consider HIM

This was the first week of school.  

With a pre-k, 3rd, 6th grader at home, and a freshman, sophomore, junior and senior heading to high school. 

Yes, it was everything that sounds like. 

Happy home, great books, bickering, great schedule, 8-noon precious time....

And crazy mornings looking for books and socks and senior jeans and emotional afternoons of bottomless snacking, meals, emotions, anxieties and drama...and late nights. 

Add in a very necessary family meeting or two, and the normal cheer practices, Bible study, hosting small group...I have been hanging by a thread. 

The moments before everyone else wakes up have been my LIFEbreath. 

His steady, flowing to me has been just what is needed.

I do NOT want to be drowning in the middle of the priceless opportunity to disciple these five to seven kiddos...especially through these hard and final teenage years. 

But man alive is. it. hard. 

One morning at 7, a single mom friend carrying an incredibly heavy load called me bawling and we both were by the time we hung up. One afternoon a sweet new friend was bawling in her coffee, concerns over a major relationship in her life. One evening one of my best friends stopped in frustrated and discouraged, and she should be. And I am reminded how much we need each other...and also how much I desperately need HIM.  

When I spend that hour before the day begins on the porch swing, praying and listening and in His Word...it sustains me. He is what is needed. And gives us the wisdom and the strength that is needed. 

When I watch the sun coming and complain about being spoken to harshly in a way that really hurt me, He leads me to Hebrews 12...Consider Him who endured from sinners SUCH hostility against Himself, so that you may not grow weary or faint of heart. 

Consider HIM.

Wrote it on my hand as the hurt and anger melted, and throughout the day, "Consider HIM" was exactly what was needed. 

Another morning I was praying with the sprinklers, tears pouring down my face over pain in my teenagers lives, in several friends lives, I ask Him what to do in the same hour He leads me to Colossians 4:2. Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it all with thanksgiving. 

Continue steadfastly in prayer. 

OK. I can do that. That's a plan. That's a plan I can follow, no matter the chaos. 

A harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace, I can share with the girls as they are tempted to back-and-forth over after school cookies with "did you hears" and "you know what she saids?"

"Do NOT get narrow or stingy in the area of hospitality, or the blessing it is of God will grow thin" the devotional book I'm reading reminds me as I prepare my house for Testimony Tuesday and 35 for dinner...the most powerful night of my month but one I never really "feel" like preparing for. 

Wednesday night Bible study reminds me He disciplines us for our good, that we may share in His holiness. 

Most, when I'm focusing on Him, I'm reminded that I can trust Him.

With this precious teenager.  With this problem. With this injustice. With this broken situation. With this impossible problem. 

And while I'll fight all day long for the people and good He has put in my path, He reminds me...

They're His kids. His problem. His injustices. His impossible situation. 

And I don't ever need to doubt that He SEES it. Even better than I do. And He's fixing it. 

As Ben and Nora and Emma often repeat during our homeschool devotions, "God made it, it's His. We broke it. And Jesus, Jesus is fixing it."

If you're hanging by a thread...make it Him.