practicing the Jesus way

I am really blessed to have a really GREAT Bible teacher for my pastor, and the last few Sundays I've needed to stay in both services to play piano. Which is how I learned that Matt preaches two entirely different sermons from the same passages of Scripture every Sunday. 

That means that an illustration that really clarifies something for me in the first service is a completely different challenge that really convicts me in the second service. 

Today, studying Matthew 6, Matt briefly touched on the images of various gods throughout the past, and how that shows us what kind of God we serve and look for and emulate. He mentioned Buddha...almost always pictured as fat, happy, sitting, at peace. While Buddah is not largely thought of as the god of America, he does seem to well represent our cultural desires!  The pursuit of happiness! Lifestyles of overindulgence. Our focus on being able to do whatever we want...to rest, to enjoy, to retire, to sit, to do and be whatever we think would make us happy! Our individualistic focus, to be able to do and say what we want, to be at "peace".  

I was humbled by how often I pursue Buddah-looking things in the name of Jesus.  Our God, the Lord I'm following, is most often pictured not shiny and gold and fat and sitting, but ribs and tears and nails and blood. He is most often pictured dying for us, sacrificing for us...he was the one who had no place to lay his head, not Zillow dreams Jesus. Jesus was the one who was often hungry, often tired, often on the move, pouring out his life. He was on mission, not seeking time and comfort and safety for Himself, but for His father and His children. His great image is sacrifice. It's love. It's blood and sweat and tears. 

And yet any season I'm in the agony Garden of Gethsemane, I'm questioning and complaining and frustrated...as if He portrayed himself Buddah and misled me. I'd never thought through that whole concept and it definitely had me thinking this morning. 

Second service, he never mentioned any of that, but focused in on why we can't be practicing our righteousness in order to be seen by men.  Not that we should NOT pray publicly or minister publicly or give publicly, for Jesus did all these things! We are supposed to be practicing our righteousness...but only For Him, unto Him. 

He then talked about our weaknesses being His strengths, and about we aren't performing our righteousness, we are practicing it. It's not perfect. It's not always strong. It's practice. And He wants our practice. 

Walking with Him daily, praying, serving, teaching, learning...it's all practicing. It's all to be unto Him.

Are we unwilling to pray in public or out loud for someone because we are worried we're going to sound or look dumb? Are we unwilling to share our gifts because we are worried what people think? Or because we worry we're not going to do it well enough? Are we unwilling to serve somewhere or help someone because we're embarrassed to look foolish?

If we are only willing to speak or sing or pray or serve or give when we will NOT look or feel foolish,  then we are practicing our righteousness in order to be seen by men, the very thing Matthew 6 warns against.

I am NOT a very skilled piano player. But I AM a very willing praiser, and I was reminded today it's not about me playing perfectly. God and my mother gave me the gift of piano, Wellspring has given me the gift of needing a piano player...and I am practicing. I am practicing serving unto Him with my best...even when it's spotty.

I looked at Lily, singing her heart out "Jesus is the name!"...she may have chewed out her sister a few minutes earlier or had a smug attitude in warm-ups. I'm working on it. He's working on it. Lily's working on it. She's practicing her righteousness, and it's practice. She is not performing. She'd rather not be on stage. But she's got a singing gift and we have a singing need, and suddenly that release of "She's practicing walking with Jesus in this way" took all the pressure off it being perfect. It can't be a performance. Not ever. 

As I looked down, I saw little Ben kneeling at the altar, as he often does after communion. I used to worry what people think about him always going to the altar after communion. Maybe I shouldn't let him? Maybe I should make sure he understands? Maybe I should tell him it's not for every time, just for sometimes. He is practicing his walking right with God. He is practicing coming to Jesus. He is practicing praying. He is practicing kneeling unto Him. How could I ever have thought to stop him?

It's not about it being perfect, and it's not about how it looks to others! He is practicing out his faith...and I prayed today as I played that his whole LIFE this boy would practice running to the altar, unthinking what others may think. Never waiting until he perfectly understands the draw, the work...as if any of us do. 

Now hot tears unexpectedly started pouring down my dumb face. 

Because I swear that while my mind and heart were focusing on all the things I could see, all the things around me, I sensed very clearly Him drawing my mind to something unseen, something out of mind. 

