In the Ceasing: Letting Go of All the Striving

“Cease from striving.” 

‘I’m not striving, I’m working.’ 

“Cease from striving.” 

‘These are good things!’ 

“Cease from striving.”

‘What does that even mean? How do I cease from striving when I have so much on my plate?’ 

“Cease from striving.” 

This has been my dialogue with God over the last two years. A simple whisper. Almost audible. Three words: Cease from striving. 

And I’ve fought it with every ounce of my being. I have held tightly to my plans in such a clinched-fist way that my spiritual muscles cramp and yet still I have refused to admit: this is the life that God has given me and it is His to plan, not my own.

Two years ago when we made the cross-country, cross cultural trek to where we are now, no one told me how to go from the high-energy, high-need, triage of life in the Amazon to homeschool mom in the aisles of Walmart. 

My proverbial tool bag was full of machetes and stitches and tourniquets for the many crises of life overseas and now I found those completely useless in the decision making tasks of grocery shopping and picking homeschool curriculum. 

And no one understood me. Including me. 

There, our home was full of people day in and day out, friends and strangers, like-minded and nearly hostile. But we sat and we talked and we shared and we lived and it was hard but good. A rich life of relationships. 

Here, we lived an entire six months at an apartment where I never once so much as saw my immediate neighbors. (Though I know they existed because we once received a noise complaint.)

It’s taken me two whole years to decide that maybe God was not telling me to cease from working (how I had been interpreting it) but to really cease from... striving.

(Imagine that. God meaning what He said.)

But still I am left with the resounding question of, “What DOES that look like?”

I’m learning it looks like this:

If that relationship is meant to be reconciled, He will reconcile it. 

If that goal is to be attained, He will bring it to pass. 

If I am to do anything at all, He will guide me... one painstaking step at a time. 

My role is that of obedience in the humdrum, not-a-soul-knocking-at-my-door day to day. 

My role is a step of faith across the street last night to my neighbor’s house. The one I’ve chatted with across the fence line a handful of times since moving to this house a year and a half ago but never truly engaged with because I was so unsure in this culture of closed doors and busyness of how I could relate to her. 

Imagine my surprise when she pulled up a chair for me and we sat for an hour and a half in the light of the flood lamp her husband used to diligently repair his truck. The fire ants bit my leg as I strained to hear her share her story over the sound of the train in the background and the airplanes overhead. Perhaps for the very first time it felt like a taste of home in this desert land. 

And my heart nearly skipped a beat when she said she’d lived on this street for many years and still didn’t know her neighbors because it seems as though here in this culture people simply come home and shut their doors. 

“And the saddest part,” she said with earnest, “is that no one seems the least bit bothered by what they’re missing.” 

It took great restraint not to leap up and hug her in that very instant. Instead I simply stated, “YES! I’ve been saying this, too!” 

She shared of her father leaving her when she was six along with her mother and younger siblings. How she took on a mothering role and worked hard, but relationships were always of utmost importance. When they moved here to the US hoping for a better future, she discovered that there was a lot of.... striving here. But little in the realm of genuine relationships among neighbors. 

Be still my soul. 

We talked and we laughed until 10pm. 

And this beautiful conversation came hot on the heels of a day of striving. Dear Jesus, I strove that day with every ounce of human effort I could muster. And to no avail. And I’m convinced that Jesus meant for exactly that to happen. For me to strive, fail.... and then find Him in the simple obedience of one foot in front of the other across the street. No expectations or goals. Just obedience. 

I had still been rummaging through this old tool bag, the one I had lugged back with me from a life overseas, convincing myself that these tools were indeed useful for this season of life.  How could they not be? But it turns out that a tourniquet for a scraped knee was a bit excessive. And this machete was of little value in this desert terrain. 

No, I would need to trade these more primitive (though once appropriate) tools in for more suitable ones. Like maybe a pencil and a notebook to process the journey thus far. Maybe band-aids and long walks behind my kids riding freely on their bicycles. Perhaps quiet moments with Jesus without the world falling in around us. All tools that were not readily available before, in the hostile and demanding terrain of jungle life. 

