He loves us well

It has been a HOT few days home but we're rejoicing tonight in pouring, badly needed rain and dinner with good friends.  We're trying to catch up in the office, and better yet has been catching up with our staff-friends and student-friends.  I continue to be so encouraged by and blessed by the men and women God has surrounded us with.

I'm trying to slow it all down a bit, and being back in the routine of solid devotional time was so badly needed.

Truth is, I am the kind of person who is sure she is never doing enough.

I had a bit of a breakthrough with Aunt Lori this summer.  Our last night in New Jersey, I was anxious to spend time with her family and kids and grandkids, and stayed home that whole day in order to do so.  I was also anxious for a few kid-free last moments with my sister, so I set up a late night dinner meet with her. Then five am wake up the next day to pack the car, preach at church twice in New Jersey and then drive all the way to Ohio.

I was trying to make it all work...and then Lori's family had a bunch of other things going on, and couldn't come until evening, which meant I only got an hour with them and then had to leave for dinner with my sister.

The whole way to dinner, I felt terrible for having to leave without better time with our good friends, though I sure had tried.  The whole wonderful dinner, I felt terrible that Lisa and I only had a few precious hours before I wouldn't get to be with her again for a potential YEAR.  The whole drive home, I felt terrible that I can't be there for her and her family like I wish I could.

When we got home, I should have finished packing and fallen into bed. But instead I curled up across from Aunt Lori with coffee and some ice cream, one last time.  We talked for a long time, and then I told her how glad I was for that precious time with my sister, and how sorry I was not to also have had last precious time with her family.

She squeezed my hand, and simply said, "Let me tell you something. There is only one of you."

I don't know why that struck me so, but she so simply stated how impossible and ridiculous it would be to think that I could do EVERYTHING, that I realized that I had been impossibly and ridiculously dwelling with that expectation of myself.

Many times since I have caught myself hearing Aunt Lori's voice..."There is only one of you!"

I'm not God.  Can't be everywhere, do everything, be everything everyone needs.  Nor do I need to continue to feel responsible for everyone, or badly for all that I cannot do.

I'm working to release that this year, trusting Him with all of it, all of the many people I want to love and minister to well.

I'm working to be content and present with the best I can give unto Him, and not feeling guilt over the  many things I can't do.


There is SO. MUCH. NEED.

But just one of a more-free me.

The need, after all, is not FOR me.

Just more of Him...He who is endless and bottomless and eternal and unfathomable and mighty.


If you've been never enough, well, it's TRUE.   

Be free...for He IS...and loves us well.