Day 208...I want to get lost in Him!

Let's see if I can capture in words just how profoundly this author, Katie Davis, has touched me.  Her story, really her testimony, has opened up a new place in my heart so unexpectedly.  I started reading her book not too long ago.  Her passion for Jesus shines through so vividly, it could never be mistaken for anything else.

She moved to Uganda fresh out of high school and followed the Lord's leading into the adoption of thirteen children!  Her heartfelt tale has truly begun a reviving in mine.  I can honestly relate to her love for Jesus, and her passion for the lost, dying and lonely children on the earth, wherever they may be.  She just chased after her dream, into a calling clearly from the Lord, where He has blessed her every step of the way.  I am still in the middle of the book, Kisses from Katie, and I can't put it down.  It's so compelling, so inspiring, I just know it's full of God's heart and purposes, a Word to all of us believers.

I'm going to to try and convey what the Lord has been stirring within my spirit since I began reading the book, but I already know that my words are going to fall short of what I am experiencing.

You see, I thought maybe that reading a story about a girl who left everything to minister to children in a foreign land, one of the most destitute places on earth, poverty-stricken, the whole nine yards, would make me envious.  She is living a life I could envision myself living as a young person.  Even now, the Lord knows I would not hesitate to sell everything and move my family to an area where we could, as a family, bring the gospel of light into the darkest places.  But envy and jealousy are far from what I'm feeling.  If anything, she's reminding me of the serious call that the heart of a mother entails.  Her life is completely and totally yielded to the heart of God.  His heart for adoption, for children, for the poor and needy, are unmistakable in her life.  Where do they exist in mine today?  These have always been the cry of my heart.  You can't miss them in Scripture.  But if there were just one thing that I'm taking away, okay maybe two, two things that I'm hearing, they are this...Love the person right in front of you, right now, today, right here....And two, lose your life to gain it.  I feel renewed in my passion at the moment to do these two things.  And I feel confident in trust that the Lord will take care of the rest.

For example, I have the opportunity to love my children, plus two other children, not to mention my husband, in many tangible, practical ways each and every day.  It's not explicitly rewarding, not seen or glorious, not making me rich or even famous.  But in God's eyes, it is glorious.  It is beautiful.  And too, I have been given the opportunity to lay my life down, lose it really, for my immediate loved ones (and hope to lose it way more than I am now!). Would I choose to lay aside my lifelong dream of being a missionary and working with children, many children, all to be staying at home, only impacting a few kids, with no plan for the future?   How did I get here?  But I am learning how to be content.  Paul spoke of contentment with plenty and with little. This goes for "ministry" as well.  Whether I think I'm doing "big" things for God, or "little," what matters is...am I listening to Him, fellowshipping with Him, giving my everything to Him, in every relationship I encounter?

I am being stretched more than I have ever been stretched before.  More than being a teacher to bunches of kids.  More than when I lived out of my comfort in a foreign land.  More than when I was separated from loved ones for thousands of miles.  I am being stretched and turned inside out.  And that is what Katie is reminding me of.  That is where the center of God's will is for me, and for you.  It's where God is teaching you, showing you His grace, being your strength when you have none, and getting the glory for it all. That is the place I am in.  I'm not saying I've succeeded in this. I fail continuously.  But to experience His grace through the learning process, now that is a blessing in itself.  I have shown some pretty ugly sides to myself, to my kids, to my husband.  I have felt anger rise up from the inside that I never knew could exist.  I have let depression in when I felt I could be doing so much more than I am able, or should be doing more than I am, feeling that what I do is not good enough for God, or simply just not enough.  I am ashamed of my attitude, my struggles, my heart that has turned cold towards Him.  For the ungratefulness, for the lack of trust.  Finally, I am coming out of all that and into days of true thankfulness and contentment, and even more importantly, fervor and hunger like never before.  For this season I am truly grateful.  I know that right here and now, God is shaping me into His image.  He is doing it through means I never knew He would.  I feel so close to Him, so in LOVE with Him.  Katie has reminded me of the Jesus I knew from the beginning.  That may sound strange for a believer of twenty-eight years, but it's for real.  We all need a wake up call to rise up and see Him for who He really is, once in a while.