I can stop all the striving now and live here. I can be present and it doesn’t negate the past. My life can not look like I ever thought it would and yet I can find Jesus here, too, patiently speaking to me. 

Two years of Him whispering. 

Not long after we moved here, He gave me a verse

“I labor for this, striving with His strength that works powerfully in me.” (Colossians 1.29)

I didn’t pay much attention to it, honestly. I read it and read it and knew it meant something for me, but I wasn’t ready yet to cease my striving so I wrote it on a chalk board and put it above the kitchen sink. I think only now it’s sinking in: 

It’s by His strength in me that anything is ever accomplished through me. 

How basic is that? (And how hardheaded must I be for it to take this long?) 

Oh, He’s a patient God. And from here on I choose to imperfectly cease from striving. To “let it be” as the Beatles so wisely admonished us. To take a step when I should and wait when I shouldn’t. Because one day I’ll need to trade out these tools for new ones as well. And He'll equip me anew. 

But for now, these are just the ones I need. 

Behind the Picket Fence

She stood there, cautiously baring her heart to me. Her words said to me that she thought I had it together. She thinks I know what the heck I’m doing every day when I wake up and all the things from near and far are calling my name. 

Instantly my mind went back to a few days ago when I found myself weeping uncontrollably under the covers and pillows on my bed, my bedroom door locked to the demands of my kids, and my heart physically aching in my chest because I miss my jungle family so much and the loneliness is sometimes too much for me to stand under, so I cave. 

Turns out, I’m human like the rest of ‘em.

My house has a white picket fence. It’s quintessential irony calls to me every day when I check the mail or take out the trash or mow the lawn in the monotonous day to day. 

I gave this all up once, you know. Willingly. Joyfully. I turned it all in for a life overseas. All that I had been called to became my reality. 

And then Jesus said, suddenly and unexpectedly, it was time to sacrifice a different way. 

It was the harder to say yes that time. 

Now I find myself at Walmart and still, two years back on this side of the border, I fight another anxiety attack because the aisles seem so long and toilet paper options seem like a task of decision making prowess that I’m just not equipped for. 

But those are not the photos we put on social media are they? Of our struggle to reconcile broken dreams with the beautiful life given. Of not being able to relate or not being understood because suddenly you are thousands of miles from everyone who knows you best. 

I never post an instastory of me losing it with my daughter because the lies seem insurmountable and never ending and five years into this confusing and refining role of adoptive mom to a child with a hurtful past, I still feel as lost as ever many (most?) days. And there are harsh words and apologies and lies followed by truth revealed and lessons learned for both of us. Tears and hugs and another step forward after two steps back. 

It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do to face myself in this mirror of adoption. And it’s a lonely road when others just don’t get it. 

And I have never snapped a selfie when I’m crying on the bathroom floor, shoulders slumped because I feel so inadequate and useless under the weight of raising awareness for the many tangible needs of our jungle family. I struggle to find the balance of here-meets-there, where kids are being abused on every corner and we need funds to reach them but also laundry is piling up and my own kids need me to teach them math and reading and how to tie their shoes.

These just scratch the surface of the social-media “non-worthy” items. 

All the while Jesus whispers to me every day, “Cease from striving.” I can almost hear it as though it were an audible voice calling to me. 

And I don’t know yet what it looks like to live that out. 

So I wake up early and lean in hard. I physically open my hands, achy heart and shaky knees, and ask Jesus to show me He is real here, too, in what feels like lonely loss. He wasn’t only real back when I thought I knew His plans for my life. My preconceived and naive ideas of who He is and what He has called me to isn’t enough. He is bigger and better and His ways are true and good. 

My calling is not to know all the things. It is to trust Him. To look to Him alone.

Even when I feel lost and inadequate. Even when I see another Facebook post that reminds me I’m here and not there or this way and not that. 

I shut out the voices that can't see my heart and I trust the One who can.

It still leaves me breathless in tears many days. It’s ok to grieve what was lost (or perhaps just reassigned). 

