Spending all this time this year with Nisseem and Raphael has been a learning experience for me, I have both treasured it and been exhausted by it, as I am sure many parents feel the same. What has been unique for us, is that we have had specialists in the home working with Raphael who are trained specifically in behavior and why we behave the way we do. One of the things I’ve been told over the years with Raphael especially is that behavior is communication. What we do tells what we really are feeling, maybe not as clearly as words, but when we really watch, behavior is more truth to what we feel than our words. We all have said, I’m fine, when grieving inside, but while our words say comfort our behaviors tell us truth. This lesson is really important when you have a child who is pre-verbal, since their behavior is the only way to see what might be happening in their lives, but really, it is important for the verbal ones too I find, since we all try and cover up what we really feel too often. 

One of the most noticeable things this year has been the overwhelming sense of things are going from bad to worse. Jokes abound in every media about 2020 and the epic disasters it has brought along, from Covid 19, record setting storms, aliens, murder hornets, protests and shut downs to elections. Nisseem joked each month had it’s own special crisis to take credit for. The sense of what’s coming next around the corner just keeps everyone feeling a sense of doom and gloom like never before. Some have had the reaction of strong denial, some hiding in fear, and others a strong resignation that the end is nigh. Indeed, 2020 has been one for the record books for many reasons. Our behaviors have reflected how really truly scared we are by all of this, with record setting violence, murders and impatience with everyone. 

Whenever things look the darkest, this is when God has shaken and moved things in bigger and more amazing ways than before. Crisis brings about change, changes that can be both upsetting and uncomfortable, but also needed for the ultimate good. 

“Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things to enter into His glory?” Lk 24:26  

What darker days has the world ever experienced than those after the death of Christ? There has never been a greater good than that bright morning when that stone was rolled away though! 

Let us join together, with hearts and prayers to expect the amazing works from God in these days! Let us look for what God is doing in these trials, the reflections that we should have, the changes that need making in our own lives and hearts. 

“Now stand by and see the marvelous thing that the Lord will do before your eyes.” I Sam 12:16

Our work, sometimes, is to be actively standing and watching what the Lord has to do, expecting His marvelous amazing work to unfold before us. That sense of expectation of marvelous is sometimes the hardest part, expecting marvelous in the mess is a stretch for us all. Other times the standing by is the trickiest part, because we want so much to do it ourselves, we think we can handle the mess, we want to be strong enough to do it alone. His timing for His marvelous work is His alone, and ours is to wait on His marvelous time with expectation of His Glory to shine. 

Every day, we stand in awe, because we watch His marvelous work unfold in the lives of Muslims in the Arab world, where it seems the darkest, the tiniest of lights shines so brightly. We are thankful you are standing by with us, expecting marvelous together!                                                          Angela Abraham