When Faith Looks Like a Leopard Print Dress for a Girl I’ve Never Met

Faith is the assurance of things unseen…

I had been feeling the tugging at the core of my being. Seen it on the horizon.  Had dreams that the crib we leave open for foster children wasn’t going to be empty for too long.

My mind saw no name, or age, or date…but my spirit saw a face.  And sometimes the pictures in our sleep are more real than the information any logical mind can keep.

And though some are born in womb…others are born in thoughts and heart….long before their physical form is standing before our human eyes.

A cream, and black, and hot pink dress dangles from the racks of a second hand store. I have just braved past my fears (and my OCD) to shop consignment.  Because kids grow quick and one thing I have learned over the years…we are not rich.

“Size 8”.  Not one wrinkle, brand new, looking perfectly pressed….a little big, but soon it should fit for my 7 yr old daughter.

And then, I float past other sizes, until there, a matching dress, also brand new, size 24 months catches my eyes.  And I cannot move on.

24 months?  Never in my wildest dreams, I could ever imagine a toddler.  And with a million ages, and sizes, who ever guesses which child will comes next and what size she will wear.

Still, faith demands more than standing in the isles contemplating and debating, wondering and dreaming.  True faith requires spending what we have to grab a hold of the unseen, the things we are sure of….yet, our physical eyes have yet to see it…

I tiptoe to the counter to double check the prices.  I look to my husband when the store clerk announces $4.95 each….Way cheaper than the price tag’s listing them.

He nods.  Yet, I can tell…he’s understandably curious and skeptical as to why we are buying a dress for a child we’ve never met.

Both dresses sit in our closet.  Weeks pass. Months.  And I don’t feel any prompting to take a child from placement as I scroll the countless posting daily of children needing homes from my e-mailing listing.

So, I wait.  And wait.  Because often there is waiting…much waiting…much trusting before the “seeing” of things sent from heaven. 

But then, I feel it, see her face in my dreams more clearly.  I get a call, and I know that I know, this is the child we are supposed to welcome with the love of Jesus. 

She comes with work, and faith, and grace abundant….as we struggle to understand completely.

And just when the waters calm. When Easter comes lurking around the corner, with it’s hopes of the resurrection, promised freedom, and faith and hope in a God who sits no longer in the grave of His affliction…I dig through the closet to find something for the girls to wear on this one, very special day of the year.

“Oh ya”, The fluffy bottoms of one dress, then another, calls me from the closet. I had forgotten I had even bought them. But even there, smack dab, in the middle of the evidence of a God who sees tomorrows happenings, even before we have witnessed them…..

There, my rational mind does what it does best, analyzes with skepticism, “No, there is no way these both could fit”.

I try the size 8 on my now, nearly eight year old daughter.  “Perfect”. And then, cautiously, optimistically, someone speechless I fasten the buttons and tie the bow to this little one who stands before me…“Exactly the right size for our ‘healthy’ little foster child.”

And sometimes, I think faith is like that. God calling us to “take faith-steps” long before we see the full picture, before we can hold the end result, well-dressed, of His newness, in our arms.

He calls us to trust the closing our eyes, Spirit of the Living God…long before we can touch and tangibly see the wholeness of a picture God painted for our lives, long before we know or could anticipate where He is leading us.

A year prior, at the same store, a random isle, a small shirt was out of place with the words “grace” embroidered thick on across it’s chest.

My mind argued with the purchase.  And logic won against any prompting to buy a $3.00 shirt that I totally couldn’t see wanting or needing at the time.

Yet, today, I hold the child that could have been wearing a shirt announcing “grace” to all who meet her.

And isn’t that the way it is with us…

Sometimes we miss “grace” because we are so busy, working so hard, trying to make sense of it all….longing to touch the evidence before we can justify purchasing things we don’t see?

So today friends, will you join me, in seeing with the eyes God’s given us?  Can we step out believing…faith doesn’t have to “make sense” before we move towards it obediently, with fear and trepidation?  Will we risk our ego, our purposes, and even our reputations for a God who has more than “safe journeys”, “logical callings”, “sensible journeys” for us….ones we can do effortlessly, without the help of God?

Where is God calling your heart to trust Him today? Where is He asking you to “take steps” even though you may not yet see the full staircase?  How can we all be convicted that the reality of the things not seen, the heavenly things, are actually more real that those things that we can touch our feel?

“Now faith is the assurance (the confirmation, the title deed) of the things [we] hope for, being the proof of things [we] do not see and the conviction of their reality [faith perceiving as real fact what is not revealed to the senses].” ~  Hebrews 11:1 Amp