Most days, I choose to run back into hope and gratefulness. And you see it. 

Other days, I collapse in sadness, fear, doubt. And you don’t. 

So when I post a photo on Instagram and it appears that I’m living a perfect life, remember it’s my highlight reel. There is a behind the scenes, too.

But instead of focusing on all that feels taken, I focus on what is given. 

Rather than honing in on what makes my heart ache inside my chest, I hone in on what makes my soul glad. 

In place of what appears to have been lost, I look for what I know to be found. 

Because wouldn’t you know it, that adorable white picket fence doesn’t close properly. You have to lift it up and pull it ever so particularly for it to shut all the way. Life’s like that, too. No matter what it may look like on the outside, it’s always harder and more finicky than you think it should be. 

Don’t believe the lie that says anyone has it all together. They don’t. You don’t. I don’t. We are all just humans with struggles. 

And really, if you think about it, that’s good news... because it is precisely why we all need Jesus.

Missionary Rehab

I sat alone in our new-to-us car and I banged my hands on the steering wheel and yelled at God that I was angry that this was happening. That I didn’t want this car or these plans or these good-byes.  I let Him know straight up that it was unfair because we had planned our life there in the Amazon. We sold all of our stuff four years ago, REMEMBER?! That was because the jungle was supposed to be our new forever home. Tears flowed to the point that my heart physically ached in my chest and my breath caught in my throat.

It was an ugly cry, y’all. I’m glad no one else was there because you can’t unsee that.

And I want to tell you that after that I was better. I really want to say that one good cry and BAM! the Holy Spirit washed me with a renewed confidence in His goodness and sovereignty and that I was suddenly a well-adapted protégé of our missionary forefathers, full of faith and trust in an all knowing, all sufficient God. {Insert Sunday morning fake smile here.}

Instead I’m in counseling because some days I. just. can’t.

It’s missionary rehab, if you will.

I sat in the parking lot before my first session and almost had a straight up panic attack. I was sniffing essential oils like an addict and texting Richard so that I didn’t talk myself out of it. “What kind of missionary needs counseling?” Right?

My first session was an hour and a half long. About an hour in, I paused after spilling the overview of our life for the last four years all over her in addition to filling a few tissues with snot and tears. I just sort of stared at her.

She calmly listened, handing me a new kleenex as needed. Bless her soul. She’s a good one.

Her words: “I think if I got down one of my books on traumatic life events from my shelf, you would be able to check nearly all of them off the list and then some. It’s a miracle of God that you and your family survived many of those situations independently, much less all of them. Rest in that truth that it’s ok to be in this place of fear, anxiety, and confusion. It’s not the end.”

My instinct was, “Don’t patronize me. You don’t know my life.”

Defensive.

But then I realized she wasn’t. (And I had in fact just shared with her much of my life... soooo she kinda did know my life...) The reason I was sitting in her office was because we’d gone through some legitimately traumatizing things and that was ok. There was healing and hope still.  Breath of fresh air.

I went back the following week and then the following three weeks and it’s been both painful and healing. Because something happens when we are honest about our pain and we talk through the trauma in light of Hope.

After the difficulties of our adoption and the isolation we experienced those first two years among other things, I developed an anxiety disorder that’s only increased in intensity since being Stateside. After all, you don’t get to leave the country for four years and maintain relationships the way they used to be, especially in a region with internet access comprable to that of 1999. Even more so relationships that were severed due to others’ lack of understanding of life there and differences in preference. Now I find myself in the city where I was born and raised with no close friendships.

It’s a very strange place to be.

The abrupt (to us) ending of our time overseas makes me feel much like Moses on the mountain staring at the Promised Land but not actually getting to enter it. We walked some deep, dark valleys and only in the last six months of our time there did we finally begin to see buds of fruit. A community of Believers uniting for the cause of Christ. Incredible, unexplicable things happening. Beautiful.

And then God said, “Move. You can’t stay here.”

And my heart feels the heaviness of leaving all that we have known and loved and pursued and sacrificed for, only to return to a wilderness of reverse culture shock and loneliness and not knowing even where to begin to share the incredible things that God has done and is doing there.

