When I was a kid, playing with my siblings was EVERYTHING!  Most every day, we played, and since I was the middle child, this position gave me access to both siblings:  my younger brother and my older sister.  Now since those early days, the LORD has blessed our family with two more siblings, but during the time of my early childhood (age six or seven), there were just the three of us children, running and playing each day.

Now, allow me to pause and say:  My older sister was all-girl, and my younger brother was all-boy, which led me to see the complete differences found in the play we enjoyed.  Whenever I played with my older sister, we enjoyed paper dolls, Barbies, playing church, and riding our bikes.  Then, whenever I played with my younger brother, we enjoyed tractors, imitating cowboys and Indians, playing cops and robbers, and riding our bikes.

Maybe you are reading and thinking:  Okay, she enjoyed playing, and she played a different way with a different sibling.  Yes, this is true.

As a child, I so enjoyed receiving my cousin Rob’s hand-me-down clothes because he had the “COOLEST” clothes.  I especially remember this one particular pair of pants, stripped with colorful, vertical pinstripes that ran from the belt-loops to the tops of my shoes.

I NEVER WANTED TO OUTGROW THOSE PANTS!

However, there was a problem with these pants and all the other clothes I LOVED—they were boy-clothes, they looked like boy-clothes, and they made me look like a boy as I wore these hand-me-down clothes.

Whenever I wore these boy-clothes, I always felt as if I fit into the world where I belonged, and thankfully, I was blessed with a mother who allowed me to dress as I pleased.  My older sister wore pretty dresses, colorful skirts, hairbows, and uncomfortable-looking shoes, but not me.  I wore what was MOST COMFORTABLE!

Just a few days ago, when our daughter was home for a baby shower hosted in her honor, two of her college friends stayed at our house.  While talking and enjoying time together, one friend spotted one of our daughter’s childhood photos, and exclaimed:  “You look just like a boy.”

Now, that was not my intent—to dress her as a boy.  Nevertheless, soft pants, t-shirts, running shoes, shorts, and a hat made up most of her wardrobe because it seemed MOST COMFORTABLE!

God created me as a female, to live as a girl.  This was HIS design from the start of my life when HE fashioned me.  As a child, when I was given the choice of who to play with for the day, what to wear for the day, and how to act for the day—I chose boy toys, boy clothes, and boyish actions because this is what was MOST COMFORTABLE to me.

HOWEVER—

“He [GOD our CREATOR] has made everything appropriate in its time.

He has also set eternity in their heart, . . .”

• GOD made me female for a reason!
• GOD knew what HE was doing when HE made me a girl.
• GOD saw the future me when I could only see the present, childhood age.
• GOD understood my mind and my prayers, for there were times in my past when I would sit in our front living room and pray, “GOD, if you can do anything, please make me a boy.”

GOD CAN DO ANYTHING!

GOD DOES CONTROL ALL THINGS!

GOD “has made everything appropriate in its time.”

As a child, if only I could have seen the future as GOD saw my future, then I would have better understood why HE made me female, for the LORD knew—

• I would fall in LOVE with a young, handsome boy during high school.
• I would LOVE growing up to play ladies’ industrial softball.
• I would LOVE running track and running around with my girlfriends.
• I would LOVE being a sister, daughter, and aunt.
• I would LOVE becoming a mom.
• I would LOVE being called Ms. New.
• I would LOVE living as a lady in my adulthood.  & that
• I would LOVE anticipating the joy found in growing up to become “a Grandma, a Nana.”

None of these would have been possible if the LORD had answered my childhood prayer that I prayed when I was six or seven.  One of the most-wonderful blessings of my life is found in the wisdom of my mom, who would respond to my childhood prayer with her wise words—

“Honey, if GOD had wanted you to be a boy, then HE would have made you a boy, but HE created to be a girl, just as—

GOD’S LOVE—knows no bounds!

Our FATHER’S LOVE—supersedes all worldly understanding!

The LORD allowed His Only Begotten Son to take on mortal flesh, to endure torture and death.

HIS salvation comes to ALL who chose to believe—to you and to me, to men and to women, to boys and girls.

The final outcome of our faith continually outweighs our fleeting anguish, as we are alive on this earth.  Even though WE CANNOT SEE INTO THE FUTURE—

The LORD, who spoke the world into existence, can experience our pain.

• When we cry, HE cries with us.
• When we feel sorrow, HE knows our sorrow too.
• When we speak prayers in our childhood innocence, HE waits patiently for us to grow & to understand how HIS WAY IS BEST!

In the Bible, when Martha was in anguish when her brother died, she called out for Jesus to come to her house, to heal her brother.  Jesus tarried four days, knowing this was BEST for GOD’S GLORY to be revealed.

After four days had passed, Jesus came to Martha’s home and told her that Lazarus would live again, knowing HE MEANT TODAY, but Martha thought HE MEANT IN ETERNITY.

GOD IS GOOD ALL THE TIME!

ALL THE TIME, GOD IS GOOD!

HE IS THE ONE WHO IS ABLE!