I envisioned out of nowhere my father's kind, creased face, and me crying to him about my four teenage girls. I suddenly felt all the overwhelm, all the insufficiency, all the failure, all the shortcoming in myself in raising these young women perfectly. And I heard my dad's voice that I haven't been able to hear for so long say, "Hunnie, you're just practicing. You've never raised four teenage girls before. You are practicing your righteousness unto Him. You're not failing. You're not perfect. You love them. He loves them. He loves YOU. You're just practicing."

I felt a mix of my father/Father releasing me through God's grace the pressure of performing perfectly my mothering. Of performing at all. 

I'm just practicing, my very best. I'm not winning for Him, not performing for Him. I'm walking with Him, giving my all. 

And I can't really explain it, but that 30 second vision and voice and visual truly released me. 

Every time I miss a note, I'm not giving up a failure. I'm humbled, I try again, I'm practicing. 

Why haven't I realized the same about parenting teenagers until He graciously pointed it out today? 

I guess I needed Him to show me. His unexpected time and unexpected way. Him somehow doing it alongside memories of my dad was His extra love. 

SO...are you really following who you say you are? Are you following the true Jesus, the one who took up His cross? Or are you following the gods of our culture, promising happiness and health and wealth and then frustrated when you find Him sharing scars instead?

And whatever it is...don't wait till you can do it perfectly. Don't do it, or NOT do it, unto men, or in ways that protect our pride. We're just practicing the Jesus way, which is humble, which is unto our Heavenly Father, which is HE is strong in our willing weakness....Keep practicing. 

Pastor Matt said it all better and different :) I'll share the service links tomorrow! 

 

Lessons for a Pastor's Wife

Alright, somehow we are heading into all the anniversaries of THREE YEARS of Wellspring Church plant...of Matt becoming a full-time pastor, of the beginning of a very new season for our family...of being a pastor's wife!

I was always "Ma Pas" in Haiti, the madame of the pastor...but having your husband lead a Bible school in Haiti, and then lead a seminary stateside is very different than having him shepherd the church! 

What was always teaching has becoming doing. What was always equipping the goers has become being the goers too! What was teaching the pastors in the classroom has becoming walking alongside family around the deathbed, answering the hard questions of the suffering, praying with the frightened, preaching the steady living Gospel on stages and in prisons and in homes and in tears and with sacrifice. 

I'm still learning a million things, but if I had to boil three years down to three things I've learned, here they are. 

Whatever kind of week, day, or life you've had, go to church anyway. 

Go to Bible study. Go to small group. Take your kids. Go with your friend.

Go wrinkled. Go late. Go a MESS. Go in jeans. Go every time. 

The steady, faithful dripping of His perfect Word and His imperfect people actually, truly, daily, deeply TRANSFORMS US. 

If we want to "do not conform to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind" this is how. This is how. 

Bring your mama's best casseroles on the good days. Bring your tissue box on the bad. Bring your smile when you have it and your junk when it's heavy. Come when you feel like it and come harder when you don't. Be honest. Be real. Be faithful. Be there. 

There isn't much we can do in life to change our circumstances or wounds or the things we are going through...but what we CAN DO--show up where His Word is being taught and where His trying-to-be-faithfulpeople are gathering--can change everything. It laces everything with grace. It filters everything with His perspective. It breaks the cycles and lies in ways we cannot on our own. 

Imma be there. Sometimes at His throne and sometimes at His hem and sometimes begging scraps under His table. And you're gonna see me good, bad and ugly. But you're gonna see me.

Maybe the sheep have teeth. He's got it covered.

About two years in, a long-time pastor's wife stopped me in the Kroger parking lot. After catching up on life, she asked about our church and how it was going. I told her with a smile that while there had been lots of challenges, the spirit of the church is so incredibly sweet and loving and we are blessed to be a part of them. 

She blinked at me unconvincingly. Like I was lying to her.

"Truly," I said, "It has quickly become our precious family! It's a special place!"  

After a long pause, she warmly said, "Clearly you haven't been there long enough to see that the sheep have teeth.  You'll learn." 

How silly and naive I felt walking away from that conversation. Clearly I was wrong, and just didn't know any better. 

Over the next few weeks I noticed seeds of doubt had been planted in my mind and heart. Were the people speaking kindly to my face complaining about me behind my back? Did the church we love only pretend to love us too? Did I think things were going well but everyone else was complaining?

