asides from a wild day

My heart's been well-split these last few days, blessed beyond measure to love on my nieces and to spend nourishing time at Aunt Lori's house with lots of good people. She's been feeding us well, their house is a place of peace, and the girls have been rejoicing over a nice yard with popscicles and a day not in the car.

At the same time, things at home aren't well.  With no real resolutions from February and March, tensions and prices have been rising and rising, and as we're hearing more about protests resuming, evil intent overcoming and fear mounting, I've felt sick to my stomach, praying continuously over our friends and family and staff and students. They're tired, too...but they are there. They are still recovering from February and March, too, but here they go again. They can't get tickets, they don't have solar panels, they can't come and go...They are tired and frustrated, TOO.

Somehow when I'm in the middle of it with them, it's easier to trust the Lord with all of us.  

But when I'm far away, I'm tempted to worry that perhaps God doesn't have it quite as covered without me.  

aside: I am ridiculous.

What a joy this morning to worship with our Sharptown family, men and women we've known for years, some for a lifetime, what a joy to be sitting with them and holding hands and hearing stories and knowing better how to pray.

aside: maybe you're private, maybe you don't want to bother people, maybe you're all about shouldering your burdens alone.  DON'T.  People can't be praying and helping what they do. not. know. SHARE with people what you're going through, so they can be praying with you, growing from you, faithfully supporting you to be faithful

It was a joy to hear Matt preach in the church of his youth, to consider the times and cultures of the day together and to urge each other on to Biblical holiness, because HE broke the cycle, because HE gives us the Holy Spirit, because He has already overcome.

I was mostly wrestling a lot of kids, and didn't get any good pictures :)  However, worship in this season has be creative or obsolete, so I'll worship from my seat with a nap on my lap and a finger through Ben's belt loop so he doesn't launch over the row.  

aside: young children is NOT a season to do my hair for church, to have everyone stain-free, to keep the aisle floor clean of cheerios or to be in your seats right on time.  But young children IS a season to BE. IN. CHURCH.  It doesn't have to be perfect and it doesn't have to be quiet, and I bet you'll find a lot more grace than you were expecting. 

JUST GO. It's never gonna feel easy enough to start going "now" if the faithful habit isn't already formed. Others will be blessed by the unique parts of His body that are your family...sticky and loud and late though they may be, and Christ will be blessed by our efforts!

 Matt preached first service, then men's Sunday School, then second service, we caught up with a whole lot of great family and some of the staff (such a gift), and finally got on the road, dresses shed and fruit snacks falling out every time you open a door, at 2 pm. The girls were starving, Matt was wiped, and we needed fuel.  We headed for Wawa and then to hit the long open road to Williamsburg, Virginia, to meet my family for a few days of deliberate vacation.

We were on the road for three minutes when the car started acting funny. A minute later, all the warning lights were flashing, the a/c cut out, we pulled up to a red light and DEAD.  Wouldn't start. Matt and a sweet man behind us pushed us off the road into an abandoned parking lot and we sat while Nora wailed about lunch and the girls wailed about vacation and for a quick minute it felt like the Lord sure didn't have this whole thing covered. It was FINALLY time, we were exhausted and running on fumes, and now we were in abandoned parking lot in the middle of nowhere.

aside: when we're tired and hungry, and sometimes even when we're not, the way we FEEL first isn't necessarily the truth. May we be as quick to search for Him in the middle of our circumstances as we are to blame Him or question Him...or maybe even quicker.  An abandoned parking lot, a lonely season in our lives, major disappointments, broken-down plans...these are NOT the same as BEING abandoned.

As we focused on finding Him faithful instead of being fearful or frustrated, we praised the Lord we weren't out on the highway, and that we were literally five minutes from the church, the Shaptown body all around us. We called a few people, texted a few more, and tried the car one more time, getting it going just long enough to creep the four miles to a friend's shop.  Last night we stayed up with Brian and Rhonda too late, eating ice cream, and today he left a football game to come meet us at his repair shop.

The girls and I walked a few blocks to literally what smelled like a restaurant (and ended up WAS) to get them some now-2:45-lunch, and Matt and a whole bunch of people were calling around, trying to find us a different car.  A FOUR car-seats car. To take to Virginia. Like, right now. For a week.

Soon, Matt, Brian and Rhonda met us for lunch while we waited, and soon again Skip and Patty, who had just sat behind us in the second service, showed up with their van...and a video of Skip "vacuuming" it out with a leaf blower :)  We ate lunch, went to pay, and someone (we all have NO idea) paid for our lunch. That has NEVER happened to us before!  They paid for our lunch, we had a friend-mechanic take our car with it's broken alternator, alterator, something like that, and friends give us a free van to use right now.

All within like 60 minutes of breaking down in the middle of the road with four little ones in a borrowed car a thousand miles from home.

Now it's midnight, and I have five family members sleeping upstairs and six more downstairs and two more across the street in Williamsburg, Virginia.

My heart's been well-split these last few days.  

But tonight I'm figuring that if God's at work, then God's at work.  

I'm figuring that if God's got our family covered, then God's got His family covered. 

I'm figuring that if I can focus on finding Him FAITHFUL for Haiti, instead of falling fearful and frustrated, then I will FIND Him at work. 

I figure He will be at work through me here and there--as He was through many today--instead of finding me unfit for prayer and service, consumed with worry and doubt.  

I'm figuring that if He's big enough to transform and empower and strengthen and help and use ridiculous ME, then He can use YOU, He can use YOUR situation, He can change it. He can use Haiti, He can change her, too.

Because of Christ-at-work--which He reminded me SO intimately and powerfully and practically today--I will never lose hope for His change.  

aside: He isn't finished. His arms not short. He HAS won this battle.  

Let us carry on.