High Stakes

Most of you know that our family was built by God. He has a wonderful sense of humor! When we married, we were empty nesters in our late 40s and early 50s. We didn't expect to raise any more children. We were done being in-house parents.

Then came a phone call from our granddaughter's social worker. (We didn't even know she had one!) The social worker asked us to consider taking our 2 year old granddaughter as a foster child, with the possibility of adopting her. We felt too old. We were assured we were not. We felt too busy, but we weren't.

We prayed. She came. She stayed. Forever. It's been a delight to raise her to her teen years! We look forward to the short time we have left with her in our home as a minor. She is a wonderful young adult, and I love the fact that I get to be her grandma-mom forever!

About three years ago, our granddaughter was getting old enough we could leave her alone for short periods of time. It was such a joy to be able to go out running and walking together as a couple! We relished the growing independence for her and for us.

Then came a phone call. Asking us if we would take two tiny Apache boys "for a few days" so that the social worker here could find a Jicarilla family to take them longer term. We reminded the social worker that we were white. They said it's okay. We reminded the social worker that we were old (in our 50s for real, now). They said it was fine.

We prayed. They came. They stayed. Forever. We did not anticipate raising kids more than 50 years younger than we are, but God has called us to this. He will give us the endurance and wisdom to do it for Him.

Today, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, with the tribe having a more than 300% increase in cases in the past couple of weeks, the tribal president sent out a memo to the community. In it, the consequences for Native Americans breaking the health orders was laid out. And so were the consequences for Non-Native Americans (us, minus the boys): Immediate expulsion from the reservation.

I totally agree with these consequences. The Jicarilla Apache have suffered from diseases brought by outsiders, and they deserve to protect their people and their land. I have no hesitations about their rights or reasons to make the consequences so dire. And I intend to follow every letter of this order.

But my heart is in my stomach because the stakes are so very high. If we disobey the health orders, even accidentally, the tribe has every right to remove us from their land. We have heard stories of occasional white people getting kicked off the rez. We have always been law-abiding guests of the Jicarilla, recognizing our status as guests.

The knots in my stomach come from what would happen to the boys, now 5 and 7, if we were excluded from the reservation. They are technically wards of the court (the Jicarilla court), and if we were told to leave, it would most likely be without the boys. Requiring them to move to yet another home. Which we've promised we would not do to them, if it is within our power.

High Stakes.

But not as high as the stakes in having faith in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. Those are forever high stakes. Those are eternal high stakes. If my stomach is in knots at the thought of messing up and having to leave two of our children behind, my stomach should be in complete flip-flops when I consider my faith in Jesus Christ, or my children's faith in Jesus Christ.

But my stomach isn't flip-flopping over faith. Is it because I don't care???

No! Absolutely not. I care very much. But, while following the health orders on the reservation is something I have to do on my own (and my family has to do each on his/her own), faith is a gift of God. Look at Ephesians 2:8! "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God."

God is doing the heavy-lifting in faith. He gives faith to me. I can depend on him. His faithfulness to me is eternal and supreme. There is no need for anxiety about faith. About grace. About whether I'm measuring up.

Thank God!