As for the future?  My heart to be a missionary?  My desire to travel?  My intense need to live on very little so that others can have it all?  To show my children what it means to lose their life through practical, Christ-centered living?  I have no idea how it's going to look, where we'll all end up.  I only know to set my gaze upon Him, and listen...He is the One who knows best and has it all under control.

Thank you, Katie Davis, for chasing your dream, for loving Jesus, for being a living example of a life lost and found, for loving His little precious sheep, and for sharing your story.  I'm so glad I'm not finished with your book yet!  And I'm so glad God's not finished with me either!

All of our stories are different.  We have different paths to take, but the same Maker.  The same destination in the end.  I hope I choose His way, and I hope you, Sadie, will find your calling to be sure, clear and an adventure worth telling the world about, for His sake.

Dear Sadie.

P.S. There is so much more to this story, but this is all I can really say at the moment...thank you, Lord for teaching me, for Your patience with me, for never being done with me.  Thank you for wanting to do way more through me than I could ever dream up on my own.  Thank you for the beautiful family I get to take care of every day.  I am beyond blessed!

Whoever tries to keep His life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it.  Luke 17:33

Day 207...surrendered mom

It's taken me 9 years of being a wife, 4 years as a mother, to feel like the "homemaking" part of me is finally coming to the surface.  I'm finally realizing how unique God made women, how he placed such great desire to be nurturers and lovers and housekeepers and organizers and teachers.  That's not to say there's not much more to us than that.  There is so much more.  But it's taken me a long time to leave my independent ways behind, and come into the understanding that I shouldn't fight it...this is who I am...and God blesses my work as a mother and wife when I release myself in freedom to these roles.  When I don't try to minimize it, but let God maximize my efforts.  When I mark up the little unseen, sometimes laborious, tasks up to serving Him.  Finding my peace in surrender to His marvelous grace.

Dear Sadie.

"Encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be dishonored."  Titus 2:4-5

Day 206...in your face

I was looking at your sweet face today and thinking Man how happy is she!  
Every time you smile so big I just feel like a kid again myself.
I couldn't help but share it on Facebook, as so many parents can relate.
Why is it that we can't get enough of our kids' faces?
I'm still in on awe every day that you're mine.


Dear Sadie.

Day 205...Come close my child

Waking up from a nap, not quite ready to leap from the bed, you called out to me, "Mommy!!!"

I rushed upstairs and scooped you up as fast as I could, mostly so as not to disturb your sleeping brother in the adjacent room, but also because I knew of your need for me in that moment. You just wanted to be held,.

I brought you downstairs and held you close in my arms.  Your body still warm from slumber.

I pressed your pillow-soft cheeks up against mine and rubbed your back.

I could feel your whole body melt like wax and relax as I held you close.

I was thinking today about an experience with God, the kind where afterwards you felt like you could actually say you "touched God."  I've had those type of experiences in His Presence before, where the feeling is undeniably of God, one so good it is difficult even to convey to another soul.  I hunger for God's touch, His Presence felt.  Do I always feel Him close?  No.  Do I need to always be in that place?  No.  Just as you don't need to feel my embrace every second of the day.  But today as I held you close, I was reminded of the spiritual need we have to feel the Father just as close.  He created s this way.  Just as you and I experience one another so intimately, so God has created within us the need, desire and privilege to feel Him near.  He longs to be near to His children.  Jesus' blood washed us clean and He tore the veil so that we could come close to the inner room where the Father is.  What a price He paid for such fellowship.  And as if that was not enough, He sent the Holy Spirit to live inside our very beings.  He is my Comforter.

What joy!

The next time I feel your breath in my face and your tiny palm stroking my arm, I will not just think to myself "Oh, she's going to get older and not need me anymore, I better enjoy this now!"  No, I will be reminded of the nearness of God, and His goodness towards me for making Himself so available, so practical, so comfortable, so friendly, and so real.

If you ever doubt His Presence with You, draw close.  Seek His Face evermore (Ps.105:4), and you shall never doubt again.

