Some things never change

By Mary

This month my best friend got married. This month I got to be in Colorado for the first time in almost two years. This month my friends got to meet my baby and she got to sleep in the room that used to be mine. This month I stayed up later than I had in weeks and weeks.

And it amazed me how simple it was to slip back into old ways when so much has changed. The weirdest thing about being back was how it felt like I'd never left, even with my daughter being passed around and my husband on the other end of the phone. Even with my sweet friend basking in the love of a man I've barely met and promising her heart to him forever.

I guess I had prepared myself for it all to feel different somehow. With how comfortable I feel now in Maryland I didn't know if I would feel as comfortable there. But I didn't feel anything like a stranger, a visitor. I didn't have to think hard about where I was driving and I didn't have to catch up with anybody...just simply share the time we had together for how long we were blessed to have it again.

No matter how on board I am for a change, I get a little emotional over them. And when they mean upsetting the way of things I've grown to love, I have a smidgen of regret each time.

So I don't even have the right words to thank God for the fact that even if we change where we live, where we work, change in age, change a last name, change dreams and any number of other things...some things never change.

deep in me

by Alanna


  Lately when I meet people, I've noticed more than usual that they connect me with Africa. This is how they match my name and face with whatever they've heard- "oh! you're the girl who went to South Africa right?" Or something along those lines. It makes me thankful, because Africa is still so close to my heart. It makes me believe that I left not that long ago (even though this week it will have been 14 months). It makes me feel that I've spent a significant amount of time in the third world, even though all totaled it equals almost exactly one year. Right now, God's called me to pursue things that require me to be in America for a bit, and this means entrusting the future to his hands. People always, inevitably, ask me when I'm going back. I give them some lame answer about being in a job contract through the end of July, but the truth is that I'm asking God the same question. When Lord? I'm realizing this week that the calling He's placed on me is growing bigger. Deep in me, is this ache and hunger to live in the dirt. To love children born into physical poverty. To pour myself out for them and to point them to Jesus. Deep in me I ache to go, to be sent. Waiting on the Lord is hard. But a sacrifice is nothing if it doesn't cost us something. I want to embrace contentment and to rejoice where He has me, but I never want to settle into complacency living in comfort for so long.

  Tonight when sorting through old notebooks and papers, I came across something that I'd written shortly before I went to South Africa the last time. Thought I would publish a small bit of it here, as it is also some of what I feel tonight.

  In a week and a half, I'll be boarding an airplane to go back to the place I love, in South Africa....  Most of all, I am scared of loving too much. It is the kind of love that fills my insides so physically that it hurts. Almost exactly 13 months ago, I met a little boy who God seemed to have brought especially for me to love. There was no use fighting my affections for him, my desperate prayers for him, and my mother instincts. God grew my heart and my capacity to love, and yet He asked me to say goodbye. Soon I will be a part of little one's life again- seeing all the miraculous changes that God has wrought in him. And I am so scared. Scared because he is not my son and I have nothing but a "fool's hope" that he could be someday. Scared because I don't know how to be a caretaker and not a mommy to someone I love so much. And I am terrified of saying goodbye again. It is possible to love too much? Today I'm asking God is maybe He has the wrong person. I don't feel strong enough to keep my heart so split in two. 

    Somehow, it's a comfort to me that God never changes. He is full of compassion and lovingkindness. He may dash my heart to pieces, but it will be for His glory and His plans. Surely if God could love us to the extreme that He would sacrifice His only Son, then it is impossible to love too much. I want to learn to love through my fears- to love not for my sake, or even for little one's, but for Him who loved me enough to die for me. 

   Tonight, I pray that God grows my capacity to love. I want to love well, here where I am. And I pray that no matter how it hurts, that God grows the calling and the heart for orphans that He's put inside of me. Let us love, for His sake, so that He may receive all the glory. 