I started to feel defensive of Matt. Defensive for my children. Should I be so freely sharing our lives and hearts with biting sheep? Why am I so transparent? When I started looking for the "teeth", the joy of pouring out our lives alongside the church quickly soured.

One Sunday morning it was bothering me so much that I begging the Lord to let me in on the wisdom. "Show me the teeth so I know who and what to look out for! I don't want to be naive! I've gotta look out for my family!"

Stop. He said. 

He always does that to me when I least expect it. Cuts me off from my frantic rant with a word that cuts to the heart. 

Stop. You're looking for teeth when you should be looking for me. Look at me. Serve for me. Love for me. I've got you. Stop.

And as quickly as the doubt was planted and all the roots it was already forming...it was pulled. And as foolish as I felt in that parking lot for being wrong, this time I felt relieved and full of joy.  His voice and truth do that.

Maybe the sheep DO have teeth! Maybe they're sweet and sincere. Maybe they're gossiping. Maybe they're praising. Maybe they adore us, and maybe they're looking to get us out.

Lord's got that. He's got them. He's got me. And I'm not looking for teeth or pouring out our lives from a place of paranoia or bitterness. 

I'm looking for Him. And He's good.

Not cause I'm the pastor's wife. Not cause they're the pastor's kids.

The pressure to dress, behave, perform, speak, and act like the "pastor's family should" can be overwhelming at times. I'm sure we're not living up. I'm sure we let people down. 

But the Lord stopped my tongue right at the start from ever adding, "because you're the pastor's kid" to ANY directive. (Being a missionary first helped me with this! NOT cause we're missionaries! Because we're Christ-followers!) He helped me from the beginning not to worry about the pastor's wife mold or to nag Matt into some pastor mold.

We're working the JESUS mold. I wanna look like Him. 

I want my kids conformed to Him, to focus on looking like HIS kids. Not to look and sound like good pastor's kids. I don't want them doing ONE thing to please a church culture. I want our aim to be pleasing the One who enlisted us.

The kids and I serve at the church and are there every chance we get because we are committed to the church, His bride, and serving her. 

Matt's got a church in the prison because Jesus told us to remember the prisoners. 

I pray with people because we are called to engage in intercessory prayer for the people and causes on God's heart. 

We tell people about Jesus because we are called to share the Gospel of Jesus with all those He puts in our path. 

We are careful what we eat and wear and watch and how we speak and spend our time and money because we are called to lead holy, righteous lives that exemplify the nature and character of God.

If I can't blame it on Jesus, I'm not blaming it on anyone. If we aren't doing it for Jesus, I'm wasting my time doing it for the approval of man.

So basically? I'm learning the same thing pastor's-wifing as I'm EVER learning :) Missionary, president's wife, pastor's wife, in good and bad...The freedom of trusting Him. The simplicity of trusting in Him.

I can trust Him enough to RUN to Him and His people, every single time. I can trust Him enough to bring Him my messes instead of working it out on my own. I can trust Him enough with His people. I can trust Him with the wolves and the sheep and the birds and the flowers. And I can trust Him enough to spend my days showing others what He has shown me! 

What's He teaching YOU?

 

Ignore me, under Your mercy

​It continues to be the things in life that make me question most what I believe to be true that are the most refining. 

I saw a quote the other day that “Sometimes you are wrong, and the Bible is right. And then sometimes the Bible is right and you are wrong.”

Motherhood is always that. Refining. And far more now with these teenage years than when they were younger.

It is easier to trust the Lord with my kids when it’s with winning or losing ball games, finding friends, and in the milestones. It’s easier to trust Him with the daily protection and the daily care.

It is far harder now to trust Him with their cars late at night and with their swooning and broken hearts, and with bad influences, and college processes, and concerning choices.  It is harder to trust Him with seasons of bad attitudes. 

It’s easier to find my worth in Him when i love you mommy’s are frequent, and when they turn to me for everything and tell me everything. Much harder to stand firmly in who I am in Him when I am their safe space to treat poorly, or when I am ruining their lives.

These teenage years, they are certain that you know nothing, and the more you try to help and to support, the more you start to believe them. I am almost daily having to ask Christ and them for grace and forgiveness and help in understanding.  I hope I am not messing them up. The world is a very hard one to raise them in.

