

Mom sent my brothers and me a picture of a very familiar scene: Dad, on his front porch, praying over his prayer list. You don’t see his Bible in the picture but it’s there, just out of the frame.

Dad didn’t have the same kind of inheritance I gained. His father, my Grampa Larry, was a good businessman and worked with his father, my Gramps (great grandfather), to allow for their offspring to be comfortable. When it came to things of God, theirs was more of a traditional and uninvolved kind of faith unlike what my father’s became – all consuming. And money was never my dad’s main goal in life. (We were, and are, doing ok, my brothers and I, and his gift to us after death is a sweet reminder of how much he loved us.) Instead, Dad ploughed his energies into his race of faith.

My always active dad was a runner and a cyclist. In high school and college, Dad was training for the Olympics and actually ran off not just the bottom of his shoes in a race but also the soles of his feet! I’m not exaggerating. He trained hard for years and when an injury put paid to his hopes of Olympic medaling, he kept going in other ways. We were, all four of us Robinson kids, active throughout high school and in just about every sport going. That was down to Dad but his energies into his walk with God made his physical training pale in comparison.

Every morning before school and work, every phone call or text or letter from a family member or friend, despite more than 25 years of cancer treatments and associated (and unassociated) surgeries, when life was for once going well, when life was unthinkably hard, on children’s wedding days, on the day he buried his grandmother, his grandfather, his father, his mother…

I don’t know exactly how Dad made the decision to run so hard after God, but he did. Praise God, he did.

And that is my inheritance.

But what happens when inheritance runs out?

Remember when the famous Prodigal Son runs out of money? What then? What happens when Dad’s faith and prayers and hours upon hours of travailing with the Holy Spirit is done and finished?

“We will not hide them from their children, telling to the generation to come the praises of the Lord, and His strength and His wonderful works that He has done… That they may set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God but keep His commandments.” Psalm 78:4, 6&7

If my faith were only as deep as what my father paid with his time, tears and prayers then I’d not ever have “fought the good fight” or “suffered producing perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.”

If faith were inherited because of the work of another then it could be taken because of the work of another.

“So that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.” Titus 3:7

God’s grace is given when asked for, when requested, and the inheritance that comes as a result of asking for Him to take us in as His own child. I didn’t ask my dad for an inheritance. In fact, if it meant I could keep my dad around longer I would have PAID my dad to stay for even just a few more hours. No. That’s not how this thing works, inheritance.

That suffering and perseverance reference? Well, it’s part of Romans 3 which goes on to say, “And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.” Romans 3:5

It is God’s kindness that leads us to repentance. Not some Holy slap upside the head. Not hellfire and brimstone. No, both of those things may come along in our individual walks with God (I’ve had more than my fair share of slaps upside the head!) and even other reasons a lot of traditionalist Christians may believe is the initial way of meeting God. Becoming someone’s child is a joyful miracle no one can quite fully describe. No. I found in my 41-year walk with God over and over again that His kindness to me blankets me with a want drop everything I was holding and run, full pelt, into God’s chest for the biggest hug of forgiveness imaginable.

Dad wasn’t a hugger, something I try hard NOT to inherit. If you were to greet me with a hug and think it’s a bit like hugging a 2x4… Well, that’s down to my dad. I freeze. With my kids, I have to TELL myself to be soft, to wait until they’re the first to let go. However, with my husband, I melt into his hug. Stewart usually knows just when I need to stop and be held. I think his hugs are a bit like what it will be like, one day, to hold my God in the biggest hug ever.

Inheritance is something with which I struggle. I can never, ever match what my dad or others have done before me as far as works, prayer, strength in adversity and it’s not for me to match what they did. It’s for me to do the new thing He asks me to do, the new walk of faith on an uncharted trek across goodness knows (well, GOD knows) what kind of terrain and facing only Heaven knows what kind of obstacles and adversity. Whether or not I have a legacy of faith from my forebears makes not a jot of difference because it’s my own heart and mind that have to do the deciding. However, it does makes the seeing ahead that tiny bit easier because I have the history of my parents and their faith as past road markers – their faith in God brought them this far. If they can, then I can. Not because of anything we do ourselves but because of the incredible amount of grace, fortitude, endurance and peace God provides right when I need it.

As I write this, I’m preparing for yet another surgery. One of my brothers said on the phone to my mom that he wondered just how much my body can take. My own heart wonders the same so I went in to hug my littlest just one more time so her last memory of me wouldn’t be of her mommy being disappointed in her causing chaos at bedtime. It’s silly. The surgery is supposed to be a minor thing. Tell that to my quaking knees and stomach! And it’s back to this faith thing.

My dad went through far more in his body than me. He trusted God would wake him up for the next part of his adventure. I’m trusting the same because I’ve seen Him to the same for me. My faith HAS to be greater than what was inherited because this world needs to see what loving an invisible Father looks like in today’s climate/economy/battlefields.

“The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.” Psalm 16:6

Lord, be near.