I went a solid two months without makeup because why? Tears are no respecters of mascara.

But there in that small room with the counselor who is an MK (missionary kid) herself, I can work through these emotions and she gives me perspective and hope.

My day to day is still very much a roller coaster of fear and anxiety. A simple decision at the grocery store can send me straight to the Cliff of Internal Meltdown (WHY ARE THERE SO MANY OPTIONS OF KETCHUP?!). Running into someone I knew in what feels like a previous life can make my heart pound so loud I can hear it louder than our conversation (WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO TALK ABOUT?!).

This is all new to me. But turns out that actually, it’s pretty standard if we read—truly read—through Scripture and even biographies of modern missions. Life is a series of planning our ways in faith and then holding them loosely. It’s a story of being human with all its inconsistencies and fears and doubts and short-sightedness and yet still trusting through it. And slowly but surely through each season that ultimately leads to surrender to Him in His perfect ways, we find ourselves more and more in His image. Our faith grows. Our trust in Him grows. We lose more of ourselves.

Elisabeth Elliot put it this way:

“There is no ongoing spiritual life without this process of letting go. At the precise point where we refuse, growth stops. If we hold tightly to anything given to us, unwilling to let it go when the time comes to let it go or unwilling to allow it to be used as the Giver means it to be used, we stunt the growth of the soul. It is easy to make a mistake here, “If God gave it to me,” we say, “its mine. I can do what I want with it.” No. The truth is that it is ours to thank Him for and ours to offer back to Him, ours to relinquish, ours to lose, ours to let go of – if we want to find our true selves, if we want real life, if our hearts are set on glory.”

So I figure if Elisabeth Elliot can say that, and she walked through some high flames, I can buckle down and trust that He really is that good and He is sovereign and I can throw to the wind like chaff from the wheat what others think and what fears may linger in my heart and I can lean hard into Him and trust that He’s never let us down and He sure isn’t going to start now. That His ways are truly higher than ours and I can not only rest in that but rejoice in that wholeheartedly as I look over the last four years and how it’s been proven true time and time again.

This process of letting go is so hard, but it’s also so. incredibly. beautiful.

That Time We Moved to Mexico

I love to write. It’s something God has gifted me with and I love to use it to share what He’s doing in and through His Body in the jungle. I’m passionate about it.

But something I’ve noticed in this social-media-saturated culture is that people are overwhelmed by media. Pictures, articles, words. They are all over our phones, tablets, computers, billboards, TVs.

It’s numbing.

So in keeping with my desire to always be transparent, I’ll be honest and say I feel so often like my words are useless. Like I’m sharing my passions... with a wall. And that can be disheartening. We’ve spent nearly four years of our lives doing some crazy awesome things on this beautiful journey that God has led us on. We can hardly believe the things God is doing and I want to share those with everyone and yet... not many people care.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Some people care deeply. And there are a few people who have consistently written us and encouraged us over the last four years and several have been faithful to pray and give. And we are so thankful because at times their words and prayers have been what God has used to sustain us. 

Loneliness has been a companion these last four years. But God has been faithful to use that for His glory and our good. We’ve seen Him build up a community of people in the jungle, nearly all locals, that we now call family.

Unfortunately, we’ve had many share their opinions on our lives from afar. Most of whom have never actually visited the work that God is doing in the jungle. They don’t know the names of our Brothers and Sisters laboring and sacrificing there. They don’t write or pray or give. They don’t know us. But they comment nonetheless, making judgment calls from afar.

And that’s ok. I’ve been guilty of the same in other peoples’ lives.  It’s hard to understand something you haven’t experienced. I pray that they can see, but maybe that’s not what God has. That’s ok, too.

While I’m slowly but surely losing the desire to try to get everyone to understand something that I can’t fully grasp—the fact that God’s ways are not ours and often our plans fall flat as we follow His leading instead—I feel like I owe it to those who have been on this journey with us to tell the story of how God is moving us.

In September we are moving to Mexico.

