when I'm looking

The Lord's really been showing me these last couple of days little impressions of Him being at work. Ways that only He can. Deep, untouchable places you can only surrender and then be amazed how He changes things.

I had decided this week, without Matt being here (he's been off all week preaching up a storm at Asbury University...can't wait to hear and share more about that!), that I was going to spend every morning, M-F, giving my all to homeschool with a sweet and sanctified spirit, and that I was going to spend every afternoon/evening being Jesus whatever, however, whenever, whomever arose. I had a blank week and a full tank of gas and four willing kiddos and told the Lord to put us in.

Man alive, by tonight we were out of gas from Mama to BenBen to the van!  But it's been such a good week of listening hard for the Lord's voice (which I sometimes totally forget to do) and of going where He showed us, freely (which I'm often too busy to look).  

When you ASK for that--just to be used by Him--there are no complaints as you pour out...in fact, every opportunity I had felt instead like a grateful answer to prayer. I told Him to deal me in, and He did. (are you allowed to use gambling terminology in regard to the Lord? eeeeeee). 

This week reminded me of that profound and awe-inspiring truth. We have a Father-God who deals us in when we ask Him to. Who pours us out when we lift our jars. Who weaves us into what He wants to do simply because we put our lives in His fingers. Who nestles us in places where He is needed, right now, simply because we're only rooted in Him. 

One day we got to make dinner and spend some time with a brand-new first time mama in the middle of the hurricane. We got to love on kiddos home from school with parents at work. We got to dog sit for a traveling family, babysit badly-needed for a friend, and spend an afternoon listening and praying with a hurting sister. We got to help cook dinner for our small group, take dinner and make cards and catch up with and love on dear friends struggling through and isolated by covid. We got to spend an afternoon with a woman at the very bottom of her pit while Sofie and Nora and Ben played hard with her kiddos. I got to get to know a bunch of people at a meeting I wouldn't usually go to, make a meaningful phone call that I was nervous about making, and work with a web of people to get a stranded stranger in New Orleans desperately needed help. 

In all those little things, I saw God at work. Opening doors I didn't know existed for the man with the braided beard in NOLA. Showing up in conversations I didn't know how to navigate with the right words to say. Five covid-test refund checks from our last trip to Haiti in the mailbox that exactly covered all the extra  groceries this week. I saw God at work through that baby, through those kiddos who just bloom with someone to listen. I saw God work in a man who was sure he'd NEVER been loved and accepted by a "church lady" and got to hang out in some dear one's low places long enough to see the Lord pouring grace...shining a small light at the end of the tunnels.

And tonight, we'd had plans to love on and feed another friend who last second had to cancel, and the kids and I made Pad Thai together instead and did bubble baths and turned the living room into a movie theater for Cinderella...and it was such a sweet, peaceful end to a sweet, busy week.

God didn't work any more this week than He has any other.

But it sure seemed like it to me, because I was LOOKING.

Praise the Lord for a God who works on stage and in the dark, secret places...for the deep and wide love He has for His people...and for the heart He has to show THAT love in THOSE places through us.