not a suitable substitute

As I gather our minds and hearts and bags to go, He meets me. 

There was a season in our lives when Matt was at Wesley where he was traveling and gone ALL the time. By the time he got home, he was so, so exhausted that I was still alone. I told myself, and others, often that I was alone. Parenting alone, covering alone, doing our lives mostly alone. 

And I can't remember now when He interrupted me with His truth, but I ALWAYS remember how it shifted me, because I started some habits then that I still carry today. 

I would remind myself that I was NOT alone, not ever alone, but that God was walking it with me. And I would act like it was true until it BECAME true. 

I was not standing at the sink alone. I was washing dishes with the Lord, the Lord Almighty. I wasn't folding laundry alone or driving kiddos alone or attending things single or sleeping alone. I was walking with Jesus. Truly. He was with me. Closer than my bones, more real than the breath in my lungs. 

I started talking to Him, like He was there. I started leaving space for Him, and stopped saying I was alone. When someone would note that it must be hard being alone, I would remind them that I wasn't. 

Pretending His truth was true has made it true in my life and affected how I live, and how I talk to the Lord, and how He talks to me (or maybe just how I hear Him). 

As I gather our minds and hearts and bags to go, He is with me. The places I feel weak, He reminds me He is strong. The places I feel unsure, He reminds me He is the foundation I'm building upon. The temptation to think we are alone, or to stay distracted away from Him, or to think that we are of little value to Him, or to believe that our mistakes are unredeemable or that darkness will never lighten...His truth speaks to. Are we grabbing His truths with both our hands?

The places where truth is avoided, lies grow.

So I give it all to Him instead, for He's right at my elbow, and He covers me. 

When I wish TiLou was going to be there to watch over us, like he always has been in the past, the Lord reminds me He's watching over us, and always was. When I wish Granny was going to be there to care for us and minister to my children, as she ALWAYS did, He reminds me He will minister to my children, as He always did. 

Do you remember (if you've been here a good long time) the day my dad decided to sell our childhood home, my mama's home, meaning not only the loss of the only place she still felt near, but also that when we were stateside we'd no longer have a home base? I was overwhelmed and devastated and resistant. In the end...after months of truly over-agonizing and over-placing my security in a place, He met me strong at my desk in Haiti one day. Lord, where will we go if we are in trouble? Where will we call home? I will the place you rest your head. He spoke, audibly that afternoon through my tears, and for the first time I wrapped my mind around home being a PERSON, security being a person, peace being a person, not a circumstance...and it was JESUS.  

It is NOT that Jesus is a suitable substitute for a person or a place or a thing in our lives....He is, truly, THE person, place, and thing needed. 

So as I gather our minds and hearts and bags to go, He is not just my helper...He is what is needed. He is my peace. He is my protection. He is my shield. He is my reason. He is my love to share. He is my strength to sustain. He is my place to rest my head and my portion. He is our adventure and our guide, and I can't wait to see the ways He stretches and grows and moves our family as we stretch and grow in Him...in Haiti and in Mississippi. 

He is who He says He is.

You know how this all wraps around the edges of your life and heart and circumstances.  Whatever we tell ourselves, in our great wisdom, that He can't help with or can't change or meet us in or provide...we are joyfully WRONG. I pray for you as you pray for me!