if you catch me crying

The last few days have been e-m-o-t-i-o-n-a-l.

Yes, I just had a baby, and yes, I'm not quite adjusted to being up every 2-3 hours at night.  And yes, I'm 35, and that's not the same as the 25 I was when we were doing this with Lily, and yes, there are three other kiddos at home also adjusting that add to that emotion!  Emotional makes sense, I'm trying to grace myself, and I've only had to apologize a few times for being a little crazy.

But more than those good reasons, I've been feeling emotional because of His great grace and provision for our family, overwhelmed by how His children have been and are being His hands and feet that we so badly need right now.

When Jen and Paul visited the Haiti field in the fall, we had them for dinner to get to know them better, and Jen mentioned coming to Haiti to work in several different maternity clinics for the month of July.  We had just found out we were pregnant, and due to deliver in July.  But it wasn't new to the Lord, who had it all worked out long before we did.

And then again in January, Jen and Paul were here, and we talked some more, and she said she'd be willing to help us deliver...and then in April they were here, and visited the hospital the Lord knew we'd never go to together, and we had His perfect peace.

I'm emotional because I am sitting here this morning in my home, holding a fearfully and wonderfully made little man, and the night not so long ago that I finally knew he was coming, Matt walked across the driveway and called into Paul and Jen's window, and Jen was there.

I'm emotional because Jen was there.  

Because God had opened doors and made ways and moved hearts and provided in dozens of ways over a dozen months, exactly what we needed (and then some), because God provided exactly where we needed it exactly when we needed it.

And then some.  I'm emotional because she didn't just come from Oregon to Haiti the hottest month of the year the week of riots using all her vacation days and STAY next door...but because she and Paul also brought vaccinations.  I'm overwhelmed because they also played and chatted and loved on my kids for hours.  I'm overwhelmed because she also checked on Ben everyday, helped me cook Lori's bday supper, let Ben sleep on her, helped me through his circumcision, checked on his eye boogies, answered all of Lily's many questions, played Tensies with Nora, let us be their friends, too.

I'm overwhelmed because I love being Jesus to others and ask Him daily to use me however He will to be His hands and feet.  

But when someone so freely and powerfully and beautifully and sacrificially is so JESUS to me...when I see His great love and provision, intimately for me...well, I'm allowed to cry. 

For we have so great a Physician that He meets us right where we are, not only as our Deliverer, as our Healer, not only as our Friend, but also with utterly unmerited grace and mercy in our time of need.  He sent me what I needed when I needed it, and she willingly was used, and held my hand and prayed for me and loved my family and shared her life to boot.  

I would have much rather kept Paul and Jen today than seen them off, but I am by far not their only mission field, and I'm just so THANKFUL for Jen and Ben and our great God who knows...and cares...

So if you catch me crying, it's not because I'm having a postpartum breakdown.  

It's because I'm holding fast.

And since we have a great High Priest who rules over God's house, 

let us go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts fully trusting him...

holding tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted.  

Let us think of ways to motivate one another acts of love and good works, 

and not neglect meeting together, 

but encourage one another, especially now.

Hebrews 10