Do we always need to feel His touch?  No.  But if all we ever do is learn about Him and talk about Him and tell others about Him without ever having any experiences with Him on our own, then we don't even really know Him for ourselves.  So go after Him with all your heart, and you will find the Lover of your soul.

Dear Sadie.

Come near to God, and He will come near to you. James 4:8

Day 204...buried

Two hundred days of writing you.  Wow.  Yikes!  I still don't know how I'm going to finish 365 letters in 365 days.  I've missed so many days.  The tasks of every day life have taken priority.  Being a mom, working at home, it's been an eye-opening experience.  Eye-opening to just how selfish and self-centered I once was.  (not that I'm not still!)  If I had it my way, I'd have about 3 hours to read every day, 3 hours to write, 3 hours to sit on a bench outside or row a canoe, go for a walk, go shopping and hang out at a coffee shop, surf the net a while, visit the elderly an hour at a retirement home, feed the homeless, (okay so I added those last couple so I wouldn't seem so selfish, but I really would want to do those things) and then get my day started feeding my kids, playing, cooking, cleaning, etc., etc.  But what kind of person would I be?  An unrealistic one.

Being a parent has changed my whole way of thinking.  I used to see moms and think how they had lost their former "cool" selves in all of the "mom-ness." All they could talk about were there kids!  I'd think, How sad.  There seems to be nothing else to them but their children.  I'll never be like that, I promised myself.  And yes, I have fallen.  I have fallen in love with my children!  I have fallen a victim to the momhood.  But, it's not that I've lost my former self, or sense of self, or anything of the sort, as I once perceived.  I see it as having gained so much more.  My offspring, my husband, my family, have added blessing upon blessing on my life. Glory to God for His grace.  If anything, I haven't been lost, but motherhood has found the truer heart of who I am to be.  If I am lost, it's because I'm buried.  Buried in blessing.  That's a pretty good way to lose oneself I'd say.

There's no longer time to devote to self as I once did in college....ride my bike down by the river...read the Word in random parks in the city sprawled out on a blanket...stroll through the mall for a whimsical purchase of a shirt or accessory...eat raman noodles for dinner...go to the gym every day...play pool for an hour after lunch.

Those were great days.  Wonderful days!  Days I will never forget.  I will hold them in my heart as a treasured season.  And now for this.  I embrace what these uncertain days hold for me.  For God is stretching me in ways I never had imagined in those earlier carefree days.

My days may be crazy and uncertain, but I am certain and confident in this.  God sees and holds and knows.  I'm crazy about Him.  And I'm crazy for this life He unfolds to me in each and every moment, should I be awake to them.

He holds my yesterday, today and tomorrow.

He knows what He is doing.

While there are many days I feel useless to the rest of the world, I know with all my heart I've been given the huge and important task of ministering to four extremely important people within these four small walls.

I may not have the roaming freedom of my former days, but for this season, there is a new kind of freedom found only in the quiet places...       and who am I kidding, the chaos too!

Day 203...Messy

I know I've written on this subject over and over again...but one things for certain with mothers.

We like to look like we have it all together, but the truth is, our lives are a mess!

The more control you try to have over the mess, the worse it gets.

The lesson I keep learning is, do my best at what God has for me, and lay the rest down.

No one is perfect, no matter how perfect their lives appear.

The more I embrace this truth, and the truth of His sanctifying work of grace in my life, the freer I become...the more freedom He has to do the work He needs to do in my life, according to His plans, not my own.

I love Grace!

Dear Sadie.

"...for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to His good purpose."  Philippians 2:13

Day 202...Recipe for disaster? Behold, a new day will come.

Sleep Deprivation + Household Overrun with Sickness + PMS = World Falling Apart

I can laugh now, but it was a rough two weeks.  I got through it by God's grace!

There are times in our lives where we become ashamed at the mess around us, the mess within, and the mess we create.  Sometimes it's the fault of the fallen world, sometimes the state of our inward unrest, sometimes our human nature and flesh get tangled in the web of it all.

The good thing is...two things come in the morning...

Joy!  And God's compassions!

He understands, so take heart!

That's a promise.

I'm so glad.

Dear Sadie.

Psalm 30:5, Lamentations 3:23