Show Me the Way

Psalm 143:8 New International Version (NIV)

8  Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love,

    for I have put my trust in you.

Show me the way I should go,

    for to you I entrust my life.

Sometimes the lessons we learn on arrivals can help us with departures. A decisive moment for us occurred in an airport in Moscow, Russia on December 12, 2001. The four of us gathered to bow our heads and pray in the middle of people rushing from on part of the airport to the next. Two couples in a foreign land praying for guidance. The lessons learned that day would help us seventeen years later.

To better understand what pushed us to pray, you need to understand the events that led to this key moment. My wife and I had traveled from California to Russia to adopt our son. We had met a couple from Missouri that was adopting using the same agency and we were traveling together to Western Siberia to meet our children for the first time. In our rush from one part of the airport to the next I placed a folder that contained our important paperwork that we would need when we appeared in court in one of our suitcases. When we checked our luggage, I forgot to remove the paperwork from the suitcase. We watched in despair as we were separated from our vital paperwork. Our situation became worse when our interpreter informed us that from the point we left her that the flight information would be in both Russian and English on computer screens to help guide us to our flight. As we rounded the corner all the computers were down. Suddenly we found ourselves in a foreign country, separated from our vital paperwork, and unable to find our flight.

In that moment, we made an important decision. We chose to pray. To find our way, we put our trust in God. Then we got up and started to move from line to line asking if anyone spoke English. As time passed, we became more worried. What would happen if we were separated from our paperwork and missed our flight? Would our adoption process be able to continue? Then a large man in a furry Russian style hat tapped me on the shoulder and let me know he could help us. He said he would be on the same flight as us. He said to follow him and he would help us find our flight. As we walked and talked, he shared that he was a church planter from the United States and that he had been working in Russian for the last eight and a half years. On this day he was more than a church planter, he was an answer to our prayers.

Grief can often feel similar to how we felt in the airport that day. An environment that should feel familiar, now is a place of confusion. We feel overwhelmed by our circumstances. We are filled with fear as we face an unknown future. We struggle to comprehend how we can get out of this situation on our own. How can we find our way? On that cold December day in Moscow we learned an important lesson as part of our son’s arrival into our lives. Seventeen years later we would have to apply that learning when he departed our lives. Putting our trust in God is the beginning of finding our way.

Response:

When we feel lost and hopeless, how can we put our trust in God?