Mothers Day [a little behind the times]

I've stored up all these words for you, words you'll never get to hear or read or know. It reminds me to be thankful that I don't have to store them up for the little one who sits on the floor with her toys next to me. I can speak them every day. It reminds me not to let those opportunities pass me by.

God taught me so much through you, sweet ones. The value of every moment. The gift in a smile. The joy in just your dark curly hair against my cheek. I've missed you on these days meant for mothers since I met you--is it really almost three years ago?

This year it doesn't hurt so bad, this missing you. This year I thanked God for the families He's blessed with you and prayed again you'd grow up to know Him, to serve Him. This year I miss you and my own mommy, reminders that nothing in this world is forever, that I need to treasure each stage of life. And this year while I have my baby girl in my arms and my husband to spoil me, I try to remember still to surrender them because really aren't you all just precious gifts to me from a good God, for His timing and purposes?

This Mothers Day I'm thankful for the friend I have in my mother, for all the ways she's poured love and truth and life into me. I pray for you to have that, I pray to be a mother like that to my children and I pray for forever all together in the presence of our Father when I won't have to miss you anymore. I love you.

By Alanna

            Some days, South Africa seems so close. When I trace my fingers over the world map on the wall, and it’s just an ocean and a continent away. Just two plane flights from here. It seems close when I say goodbye to one more person going there, and realize that in just 24 hours they will be entering the TLC gate. It’s in moments like these that I think, ‘why not?’ Why not just buy a ticket, hop on the plane, and get off where my heart could meet up with my body again?

            There’s a myriad of reasons of course, and my head always reminds me. This is where God wants me to be. I’m doing the things He’s called me to do, at least for right now and right here. I’m grateful for time spent with my family, a job I love, and late night fellowship with friends here. I’ve also realized more and more lately that for the thing He’s put deepest on my heart, this is the best place to be. I’m praying, hoping, preparing. And to do that I have to be here in the U.S.A., at least for now.

            So my head reminds my heart, but my heart is tired of hoping and waiting. I need reminders that God is worthy- worthy of my hope and trust being placed solely in Him. He is worthy to carry these burdens, to accept this in surrender. Still these thoughts plague me though. What if the ram isn’t provided? All this climbing the mountain and stretching out the sacrifice, all the time hoping and praying that God returns it to me. And what if He doesn’t?  

            Tonight I blew dandelion seeds with a blonde two-year old in her front yard. I told her that we needed to make wishes, and I used all my breaths to wish a little boy home. Wishes, prayers, hope. It’s all I have lately. That and the solid rock of God’s trustworthiness. I believe that He alone is able to bear this sorrow, this grief that some days looks never ending. This hope that splits me in two because it’s so big and so absolutely terrifying. He takes good care of what we entrust to Him- our lives, our futures, our todays and tomorrows, our grief, our hope, our hearts, and our children. After we blew dandelions, we lay in the dark and I sang her to sleep with truth. A song I used to sing always to the little ones in South Africa, in the familiar warmth of the Lions room, where my dreams remain. In these verses I find reminders of His trustworthiness.

I hear the Savior say
 ‘thy strength indeed is small
child of weakness, watch and pray
 find in Me thine all in all’
Jesus paid it all
all to Him I owe.
Sin had left a crimson stain
He washed it white as snow

a testimony to The Miracle Worker

by Alanna

    I've posted a few times about a little boy, and how all along his life has been one long succession of miracles. Well, chalk another one up to the King! Something I (and a lot of others) have been praying for, earnestly begging to be changed, for one year and 7 months now. All that begging, seeking, knocking, doubting, crying, fighting, and finally laying down in surrender. And God knew all along that He had good plans for this little one. That nothing and no one could change that. It is all, utterly, only Him. 

Thank You Father.

For He will deliver the needy when he cries for help, the afflicted also, and him who has no helper. He will have compassion on the poor and needy, and the lives of the needy He will save.

Blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel, who alone works wonders. And blessed be His glorious name forever; and may the whole earth be filled with His glory. Amen, and amen.

It’s been one of those days: the kind after a long night of cleaning up your dog’s vomit every 2 hours when you have no idea why she’s getting sick. 

The kind of morning when you try to lay back down for just a little while longer after your husband goes to work ridiculously early yet again (only to stay late once more) and you can’t sleep because you hear the dog making that same horrid gagging sound and you wait for the inevitable so you can climb out of bed and try to clean the stains that you already know won’t go away even with that special miracle working cleaner you’ve tried on the other stains that already added their own little flair to the carpet that was new when you moved in less than a year ago.

It’s the kind of day when the baby starts crying while you’re [not] getting the floor cleaned up and just as you finish feeding her, she decides to leak through her pajamas onto your lap and you have another stain to try and get out. 

And it’s the kind of day that just after you’ve gotten the stinky leaky baby all cleaned up in the bath tub, soft and snuggly and smelling like baby lotion with the top of her head in a mess of crazy curls, she spits up all over her clean clothes.

Ever had one of those days?

It doesn’t help when it follows so closely on the heels of a trip to urgent care over the weekend to see what could possibly be wrong with your sweet, happy little daughter to make her fuss most of the day and spend an hour in the evening screaming inconsolably like someone was beating her. This from the one who almost never cries unless her little tummy is empty or she’s oh so sleepy.

We didn’t solve that mystery. But at least it stopped.  And I didn’t take the dog to the vet as I considered doing…but so far so good. I think maybe I should take both instances as simply answered prayer and not worry anymore.

This hasn't been the best day I've ever had. But really in my heart of hearts, this little sinner’s heart that God continues to deal with so patiently, I know it doesn’t take “one of those days”-or weekends, or weeks, or months-to stir up the ugly side of me. My kindness, gentleness, patience and forbearance… they haven’t been around all that much in general lately. That’s what hits me, and humbles me: it’s not my kindness, my patience. It’s the short temper, the annoyance and frustration and harshness that come naturally to me. All that good stuff I like to think is just nice-girl me is really Him. All Him. And oh how desperately I need Him.

“Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.”

“And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.”

It's been a long week filled with long days for my husband at work and when the clock above the stove tells me he’s been gone over twelve hours and he still isn’t home, I have to stop and be thankful for the job God has provided. The stability, the money, the blessing for me of being able to stay at home with our baby girl, I can start taking these things for granted. But I know it’s not something I’m owed.

So when he comes home from a long day at work, so ready to just do nothing and I meet him at home so eager to have him around and just do something, we just have to laugh and figure out the compromise somewhere. And I’m thankful again that doing nothing isn’t so bad as long as you’re with the right people.

Today there’s the taste of summer in the air, the smell of wild roses blooming in full bushes and the humidity lying thick on my skin. And while I’m not looking forward to another year of meeting my doggie’s bodily and energy needs with no yard and baby in tow, I am fully intending to enjoy the pool with baby-G who seems to love the water already if bath time is any indication.

We made plans recently to start meeting with two couples from church once a week (one older and one in our season of life) as sort of a mentorship thing. Nick’s work schedule has so far manages to get in the way but I really enjoyed the reading we did for it—the gospel of Mark, paying special attention to the things Jesus prioritized and the different ways people reacted to Him. My list of priorities expanded a little to include thing He placed value on through His words as well. Things like…

Baptism

Following the Spirit’s direction

Preaching/teaching

Solitude

Prayer

Good works—healing, serving, helping

Relationships

Faith and truth

Physical nourishment, rest

Sabbath worship

Repentance

Purity of heart

Sharing life with a select, intimate group

Taking care of believers

Self-sacrifice to avoid sin

Marriage

Children

Generosity

Humility

Looking for the 2^nd coming

Gentleness

I guess whenever I get to wondering what I should be doing with my time, my life, there’s a nice long list of things from which to choose…