Ok. So the reality is, it’s actually Laredo, Texas, which is on the border of Mexico ("I can see Mexico from my house!"). But if you’ve ever been there, you know that it’s a lot more like Mexico than the US of A! 

This may seem really sudden to some of you. And in some ways it is. In other ways, however, God has had this transition in the works for quite some time. The last time we had genuinely considered that God was leading us this way was in 2014. God had closed doors to aviation in Brazil. We still felt very strongly that our calling was to use aviation as a means of spreading the Gospel when God put an aviation job offer for Laredo, TX in front of us. We prayed. We fasted. We sought godly counsel. And we decided that was the direction God was leading us. It would allow us to fund Grace House as well as the other ministries much more efficiently. So, we pursued it wholeheartedly {is there any other way to do it?}. Heck, we had even told several supporters and supporting churches about it. Then God slammed that door closed through Mariclene’s inability to immigrate to the US.

We were thoroughly confused to say the absolute least.

But after a brief period of disappointment and feeling totally perplexed, we hoped right back in the saddle again and saw God do some incredible things. Grace House roots grew deeper along with the relationships He had given us in Benjamin. We moved across the border into Colombia where Richard began avidly working towards opening an air ambulance. We got to know amazing people in Leticia, where God gave us new relationships and lives to speak into as well as some of our now closest friends. It was also during that time that The Donut Company was born.

To be honest, we were feeling quite settled! We laughed about the time we thought we were moving back Stateside and we began to plan what life would look like spending the rest of it right there in Leticia. The Air Ambulance had the potential to fund all of the work, employ locals, help meet physical needs, and fulfill our calling to use aviation as a tool for the Gospel. Boom. The whole package.

Then January 2016 rolled around and God closed the door to the air ambulance. And what’s more, we had really worked ourselves out of a job. Grace House is growing and we have seen truly incredible spiritual growth among the community of believers in the small town of Benjamin. Marcos and Josi continue to rock it with the young men in their discipleship program and we simply help fund their efforts and provide encouragement and support the Javari Project. The Donut Company is growing and totally operated by locals. Of course we were heavily involved in the day to day, but we had to come to the realization that, while we could continue to work hard with our brothers and sisters, we still felt like a part of our calling was being neglected. And certainly not through lack of effort! God had divinely opened and closed doors, leading us on a crazy adventure that we never imagined.

So we just began praying. Would God have us move to another country for mission aviation? Would he reopen a door in this region? We just didn’t feel led a specific way.

Fast-forward to February when we get the news that Mariclene’s immigration was finally approved after two and a half years of waiting. We were stoked! We made plans to travel to the States for her citizenship interview and stay for about two months to raise more funds for the crazy awesome things God was doing. So much is happening and there are so many needs, that the primary need was funds.

So we came to the US and in the first week must have said to one another at least a dozen times, “I never want to live here again!” It’s just this massive reverse-culture shock. It’s hard to explain until you experience it, but it’s very real. We were still praying that God would lead us if He had a new direction for our family in aviation but we were also counting down the days to our return to Leticia {home}.

That’s when the e-mail came late one evening from the same friend from two years back, the first communication about a job since that time.

“Would you still be interested in a job in Laredo?”

I knew the look on Richard’s face when he showed me the e-mail. I immediately pushed it off and told him I had no desire to even discuss that. Absolutely not. No.

But the reality was I already knew in my heart that it was time. We had been in regular contact with our ministry partners in Benjamin and Leticia and they were doing great! Not to say they weren’t passing through trials. They were. Some pretty serious ones in fact. But they were thriving in the peace of God. They were growing, discipling, reaching out, going above and beyond, loving, giving, serving.

And they didn’t need us in the day to day. Honestly, it was a blow to realize that. Don’t get me wrong, I totally rejoiced in it, too!

That’s the point after all, right? To disciple others who disciple others and so on.

Our dreams have actually come true.

But these are my people. They have walked through the valleys of darkness and suffered with us. We’ve cried and laughed together for going on four years. I wanted to be there, enjoying the fruits of our labor. After so many years of loneliness and isolation, we finally have a community that is on fire!

