in the mix

There is a dear girl in our new church community who went to the hospital a few weeks ago with stomach pain, discovered a ruptured appendix, then sepsis, died within hours of arriving. 12 years old. My heart is so broken for this precious family. 

As we walk through the anniversaries of battling for Nora's little life just a year ago this December and January, it has me all kinds of scarred. 

Nora's final surgery (January 30th, 2023) was just five days before dad died on February 4th, and I lived those terrifying and brutal weeks clinging to Him and pushing numbly forward, praying all my prayers out loud and under every breath, present with my dying Dad in my heart while so far away in my body, far from Matt, not really allowing myself to acknowledge how bad Nora was...how dangerous her situation, how heavy your many prayers, how miraculous His hand on her little life. 

I've had the privilege the last 2 days of sitting on zoom (half with a toddler in my lap) for the One Mission Society winter board meetings, and the stories and burdens from around the world are powerful and heavy and inspiring and encouraging. If I had fifty lives I'd be a missionary in fifty countries and still wish for more! I continue to pray that some or all of our children will serve as missionaries, here or there or anywhere...following Jesus IS a going and living and telling calling.  

This week we celebrated Lady Jane's birthday, and we were all overwhelmed again what a beautiful grace she is in our lives, and the steady, unhurried, unworried ways she points us to Jesus. 

Matt had a really impactful time in Colorado, getting back late last night exhausted and thankful for the opportunity.  His first Sunday at our new mission-field is this Sunday, and the Lord keeps reminding me that His work can be sweet, good and healing when done from a place of resting in Him, relying on Him, being consecrated in our work...consecrated: the act of continually separating ourselves from everything except that which God has appointed us to do. 

Teenage girls continue to be one my biggest life and ministry joys and challenges, all mixed together. What a week of helpfulness, moodiness, hilarity, frustration, honesty, sneakiness, complaining, loving one another all, eye-rolls and snuggles, groaning and grace with these precious girls...I know the Lord relates and understands as He continues to minister to me!

Life this past week, and always, is such a mixed bag. 

It is holding onto the priceless and edifying things we have received from others, while releasing the hurtful or unhealthy things we have received from others, sometimes both from the same people!  

It is counting our blessings and lifting up our burdens, praying and praising in the same inhales and exhales. 

It is looking at what He has done here, and what He has not done yet, all with hope and confidence that He. Is. At. Work. 

It is mourning with those who mourn in the hands of a good God, and rejoicing with those who rejoice in the hands of a good God, and tasting and seeing and trusting and choosing that GOOD He is, always. 

It is worshiping and waiting and working, all together in the same seasons. 

It is letting the past rest in the sweet embrace of Jesus, and it is stepping out on Him into His victorious future, all at the same time and sometimes again and again.

It is--no matter WHAT joys and heartbreaks fill our days--keeping our lives so constantly in touch with God that His surprising power can break through at any point.

It's doing our very best to point our babies to Jesus with our whole hearts and lives, all the while fully entrusting that they are HIS, not ours. 

It is taking the scars--some still wounds I thought were healed--and asking the Lord to show us where He was when they happened.  And every time I do, He was there. 

It's dwelling on the richness we have from Him and releasing the gaps we have received from the world and are quick to focus on. 

It's living in the now and not yet, the physical and the spiritual, the reality of being beggars and also being sons and daughters. 

I know Jesus gets the mixed bag...I've read his weariness and relief, his joy and sorrows, his prayers and laughter, his blessings and his discouragements. His defeats and victories. 

I rejoice knowing He gets my mixed up days...and holds them.