I'm so thankful for a few precious days away with such a dear friend....with some alone time in the car, with a real night's sleep, with the chance to be a good friend and have a good friend and to eat good food and be off schedule and not clean up messes. So thankful for Shelley and praying so heavily for their family as they head back home to Haiti next week in such a challenging time! What a gift God has given us in the Hari family, what a gift He is not finished.
Meanwhile, Matt and the kids had a precious time as well...good memories of daddy time, and Nora even had a birthday party that the girls dressed her up and did her hair for (hence the Haitian uniform shoes :) and that all touched my heart as well...the neighbors who had them all for dinner, our friend who kept the kids for a few hours and took them to pick wildflowers...mommy gone gives everyone a chance to be there for one another.
So thankful.
I got back right in time for Sunday night family dinner, a family that keeps growing, and this time that included yummy Nigerian food! So thankful for the ways God brings us people to love, which dramatically enhances our lives, too.
It also gave me time for the Lord to be there for me...for me to be there for the Lord? In a finally quiet time and place, He reminded me how Beginning and End He is. How Awesome. How Mighty. How Faithful. How Above our Circumstances. How Mighty in them. How...Close.
The times I am the smallest are the times He takes over, and I am there. Whatever good I thought I had to offer, whatever plan I thought I had. Whatever I thought I needed, whatever I thought I could be, whatever I thought was important....it all just FADES in front of Him.
He is enough for me, and I am thankful for His reminder.
He also reminded me that no matter where we EVER live, the shapes and forms of cultures and communities do not limit nor need to shape our family living faithfully. I've been trying to figure out how to fit in here...how to do things the way people do, how to take advantages of all the opportunities we've never had, how to do life in America best.
But He reminded me that He never asked me to do life in America best. He asked me to do life in HIM best, and it's quite possible he doesn't much care about how America is doing it.
We lived as weirdo missionaries for so many years...incapable of truly fitting in, and so working to be faithful instead, regardless, and as hard as we worked to know and love the people and culture of Haiti well, we were never trying to fit into it.
I'm back at it, dear ones.
This has been such a random post, I know. But I want to say thank you to those of you who have continued to pray for us, follow us, support us...even as I've been a mess. Just you continuing to read my heart here blesses me more than you know.
We are going to keep being missionaries in Haiti. And we are going to be missionaries here, too. America is a mess, Mississippi heavy in the middle.
Isn't that where abandoned, weird people who know who he is are needed?
Since this is already helplessly random, let me finish with this: If you're in a bad place...if you feel hopeless or helpless or buried or broken or finished or desperate...if you need help, if you need a friend, if you need a prayer, if you need something....please email me. Please email me. staceyhaiti@gmail.com
I saw a glimpse of His great love this weekend, and it is for you. It is for you.
Let someone be there for you. Let someone hold you up. Let someone stand with you, broken. If you don't know who that is, LET IT BE ME.
What healing I found this weekend, broken beside a broken friend...What hope He offers in brokenness.
It is not to be avoided.
It is to be surrendered.
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