I don't know when or how I'm gonna be there for my dad in this radiation journey starting now, because this journey was a part of no one's plan, and it keeps changing, anyway. I don't know how he's battling cancer the exact same place my mom did, exactly 20 years later, and I don't know how I'm having a baby at my age during the exact seven weeks he's battling there. I have NO plan for how to do that well or any way to reschedule it.
I don't know how much longer we're going to have extra loves at home, because I didn't know we were going to have extra loves at home, nor would have planned for it, and surely not now. But each day, truly, the Lord has made it clear that we are being loving hands and stable feet where they are needed, and being right in the middle of that trumps my plans. We don't know how much longer, but I know when they ask each day who is picking them up from school and where they are going to sleep tonight, that we are...and until something major changes or the Lord makes another roof appear, it's this roof.
I don't know if that's gonna happen before baby, because I don't even know when in the world we are having this baby, nor that we'd have extras in our last month of pregnancy, nor that we were having this baby in the first place! I don't even have days numbered to countdown, or much of a plan when the time comes, because there are so many factors we can't control, and so I'm trusting...as I did some long hard nights in Haiti, unsure if the doctor would come in time, unsure if the tension of the country would allow us to even get to the hospital, unsure if Sharon would make it...I'm trusting that as He did then, the Lord will perfectly orchestrate when this baby is coming, and how. Testimony of my life was Ben's coming, so I'm not gonna panic now with Emma's, like the Lord can't do again what He has already done.
Emma is going to be Emma because Emmaus Haiti was and is such a huge part of our life that Emma alone never got to be a part of, and because Emma means "complete and full."
It seemed like the perfect name because we had thought we were complete and full, and now with her coming, we truly WERE complete and full...and yet here we are trying to navigate 8 plates around a table for 6 for dinner, almost 7 young hearts to shepherd, and a needed 9 seatbelts within days.
Just the fact that I told the Lord months ago with this new baby that we were complete and full (read: DONE, Lord) is amusing me now, because He is reminding me these heavy-leaning days that "complete and full" is in HIM and in HIM alone.
It is not in our children, it is not in a number, it is not even for us to decide. It is not in a plan or a success or a venture. It is not in a home or in a bank or in a location or a hobby or in self-care or in a profession or in a certain future.
Complete and Full is not a plan...It is in Him.
And I'm so thankful that while my tank might be running low...that while my energy and strength may feel insufficient...that while everything feels stretched so thin, that "complete and full" is being offered to me IN HIM continually....that I might be an overflowing vessel of His ALL the same.
Dirty floors, endless laundry, dishes in the sink, fat feet and sore back, lots of kiddos with lots of emotions, husband heading out of town for 8 days, falling asleep during story time...I carry "complete and full in Christ" and the joy and strength that provides for each moment.
What kind of God offers that but ours?
I don't have many answers to questions on the coming days...but.
Emma.
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