When Stan Key was here, he spoke one night about how we are exiles in Babylon as Christians. This world is not our home, but it is the land we are in. We will live in this foreign land and we will die here. Our neighbors are to be loved, not avoided and not followed. Our truth is to be firmly His, not the culture we live in. These things feel easier now I am older than when I was 17. Maybe I am firmer in my faith. Maybe I am just older. Maybe I am too tired to care about all the things I did before.

We are exiles, raising our children to be Christ-followers in a land that does not follow Him, and these teenage years, so many pressures, temptations, and lies shout. 

Someone told me the teenage years are pay and pray, pay and pray, and man alive were they right! We can barely keep up with the requests and needs and wants of 2-4 teenage girls….but more I can barely keep up in carrying them in prayer! 

I always marveled at the idea of “praying without ceasing” and it is no longer a mystery! Parenting through the launch of our children is a continual prayer conversation. 

I’m so thankful our prayers can be mumbled and jumbled and sarcastic and weary.  They can be muttered and meshed and incoherent and bipolar. I’m so thankful our prayers can be nagging or unexplained or unjustified or in process or limited perspective. 

How many times I have called out to Him a long list of passionate facts, only to add at the end that of course I could be entirely wrong about everything I just prayed and if so, to please ignore me, ignore me under His mercy.  

How many times I have nagged Him about children it would be harmful to nag.  How many times I have pointed out the same issues to Him when it would have been infuriating to point them out to the culprit. How many times I have seen Him minister to hearts that I have fought not to try to control! 

He works best with me on the sidelines praying, that is for sure. So often as I pour out my frustrations with one of the kids on God, He reminds me how well and patiently He has loved me, stubborn and blind, just like them.  Every time I grow frustrated or weary, He reminds me that His steadfast love has never yet failed me…could not I show them that? 

And still in the middle of every day as I navigate lunches and carpools and clean uniforms and practice schedules and appointments…. As I navigate anxious hearts, and late homework assignments, and messy rooms and grouchy moods… there are so many sweet reminders of the richness. 

The richness of children, many. The richness of friends who are living life faithfully, all of us in our corners, all of us together, not alone. The richness of a bold and anointed and Bible-teaching husband. The richness of a heaven-culture church in a foreign land, being The Church so well. The richness of nine healthy people under one roof, living in relative peace and lots of laughter and His daily provision. The richness of the world not being our home, and the information of life being information, not Truth. The richness of a God who sees and tenderly hears messy prayers, and doesn’t just see and listen, but moves. 

These hardest seasons… What is He teaching you? How is He sustaining you? How can we spend these last few minutes trusting Him, wildly? 

There will be times when your Heavenly Father will appear to you as an unkind friend, but remember –– He is not. 

The time will come when everything will be explained. When God appears to be shrouded, will you hang on with confidence in Him?

There will be times when your Father in Heaven will appear as if He were an unnatural father, as if He were callous and indifferent, but remember— He is not. 

If all you see is a shadow on the face of the Father right now, hang onto the fact that He will ultimately give you clear understanding and will fully justify Himself and everything He has allowed into your life.

Stand firm in faith that what Jesus said is true, although in the meantime you do not understand what God is doing.

O Chambers

our intimate possession

 oh MAN I miss the creativity and bandwidth of writing. 

I am 99% sure I know what has sucked all of those creative and bandwidthy things out of me.

"Starts with a T", Matt would say. "End is EENAGERS."

I love them. I pour everything into them. I serve them, pay for them, pray for them, stay up at night over them, get up early for them, drive them, listen to them, clean up after them. Pay and pray, pay and pray. I love them. dearly. 

But they are killing me slowly, the eye rolls, sighs, pushing the limits, messes, and how dumb they think I am. I canNOT keep up with the moods, the emotions, the angst, the friends, the boys, the choices, the schedule, the bills. Cannot keep up.

I REMEMBER, Mom. If I could call you and apologize, I WOULD be calling every single day. 

I'd call my dad if I could and apologize to him, too, and to him for her. 

SO, I'm apologizing to you all for my horrific, entitled, mistaken teenage attitude, and one day, if the Lord gives me the days, they will apologize, too.

It is a hilarious joke of the Lord's, when I told Him I dreaded and could not do the teenage years, that He has given me FOUR TEENAGE GIRLS. at once. He is getting me back for all the things. 

