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.

Five Minute Friday: Ordinary

Joining in again this week with Liso-Jo and Five Minute Friday. Five minutes of writing from the heart. This week's word is "ordinary". Go.

“It’s amazing what you guys are doing! I could never do that!”

‘We are so very, very ordinary,’ I think to myself each and every time I hear those words. 'I wish you could see that part.'

Because while there is jungle and river and village and canoe, there is also dishes and bedtime and whining children and “we forgot the toilet paper!”

As I battle every day through the ordinary that fills our lives only sprinkled with brief moments of extraordinary that come from God Himself, I feel very small and unworthy and unprepared for all of this. I tell a friend that I feel like there is nothing I have to offer and she reminds me that it’s the ordinary ones that God used the most in Scripture and today is no different.

So I write and share and live and try to convey this: we are just ordinary people striving to glorify and extraordinary God.

And aren’t we all? Even those we serve and those who give so we can go and those who go—all just ordinary. It’s not until the God of the extraordinary gets His hands on the molding clay that we are turned into something beautiful and even then it’s not our beauty, but His reflecting through us.

So there will be babies born with nothing and Indians traveling for days to hospitals and flights to carry sick to the doctors and all of this. But those dishes still stack up and didn’t I already sweep twice today?

And it’s those ordinary moments that seep humility into our lives so that God can be big 

and we can remain so very small. 

 Washing dishes in the river... Ordinary Indian life.

Alone in the City: Day Three

God is beautiful everywhere.

This simple yet profound thought came to my mind tonight as I looked up at the halfway moon in the cloudless sky, driving back from the most beautiful beach Brazil has to offer.

And I felt very, very small.

But it wasn’t a condescending kind of small, like I was useless or worthless. It was a feeling of peace, knowing that I am small, and that’s good.

It’s safe to be small when your God is so big.

There’s a message that my own husband has taught several times that I came to my mind tonight. (For the record, it’s not fun when the Holy Spirit uses your spouse’s messages to speak to you… it’s a blow to the pride.)

It comes from John chapter 6. To keep it short and sweet, Jesus pretty much lays it all out for the religious elite. He knew their hearts and ignored their empty words, stating they wanted to follow him when in fact all they wanted was what He had to offer.

In verses 26-27, Jesus calls them out, “I assure you: you are looking for Me, not because you saw the signs, but because you ate the loaves and were filled. Don’t work for the food that perishes, but for the food that lasts for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set His seal of approval on Him.”

In short, they didn’t want Jesus for Jesus, they wanted Jesus for His stuff.

Tonight, as I looked up at the moon, I was reminded that God doesn’t in fact need me. It’s not as if when I entered the world, He said, “Finally! She’s here!”

He is beautifully at work and His creation sings His praises and I am very small, nearly invisible.

And He says, “I have chosen you. I don’t need to use you, I want to. And that is good.”

But so often I find myself not wanting Jesus for who He is, but rather for what it brings me. Even the good things—peace, joy, love, hope—I want these more than I want Jesus. And that’s where the problem comes.

The missionary life is often deceitfully intriguing to the outside world. Stories of adventures and conversions and living in a far off place fill our minds as pictures of poverty and redemption fill our eyes. And it’s easy to love God there. It’s easy to be passionate and faithful in the excitement.

It’s the mundane that’ll getcha.

“Can you want me in the mundane?” He asks. “Do you want Me for Me, or do you want Me for what I can give you?”

The answer is hard, but I humbly acknowledge that most times I want Him for what He can give. I want the adventure and the passion and the influence. I fumble when life is just changing diapers and washing dishes and cleaning up messes and living the day to day. I am discontent there in the ordinary.

I fail most in the commonplace.

And He says to me, “I am beautiful there, too. You don’t see it because you don’t want Me. You want what I can give you.”

Tonight, I felt very small—just as I should. And I ask Him to help me desire Him for who He is and not for what I desire that He give me.

He is God in Heaven, and here am I on earth.

God, help me want you in the ordinary.