It's hard not being able to leave the house with four young kids for a full week now. It's hard to stay patient and full of grace for one another. It's hard on Dad and Cindy having their home of 2 now house NINE, 24/7. It's hard to be here, and NOT be able to go visit friends or go visit family or take the kids to a playground.
It's hard to not know when or where we are going. It's hard to try to move to Jackson when we don't know where to live. It's hard to try to figure out how to move to a state where I know absolutely NO one. It's hard when the house we've been working on for several months now and were excited about and ready to be DONE with fell through today...and now we are back at square one, in the middle of a pandemic, in Ohio.
It's hard not being able to go hold Leme and Guesica's sweet new baby right now! It's hard to not be able to really TALK to them about it all. Praising the Lord for sweet baby Yasha and praying for healing for Guesica after a traumatic c-section. Please pray for NO infection and complete healing with us.
It's hard being so cold that we can't run and play outside, something that is ALWAYS possible at home, even when we are on lock-down for months. The Ayars LIVE outside. It's hard having the girls miss Sam and Joel so much, whom they played hours with every day.
It's hard being quarantined at someone else's house, even when they are so gracious! It's hard helping the kids understand what in the world is going on in our lives when WE have NO idea.
It's hard having no idea.
It's hard having no idea about a lot of things.
You understand.
Yesterday morning, Pastor Jerome and Lisa met us on a zoom conversation, and it was the highlight of these days. Even a thousand miles away, it was so good to hear truth from them and to "sit" with them. To be listened to. To be loved and prayed for. To be reminded of TRUTH.
And the truth they shared that struck me most was from Romans 15...may you be filled with Joy and Peace as you trust in Him. Jerome boldly reminded me that the fruit of genuine trust and confidence in Him is JOY and PEACE.
IF I truly trust Him, there WILL be joy and peace in my life.
Now, too.
As I have been fighting and clinging to trusting in Him, it has been with many tears and heartbreak, not with joy and peace. After an extra challenging day of tears yesterday, He woke me early this morning with a new confidence...not due to sleep or circumstances or some grit of my own, but confidence in Him.
Just confidence in Him.
I have NO IDEA what He is doing or what He is going to do.
But I DO know that we cannot stay here, in this season of not being at Emmaus, not being at Wesley, not having a home.
He hasn't brought us this far to abandon us now, mama must have said a thousand times, and I have THAT confidence.
If we cannot stay stuck in limbo in homelessness and quarantine forever, then He must have a plan to do something. If He called us to Jackson for such a time as this, even if this was NOT the time we thought, then He MUST have a place for us to live. God must be doing something, no matter how confusing and challenging and excruciating at times this season is. And as long as HE is doing something, I can have peace and joy.
If He IS doing something, even something that we can in NO way see, then I can trust in that, without seeing. And if I can trust Him...trust Him with Leme, trust Him with Emmaus, trust Him with Wesley, trust Him with a home, trust Him with my children, trust Him with our homelessness and belongings-less-ness...then I don't have holy option to cling to my sorrows and confusions and loss.
May I be filled with joy and peace as I trust in Him.
May you be filled with joy and peace as YOU trust in Him.
While we are so helpless, He is at work.
I will be happy to be on the other side one day.
But joy. Joy, somehow, somehow He is extending NOW.
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