Last night I was lost in thoughts and prayers until late- sitting on the couch in the dark, watching the rain come down. God has been so good these past four months in South Africa- taught me so much about love and trust and resting in Him. The past week we have been praying together every night- any believers who want to join. What a precious gift the fellowship of the saints is! Through prayers and conversations, God has especially moved in my heart these past few weeks. Sarah said one night that in these children’s lives, we are just a brick in the greater building that God is making of them. We will be covered by grander and more beautiful things, but our job is to lie still and rest and let God use us in the way He wants to. It’s so hard sometimes to lie still in the Lord. Especially when He has called us to a love that is ever moving and growing and exploding. He commanded us to love like He loves us. Unconditionally, everlastingly, and holding nothing back. He held back not even His own beloved Son. So how do we love with everything that is in us, and yet be resting in God’s greater plans? I think it’s not a question we can ask- we just have to do. Each night I kiss each of my seven precious Lions goodnight, and I whisper to them how much I love them. Sometimes there’s a dreadful small voice telling me that I won’t be here forever; that in 2 months I will be saying goodbye. I ask God to hush that voice, to fill me with His peace, and to never let doubt creep into my mind. This is where He wants me to be, and He called me here to love with all that’s in me. The beautiful thing about loving with God’s love is that there is a constant supply, and even when I go home, God will be holding each of these lives in His hands. He will be loving them, whispering in their ears at night that He will never leave them. Without the Lord, it is foolish to love this much, knowing that your heart will only be broken. Through the Lord, loving an orphan will never be anything other than right and beautiful. I ask God many times a day if these older ones can be adopted and leave here before I do, but it is not my place to hold back my love in case they are not. It is not my place to doubt and to fear. I am only here to do what God has called me to do- love because He first loved us. I do believe now that the Lord has called us to heartbreak. The key is to love like your heart will never be broken.

By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also outhg to love one another.

There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear

We love, because He first loved us.