"She might be on a roller coaster, but that means you can't be. You just be her strong and steady, and that will see her through."
The idea that we can be FREE from the roller coasters of emotion and worry sticks with me because it's Biblical...not being tossed about by every wave, being firmly planted on the rock...Jesus, our firm foundation.
This season has been such an ongoing roller coaster that I'm working to disciple my emotions off the slopes. He can be trusted. I can be steady, built on something steady.
Or at least I'm trying.
For the first time in our lives, we had to spend major money on a more major investment (french drains, foundation issues) that actually resulted in things looking worse (muddy mess), and that general panic of how expensive life in America is...how much work a house is...how much there still is to do...worry over it could become an idol of mine so quickly.
My sister and her family were supposed to come today, and didn't and I don't know when they will.
I prayed with a hurting friend last night on her couch and a hurting friend tonight in her doorway, and goodness...the heaviness of hurting alongside one another!
We had dinner with a good new friend from Niger tonight, and how good to speak the same language.
We got the girl's school supply list for their upcoming one-day-a-week homeschool enrichment program, and they've never gone to the store to buy crayons. They've never had a lunchbox, or classroom with electricity. They are excited and wondering if their friends in Haiti will be able to have school this year after losing last year, and I don't know.
Nora ate the last popsicle, Ben's ball got stuck under the muddy porch, Sofie hurt Lily's feelings and Lily efficiently hurt them back...a million little things every day.
I try to start unpacking tubs of memories from my father's basement, still untouched in our new garage, and find one bittersweet photo, letter and token after another from men and women who poured love and Jesus into my life, and I am humbled and overwhelmed by grace, for I was given His hope and His name and His love over and over and over again from before I can remember. The little ways you are pouring into people today, oh friend, it absolutely forms and changes lives.
I missed Yasha's dedication, we have no idea what's going on with Claudin's wife, Josie, expecting a new baby any day, little things make us miss...and love...and appreciate...and mourn, every day.
It's a roller coaster, all of it, sweet-and-sour high-and-low moments in each day, with each kiddo, with each friend, with each task and sermon and casserole, and the only time there is calm is when I trust Him.
Somehow--with black smoke rising outside the gate and men with machetes and venomous witch-doctors and huge eye-sore, neon-light monumental issues in Haiti, it was never quite as challenging as has it has been in air-conditioned, polished-appearance, shelves-stocked, cultural-Christianity America to simply, open-handedly TRUST HIM.
I tell Him I might rather serve Him somewhere else, and differently.
He asks me if I'll burn all out for Him, regardless, where I am.
I sassily remind Him "where I am" is on a roller coaster.
He smiles, like a Good Father, strong and steady.
“ the only time there is calm is when I trust Him.“
ReplyDeleteHow true!! This is the hard here in America. Trusting in Him when it seems we very well could do without Him. We can too easily fix many of our problems on our own. But whenI sit in the quiet, and really reflect, I know it is still Him fixing it all.