And now, it is time to move on to the next location.

I’m not going to lie. I’ve fought God on this one. I’ve cried until my heart physically aches and there aren’t any more tears. This is all my kids have known. This is all we have worked for for the last seven years, to love and reach the lost in the Amazon region.

So what does this mean now? Why would He take us from the Jungle to the Desert?

Well, I can assure you it’s not because we are wishy-washy as some accuse. It’s not because we don’t know what we really want as others have said. In fact, we could technically be flying in Brazil OR Colombia right now had we been willing to compromise some really strong convictions (but that’s another story). It isn’t because we couldn’t handle it. (Although, I will say that NO ONE can handle it. Absolutely no one. Only Christ in us and in others can sustain in such a difficult place.) No, it’s none of those things.

The reality is, our calling is apostolic in nature. That means that by nature we equip and move on, much like Paul did. We’ve seen that has been the course that God has led us on our whole life. (If that confuses you, join the club. We are learning this role.)

We’ve spent the last few months “rearranging” a bit with the Amazon Network. We are learning our new role in the Body as advocate for the jungle and we are praying hard and looking with anticipation as to what God has for us in Laredo.

One of the most beautiful things about it is that by us coming off of support, those funds can now go directly to the work in the jungle. Grace House, The Donut Company, the Javari Project can now be funded more efficiently which means there is more opportunity for growth. We’ve already seen new outreaches being launched from the network and more Brothers and Sisters join our family--your family.

It’s incredible how God works in the most organic of ways when we truly allow His Spirit to guide.

We want it to be clear that we are not leaving the network or the work there. We will continue to visit frequently and we have daily communication. We are advocates for our Brothers and Sisters there and continue to fund-raise and raise awareness. But now the funds will be liberated and we can start again in Laredo, trusting the Holy Spirit to lead us as we seek to serve the least of these there.

Pray for us all as we make this transition. We sold everything before we moved nearly four years ago so it’s very much like starting over physically as well as mentally. It’s a strange thing to be back in the city you grew up in and yet feel like you know no one. You miss a lot in four years and reverse culture shock is a doozie.

If you have questions, feel free to ask us. We have always strived to be transparent so we welcome feedback and dialogue.

Thank you to all of you who are walking this journey with us. We greatly appreciate each of you and we look forward to the adventures ahead!


This is not the end of the book, just a new chapter... I hope you’ll continue reading.

A little recap of our life for the last four years....

His Kingdom, Right Here {Part 2}

“Play it cool,” I thought, as I fumbled along the unfinished road with the dignified wife of the former Amazon Governor. She in her high-heels and me in my flip-flops plodding our way to the notary public just five minutes out from closing time.

“What in the world am I doooooing??” I thought to myself as I signed the papers for a one-year-lease on a massive leap of faith we had only brain-stormed and kitchen-tested up until this point.

“This is it. We have officially lost our minds.”

She handed me the key to our newly rented space with a dubious smile and I took it about as uncertain as Peter must have been those moments before his feet touched solid water.

What followed was a whirlwind of paperwork and fees and building and sweating and juggling timeframes and learning legal requirements and hiring and little sleep.

Then suddenly, there it was: The Donut Company. Exactly as Richard had sketched out on a piece of paper in the middle of the big empty white space was an incredible testament of God’s power and creativity. Truly a demonstration of His strength at work in us because I can say with certainty it was only by His provision and might that we went from Googling a recipe to opening an incredible, beautiful donut shop in a matter of four months.

Un.be.liev.a.ble.

But as exhausting and draining it was to build out a shop, to navigate the waters of employee rights and accounting requirements and legal jargon in your second language, to figure out where in the world to buy industrial kitchen equipment in the middle of the jungle, to figure out ingredients and schedules and suppliers and operate new machinery, and so on and on, the true challenge was yet to come.

Because the point in our shop wasn’t just to provide a few locals a job or to offer a tasty treat to native residents of this jungle town. Our main objective was much more than affording tourists a trendy escape on their Amazon expedition.