What I'm learning, since Greg always asks, is how much I need His help...how much they are His...how much He can be trusted, how much I have to be unoffendable, and how much who I am is in HIM and not in them. I'm learning how "be anxious for nothing" means this too. How LOTS of Scripture means this, too.

It's hard when all you are has been pouring everything into them for so long. When you literally grew them inside yourself and have given them everything out of yourself for so long.  When your full time job for 17 years has been pointing them to Jesus. 

When you see them forgetting. See them confusing. See them questioning. See them struggling. 

Ah, the joys of Emma, throwing a tantrum over being hungry and the puzzle piece not fitting in just right. Give me toddlerhood.

How they remind me of me, these girls! What they say that I have said. How they remind me of the old sin nature within myself. How the Lord is patient and loving and tender with me. How His love is SO deep and wide even when I chose me again and again. 

O Chambers reminded me this week that our faithfulness must be tested, because it can only become our intimate possession through conflict. Believe steadfastly on Him, he says, and everything that challenges you will strengthen your faith. 

Everything. 

These dear girls, and the challenge and angst of these years, can kill me or strengthen my faith, all depending on whether I believe steadfastly on Him.

These tests will either prove my faith right, or will kill it...and I'm too stubborn for all that dying and bitterness.

Ask my girls. 

How Christians Should Live in Babylon

 

The Real Jesus, the Cross, and His Scars

 We just wrapped up a priceless five days with Rev. Stan Key, a friend who we met in Haiti and whom I serve alongside on the board of OMS and have truly grown to love. He preached so many good messages, but this one was my favorite and I wanted to share.  His simple and bold unpacking of the transformative Gospel was JUST what I needed. 

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.

free indeed

It took all day Tuesday to cover, but Wednesday I got to return to the prison an hour from here for another baptism.  Imma have a hard time EVER saying no to these. Who gets to go into prison to witness prisoners set free!

I would have bought tickets. 

Forty men this time were baptized, one after another, some under street names and some under the ones mama gave them. There were no families there this time, and being family for those men was a heavy gift. I collected all the names and stories I could after, tears still soaking my t-shirt at seeing man after man brought out of the water, free indeed. Singing praises together. 

washed in the water

washed in the blood

I'm as good as new

oh hallelujah

It always hits me, singing about the blood in Emmanuel's veins...the murders and the lacks of forgiveness both sent Him to the cross. The rapes and the gossip. The sinful attitudes and the sinful actions. The worry. The complaining. The lack of trust. The drug deals. The Thefts. 

It ALL was enough for God to send His Son. I need it just as badly. It was shed just as much for me. 

I was just as lost. I am just as lost without Him. 

My brothers in Him are every bit as free. 

It's powerful.

As men were being baptized, "CONVICT" printed on the back of all their soaking shirts, the Lord drew my attention to a GIANT of a man standing in the doorway.  Not in. But watching. 

He was huge in stature and huge in shoulders and arms and chest...with a black plastic beaded cross around his neck and white t-shirt.  Glasses.

I asked Matt who he was, and Matt, who teaches at the prison almost every Wednesday now, told me his name. Some kind of gang enforcer in his past life.  I asked him to introduce me later, but as soon as the last man was brought out of the water, Matt was surrounded by brothers checking in. 

I spoke to a few men, and then saw the giant man was still alone.

I never ask them what they did (I sure am thankful strangers don't ask me what I've done!), just where their families are and to tell me about the people they love.  The church prison ministry makes fun of me for this, but I decided from before I ever started going to prison that I would approach every brother there as if they stole some kid's bike.

I introduced myself, starting straight up into his face, and asked him where his family was.

California, he said quietly. I came a long, long way to screw up this bad.

Jesus came further to make it right, I heard myself say. 

He knew. 

He told me how much he loved coming to church. The dingy, dark gym in the middle of the prison.

Life out there he says, pointing his head towards the cell block, is all struggle, all the time. All fighting. All struggling. All effort. But you come here, like today, and it's just joy. Everybody's thinking about the same thing. Just Jesus.

I think about Wellspring. The sunny, peaceful sanctuary. 

Do I come there with such joy...a place where the striving ceases and we're all about Jesus?  Do I come there for the same freedom my new friend comes to the gym for? Do I come there for the same washing? Do I bring the same awe and grateful heart over what He's done? 

