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1

Yesterday was my first ever Crawfish Boil with our Wellspring Church family, and it was a gift. A gift to be outside, to learn new things, to go deeper with people we've only walked with a few months.  To eat good food (and learn some more) and to learn one another better and to laugh...so much laughter. Benny-boy can plop down anywhere and find a friend...the older girls played frisbee with the youth pastors and found a gator, the younger kiddos slipping on the bouncy castle and eating anything anyone handed them.

When we were praying heavy about whether pastoring Wellspring was the mission-field God was leading us to, we had a particularly low low evening, and an unsuspecting sweet friend noticed something we didn't. 

"I'm not saying it won't be hard, but if this is the right place," she said passionately, "You KNOW these dear men and women will truly love you and your children, and be family, and you and your family will deeply love them and be the same."

That thought struck me powerfully at the time, and yesterday felt like the first day I was able to step back and hear the Lord say, "See? It is so."

The Lord met me there, reminding me of her words many months ago, coming true.

2

The Lord freed me unexpectedly yesterday weeding the garden from a wrong-weight I've been carrying. I've shared with you before Dad's urging, years ago, when Lily was heading into some pre-teen sass, to be at the bottom of her teenage roller-coaster, but not to ride it with her. That's been the number one most helpful advice I still cling to daily parenting now four teens. They're teens. They're supposed to be up and down and emotional and drama and wild rides, but I need to be the solid footing at the bottom. Right there, holding their snacks :)

But yesterday as I was working and praying for several other situations, the Lord reminded me of my dad's voice again. There are roller coasters all AROUND us. Our culture is on a ridiculous ride. There are people in all our lives riding the waves. There are problems zinging and whirling around us and hard things screaming for all our time and energy and strength...and it is SO EASY to get our eyes glued on EVERYTHING other than Jesus. It is so easy to accidentally get on ALL the roller coasters.

Eyes on Jesus, grounded. 

NO ONE, NO THING can MAKE you ride them.  No storm, no waves underfoot can make us take our eyes off Jesus's. I've been looking ALL around lately and yesterday He filled me with such a freedom and deep-rooted peace, eyes on Jesus. The things of this earth fade and we can live in the freedom that comes from caring only for the opinions of Our King, unshakeable.

3

This morning Pastor Elijah preached on genuinely carrying one another's burdens. He talked about how heavy. How much it will cost. How much it will matter. How un-conditional it is. How important it is to living in obedience to Christ. How vital it is for the Body. What it looks like. How unglamorous. How life-changing. 

And as we stand in what feels like a VERY painful, very frustrating, very helpless gap...rubbing against all my mama instincts and costing us, all, so dearly, I held it up to the Lord.  

He asked me why we got into this in the first place.  

They needed a family, I said, and we had one. 

He helped me remember that we did not come alongside to bear the burdens of the state. We came alongside for a minute to bear the burdens of someone in our church. But rapidly it shifted into what it's been for almost 2.5 years now. 

They are not the burden. We are in this because we are bearing the burdens of two children. Two children who needed shoulders alongside. Who needed arms around. Who needed hair brushed and feelings heard and poured into. Who needed eyes on Jesus, for them. We are bearing the painful burdens two children were suffocating under, and have since blossomed. 

That doesn't mean I know what's about to happen. Or that I can fix or change or control any of what happens next. Or that it isn't really hard, and hard on all seven. 

But Matt and I will bear alongside the burdens of these seven children, ALWAYS. Just as HE bears OUR burdens, we will bear theirs. It matters. It makes all the difference. It's holy work, burden bearing, and when it is deeply heavy or painful costly, He is always bearing it with us...so we are IN.

It didn't change any facts. But it sure shifted and regrounded my perspective...gave me what is needed to carry ON.

He's working on me...I'm grateful