On Thursday night I was so burdened for funding for Emmaus (this big ole' family is a big ole' family, and this crisis and it's COST is no joke) that I started to work on a funding outreach for Friday. Friday morning, I worked and worked, planning, writing, re-writing, getting a much-needed ask ready.
As I was writing, a FB message request kept blocking my script. I kept pushing the request away and thinking about all the funding needs, along with Matt's strong sense and desire to actually give every staff member a BONUS at the end of this month to help cover the insane increase in travel expenses this past five weeks. How in the world?? Working my hardest...
Before publishing the need, I stepped away from it for a minute like I always do, and checked my messages.
"Hey, the Holy Spirit keeps reminding me you guys are in need at Emmaus. How can I give this morning?"
Before I ever asked, in the middle of my best efforts, before EVEN telling anyone but the Lord, and within a few hours of when I felt particularly burdened, the Lord was clearly communicating the need and moving in hearts to meet it.
This weekend, we realized that with all of the above and beyond helping in this above and beyond time of crisis, our family's personal support account is lower than it has ever been. Simply unable to handle one more burden right now, I just gave it to Him. If we're where He has us for such a time as this, if we're being faithful, if we're giving as He leads us, then...then He'll just have to take care of it.
This morning in the middle of chapel I had another message request, this time from an old boss I haven't spoken to in YEARS.
Do you have a link to donate to you and Matt specifically? I got off and want to start giving again!
I'm not kidding...this NEVER happens. Never.
It wasn't like maybe the request was actually from her. TODAY. Right now. Out of NOWHERE. It simply wasn't.
It was the Lord, JUST reminding me, JUST reminding me, that He is in it. And aware. And LOVES the people around us even more than we do. HE KNOWS what in the world is going on, what it's going to take, what tomorrow brings.
And He is going to take care of us. All.
I've just had enough with all of this up and down, daily, moment by moment striving.
On my own strength by my own provision, I am going to have an ulcer or turn 100. Following all the words of each day, all the fears, all the threats, all the lies, all the truths, all the stories, all the heartbreak, all day, every day, day in, day out....on my own strength by my own provision, I'm simply done now. I can't DO this.
Dear Gertha almost did me in today.
She is a rock. She embodies His grace. She is solid and steady and loving and faithful and courageous and unwavering and wise.
And she is shattered by one thing today, after lunch as the girls are off to play and we are sitting for a rare and quiet moment...shattered.
The education her single mother could never provide for her, the horrors of her childhood growing up homeless with no provider and living in fear and being pushed from one hovel to another...because of all that she has FOUGHT and SACRIFICED and GIVEN to make sure that HER daughter, Thaliya WAS going to have a home. One home. Gertha's home, paid for BLOCK by BLOCK by Gertha since Gertha was 15.
And she WAS GOING to go to school. A GOOD school, every day, no. matter. WHAT. it cost Gertha.
Gertha has gone hungry for that dream, gone without for that dream, given everything for that dream, heavens, today Gertha has even ALREADY PAID for that dream.
And like EVERY innocent child today in Haiti, with a few evil men blocking the dreams and sacrifices and livelihoods of MANY, Thaliya is sitting at home.
Gertha came here, watching Lily and Sofie and Nora and Nikki homeschool, and Thaliya is at home, playing in the dirt.
Like Gertha did.
It kills her. And that kills me, for this woman, this woman has carried me FAR, and loved my children above herself.
And I can do NOTHING about it.
At two-thirty, like everyday, the troop and I walked up to the generator house, little sticky hands on the tank, measuring out the very bottom left. Praying for TiLou, who left last night at 8 pm and still wasn't home, still was unheard of. Praying for safety, praying for fuel, praying for God's provision.
Praying for His way and His time. Praying for His people.
We promised everyone the 15th...we'd decide by the 15th if we had fuel to keep moving forward. If we didn't, to cancel professors, cancel visitors, cancel classes.
A few weeks ago, the 15th seemed a LIFETIME away. Oh, Surely we'd have fuel by then. Surely things would be looking up by then. Surely children would be off to school, surely things would be better, normal, back. Surely.
Fuel would be our fleece. Surely.
At 3:30, the scene we've been praying so hard for for WEEKS double-took us. TiLou pulled in, seventeen (17. SEVENTEEN) hours at the gas station, honking like a mad man, with 352 precious gallons of diesel fuel tied to the truck.
That donation to Emmaus isn't going to take care of all these precious people. That one new donor isn't going to get our family where we need to be. That 352 gallons of liquid gold isn't going to solve any of the issues or get Thalyia to school.
But He is AWARE of what concerns us each today.
And He is at work.
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