One by one, these brothers with 2 and 3 life sentences have been becoming members at Wellspring.  Several told me this time seeing my Wellspring shirt, "Hey! I'm a member at Wellspring, too!" and man does it make my heart glad.

I have the sweetest picture of all my Wellspring brothers and sisters together from Wednesday, grins as big as heaven on everybody's face. Wish I could show you.  The Lord isn't finished.

I'm so thankful what He asks us to do--feed the poor, love the orphan and widow, visit the prisoners, speak peace, choose joy--somehow always blesses us back more. 

grateful

 We have been to the end of the world and back, pretty close :). The last 10 days the seven kids and I headed to North Carolina, the first half with Uncle Martin and Aunt Sharon and the second half with Aunt Lisa and the cousins.

It was full (but not too full) of hiking and waterfalls, corn on the cob and motorcycle rides, evening walks and homemade ice cream, precious time with Aunt Sharon and Uncle Martin being loving and patient and good family.  Then it was full of cousin time and pizza and lake swims and paddle boarding and Sleeping Queens and skeeball and chicken wings and so much sweetness and chaos. We stopped and saw Aunt Elisa and her family on the way, and dropped Lily in Birmingham on the way home for Motion Conference. 

It was not exactly restful :) But it was all things classic summer vacation, and the time we had with Martina and Sharon and with Lisa and the girls was SO incredibly priceless. I hated missing life at home...but I needed it. The step away. The different. The family. The refresh. 

And I felt very rich. In family. In children. In teens. In sweet small things. In less busy-ness. In empty schedule days. In slowing down. In being outside all day every day. In Him and His seen-ness.

I'm grateful.

I see Hope

I have the sweetest Sunday school class. 

I hadn't been in Sunday school since I was a little girl.  Three hour church services and little ones kept me from being a part of Sunday school in Haiti, and our beloved church before Wellspring didn't do Sunday school, just small groups.  

So our random, transparent, unconcerned with raw, with tears, with sharing thoughts and testimonies and deep-digging Sunday school class has been a totally unexpected blessing in my life.  We start late. We finish late. We gently correct each other and unknowingly encourage each other and often redirect each other, and I cherish it. 

Today, Holy Spirit came. 

I don't know if anyone else was pierced. But we shared and studied Romans 5:1-5, and when it talks suffering, it is uncomfortable, because there is suffering in that circle. Loss. Infertility. Tumors. Surgeries. Deaths. Brinks of divorce. 

Our little class is sitting on the harsh edge of genuine, painful, ongoing suffering, and the Bible has the audacity to tell us the greatest gift is we have peace with God through Jesus. To tell us we rejoice in our sufferings...they produce endurance, character, hope...and that HOPE will never put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. 

Hope will never put us to shame. 

It will look embarrassing to the world. It might look foolish. Having hope. But Hope in Him will never let us down.  

We shared more hard, more thoughts, more applications, more pondering, and then Wanda, one of my favorite prayer warriors, shared a story of an old woman in her past who was perseverant in prayer. 

For decades Wanda heard her pray for her lost children. Pray they'd go to church. Pray they'd turn to Jesus. Three times a week, every week, Wanda would find this old woman at church praying and praying for her children. 

Yes, I thought. Perseverance in Prayer. 

And then one day, with nothing externally changing, Wanda got to church for hour of prayer, and something had radically changed. The woman who was always praying and crying and begging for her children had entirely changed her prayer. In her 90's, the woman sat with a huge smile of peace on her face. 

I....I...I...I see HOPE, she said. 

I see Hope. 

She died not long after, her prayer every day now filled with the same phrase muttered over and over. 

She saw something that had not yet materialized, and she clung to HOPE.  

Wanda says that one child and grandchild at a time has come to the church, has come to Jesus. The woman's entire family is following Jesus....NONE that she saw. 

He showed her something unseen, and she believed it hook, line and sinker. 

I was pierced by Wanda's words. Instantly, I saw hope in several situations I've always seen and prayed lost. Permanent. Done. 

What situations do I need to stop seeing the reality of and start seeing His?  

He brought two very quickly to my mind. Maybe He's been asking me to cling to HOPE instead of reality for a very long time. 

We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Suffering produces not just endurance, but hope...and His hope will never let us down.