the missionfield in your lap

Two hours earlier than our normal Sunday morning, I packed up the 7 kiddos and headed to a different church for the commissioning of our friends...the people we bought the house from.  They head to Uganda next week with five of their six kiddos, and it was such a privilege to be part of the community sending them off.

Kind of a bawl-your-head-off privilege. 

I've been in kind of a dark place, and the Lord used their commissioning to shed some light. 

As they stood on stage with fifty others, being sent all over the place, it was all I could do to stay in my seat.

I'd WAY rather be heading to Africa than being handed the mission field in my lap. 

I'm so homesick for Haiti...I'd rather be in a mud hut picking bugs out of my rice than figuring out how to get everyone where they need to go this week. I'd way rather share the Gospel with a witchdoctor and go out in the villages with a dozen students, I'd rather hike two hours to a mountain church than share the Gospel with dozens of new neighbors here in Madison, Mississippi...than sit in the air conditioning trying to teach kiddos how to fold laundry and do fractions and memorize Scripture and work through tweenage drama with a godly perspective.

I LOVE the foreign mission field. I was made for it. I long for it. I MISS IT.

And as they were heading out this morning, all fifty, all over, I found myself realizing that the Lord has somehow messed up my current calling.

"LORD," I broke. "I wanna GO. Why am I not GOING!? Here I AM, Lord, send me too!"

And as His still small voice often does when I'm knowing the truth and not wanting to hear it...

I AM sending you to the mission field in your lap.  

I'd rather GO than STAY. I'd rather sweat than go to Kroger. I'd rather suffer for the Gospel in the dirty, lean corners of the world than suffer for the Gospel in mundane days and ways in this culture.

But man alive, if I even begin to ask Him, "Lord, what is my missionfield?" I can't even get the question out before it's grabbing me by the hand, following at my back asking the 1000th question of the day, before it's coming to find me in the night.

I have ALWAYS wanted my missionfield to ALWAYS be the barefoot, simple, rugged, adventurous foreign missionfield. I have always wanted my "enemies" to be cannibals. I have always wanted my life's work to be in the dust with bare-butt babies and open-doors community.

 I have NEVER dreamed of it being seven kiddos in Mississippi, big 'ole homeschool family that piles out of the minivan in a never-ending line. I never wanted it to be four teenager-y emotional girls, wiping tears at bedtime... never once dreamed of it being foster care and the brutal ups and downs that come with it.

I wanted it to be one thing,  and it's something SO different, and I didn't realize until this morning that my big struggle hasn't been with moving or kiddos or fatigue or babies.  It has been accepting His clear calling for this season of my life with peace. with trust. even with joy that is possible in Him.

I've been fighting it, the very clear God-given missionfield in my lap...not wanting to BE that person, not wanting to accept this assignment, and so my battle hasn't been with flesh-and-blood as it may seem, but with Him.

After the commissioning, we all rushed over to our church, none of us wanting to miss that either, and Pastor Elijah was with me. He challenged us, instead of using the Gospel to satisfy our comforts, to be comforted by the Gospel. Instead of using it to get things our way, to make HIS way our Gospel...our way.

Instead of me deciding what burdens I want to take on, deciding where I would best be used, instead of me determining to whom I am sent, instead of me shoving onto stage for my own commissioning...following Jesus means allowing HIM in His wisdom to determine those things, and being whole-heartedly obedient in WHATEVER missionfield He has given me...even the hardest ones.

For me, today, the hardest missionfield isn't going to the ends of the earth. It's staying in the one He has put me in.  

People used to think we were crazy, off to Haiti, giving up our lives for the Gospel to strangers, people we owed nothing to.  

People now think we're crazy, taking on extra kids when we already have "too many", sacrificing in many ways for needs and hearts that are not our obligation.  

He has always asked of us crazy things.

The One we are following was rather known and killed for crazy, so it shouldn't be that surprising.

I gotta stop trying to get commissioned for a different work, and accept with a whole and faithful heart the work He has given me, the work in my lap.

Thankful for the painful and needed commissioning happening in my own heart today...and to be holding the ropes of those abroad and those next door.  

Keep checking back, because this is going to be a series. If this is my mission field, I've got some stories to share...