Our whole purpose is this: to love God and love others. In a town saturated with churches, we want a place for the unchurched.

It’s the opposite of what we feel naturally inclined to do. But we are firm believers that if you are surrounded by people who look, think, act, talk, and live exactly like you, you’re doing it all wrong.

Because we can shout all day long to a broken world that they are lost and going to Hell. But they are dead. And dead men, well, they have trouble hearing.

So the language we’ve been commissioned with speaking is Love. It’s this crazy, unorthodox, supernatural language.

Naturally, some people don’t like the way it sounds. They say it sounds like we’re hippies, condoning sin and living freely, everyone doing as they please.

I propose those people haven’t quite grasped what true love looks like. Because love requires a lot more dying to self and a lot less being right. It requires a lot of sacrifice with no promise to see the fruit. It requires massive amounts of humility and shows so much mercy and grace it’s painful at times.

Love is hard. It can be this strange conundrum of sharing a meal with someone who lives completely contrary to your convictions and laughing together over a surprise common ground. And it is those unexpected similarities that slowly break down the walls and lead to open doors and liberating conversations of how Jesus changed our world and opened our eyes when we were blind, too, and now we see so clearly that we are all just alike at our core—broken people in need of a Healer. Maybe our sins look different than theirs. Perhaps we don’t have the same struggles. Our backgrounds are different. Our cultures varied. But we are all the same. We all need Love.

And loving hurts. Often. When you give your life to the wounded, you’ll likely be bruised. People you pour your heart and soul into will walk away seemingly unchanged, resolute in their habits. We’ve cried a lot over relationships ended despite our best (though imperfect) efforts to love.  And we’ve been labeled a plethora of things for our open door approach. We’ve had to let employees go who just couldn’t accept graceful correction. We have had people we considered friends all but spit in our face when we stood firm on Love. Because sometimes loving means correcting and sometimes it means forgiving when it’s so hard to do and sometimes it means watching them walk away but still keeping the door open wide just in case they return.

Love bears all things. Believes all things. Hopes all things. Endures all things.

It never fails. 

Which requires time. It will take sacrifice. It will demand humility and forgiveness and sacrifice and dying daily.

But over time, if we’re patient, we may start to see little buds of fruit. When that atheist boy comes back to the shop again and again because “it’s just so different here”. When that girl who cuts herself sits down across from your employee who grew up fatherless, too, just to talk it out because “he’s the only one who will listen”. When that same employee says “tell me more about what it means to love others” because all he’s ever felt in the institutional church is “not good enough and condemnation” and he, too, wants to love others well. When those well-to-do clients are baffled that we would use the profits from the shop to love orphans in a neighboring town. When locals see us loving the homeless on the streets. When we take in refugees and fight for them. When we treat the nomadic hippies like actual human beings.

Suddenly it’s quiet here. Defenses start to fall. Hearts are softened. Ears are opened. And humility and grace finally get a platform to speak.

So to those who would never set foot in a building under a steeple? Come on in. Those who look different than they “should”? There’s no dresscode here. The crazy guy who everyone ignores? How’s a free donut a day sound? The prostitute working late? Welcome. The homosexuals, the fatherless, the lonely, the cutters, the agnostics, the atheists, the broken, the overachievers, the young families, the elderly couples, the enthusiastic teens, the Average Joe—this place is for you.

Because we love you. And we believe there is hope to be found for each and every one of us and that Hope is true Love and His name is Jesus. He’ll be the one to do the changing. Love will mark you in a way that you can’t help but share.

Jesus said, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.”

Fortunately, He loved freely. He didn’t require us to change first and He didn’t shout condemnation to the lost. He shouted grace and mercy, forgiveness and freedom.

He went on to say, “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

He didn’t say they’d know because we had it right. He didn’t even say they’d know by how good we were. It’s love that they would hear first.

It looks a lot like sitting across the table and talking. It looks a lot like, “Welcome. How can we serve you?”

It looks a lot like the Kingdom of God, right here.

This is a multi-post series. See His Kingdom, Right Here {Part One} and {Part 3}.