Silas
Faithful Servant
The ache in your prayer rises from a deep place, the kind of desperate love a mother knows when she fears for her child. Do not think that such a cry goes unheard, as if heaven were silent. We see a shadow of your heart in the story of Moses’ mother. She looked at her beautiful child under the shadow of a king’s decree, the very authority set against her, and she hid him as long as she could. When she could hide him no longer, she took what looked like a fragile defense, a little ark of bulrushes daubed with pitch, and placed him in the river. Every logical fear said the river was the mouth of death. Yet God moved in the heart of Pharaoh’s own daughter. That same child was drawn out, and the mother was called to nurse her own son for wages. God is able to work through the very systems and authorities that feel most threatening. The court, the case worker, the documents, they are not outside His reach. He can turn hearts, reveal truth, and even use what looks like an enemy to preserve what is precious to you.
You speak of feeling alone in this, carrying the weight of decisions and fighting unseen battles. Remember the scene in Bethlehem. A young woman, barely more than a girl, great with child. When the time came for delivery, there was no inn, no midwife to wrap the newborn in swaddling clothes. She herself wrapped him and laid him in a manger. No human help, in a place for animals. Yet what the world saw as a lonely, exposed moment was the very place God’s salvation broke into history. Your feeling of aloneness does not mean you are abandoned. When you wrap your daughter in love, when you make decisions for her good without a human helper, the Lord is present. He does not despise the groaning of your spirit. Like Hannah at the tabernacle, whose mouth moved but no sound came, you are pouring out your soul. God heard that silent agony and remembered her. He hears you.
Your longing to be guided, to avoid missteps that could be used against you, is not a lack of faith. It is wisdom. As children of God, we do live differently. There are places we have no business being, not because we are above others, but because we are set apart for a different purpose. You ask for a husband of faith. Hold fast to that, for a shared life must rest on a shared foundation. There is no true joining of a life lived in the Spirit with a life anchored only in the flesh. That is an unequal yoke, and the heartache it breeds is heavy. The enemy would paint an exception, a special case for you, to hurry you past what is sound. But God’s call remains a call to come apart, to be separate. He is not withholding good from you; He is protecting you for something that can truly bear His blessing.
The history of a woman who once stood in a place of grief and cried out, “Did I ask for a child? My heart is bound up in this child,” is your history too. When her son died, she laid him on the prophet’s bed and went straight to the man of God. The staff sent ahead did nothing. The child lay still and cold. It took the prophet himself, stretched out upon that small body, mouth to mouth, hands to hands, for the flesh to grow warm. Do not fear that God has given a lesser answer. He has not sent a servant’s staff when you need His own breath. The One who stretched Himself out upon humanity’s death is able to warm what is cold, to resurrect what seems lost, and to keep a firm hold on your daughter in any house, in any room, under any authority. Stay fast, as Ruth stayed with Naomi, choosing the field of Boaz where provision and rest waited. Keep yourself in that field and do not be found in another. The Lord sees your work, your education, your striving, and He will not let false statements stand when His truth is your hiding place.
You speak of feeling alone in this, carrying the weight of decisions and fighting unseen battles. Remember the scene in Bethlehem. A young woman, barely more than a girl, great with child. When the time came for delivery, there was no inn, no midwife to wrap the newborn in swaddling clothes. She herself wrapped him and laid him in a manger. No human help, in a place for animals. Yet what the world saw as a lonely, exposed moment was the very place God’s salvation broke into history. Your feeling of aloneness does not mean you are abandoned. When you wrap your daughter in love, when you make decisions for her good without a human helper, the Lord is present. He does not despise the groaning of your spirit. Like Hannah at the tabernacle, whose mouth moved but no sound came, you are pouring out your soul. God heard that silent agony and remembered her. He hears you.
Your longing to be guided, to avoid missteps that could be used against you, is not a lack of faith. It is wisdom. As children of God, we do live differently. There are places we have no business being, not because we are above others, but because we are set apart for a different purpose. You ask for a husband of faith. Hold fast to that, for a shared life must rest on a shared foundation. There is no true joining of a life lived in the Spirit with a life anchored only in the flesh. That is an unequal yoke, and the heartache it breeds is heavy. The enemy would paint an exception, a special case for you, to hurry you past what is sound. But God’s call remains a call to come apart, to be separate. He is not withholding good from you; He is protecting you for something that can truly bear His blessing.
The history of a woman who once stood in a place of grief and cried out, “Did I ask for a child? My heart is bound up in this child,” is your history too. When her son died, she laid him on the prophet’s bed and went straight to the man of God. The staff sent ahead did nothing. The child lay still and cold. It took the prophet himself, stretched out upon that small body, mouth to mouth, hands to hands, for the flesh to grow warm. Do not fear that God has given a lesser answer. He has not sent a servant’s staff when you need His own breath. The One who stretched Himself out upon humanity’s death is able to warm what is cold, to resurrect what seems lost, and to keep a firm hold on your daughter in any house, in any room, under any authority. Stay fast, as Ruth stayed with Naomi, choosing the field of Boaz where provision and rest waited. Keep yourself in that field and do not be found in another. The Lord sees your work, your education, your striving, and He will not let false statements stand when His truth is your hiding place.
