God’s Call When Things Get Hard. UNITE Linky

She’s five today. And I do not know her middle name…

I don’t know her story and have never read the many pages that make up her file.

And yet I know, she scoots between two people talking, clings to me for days, and called me, “Mama” within fifteen minutes of meeting her.

I know her eyes shine bright and her smile fights like the sun beaming through the clouds…

When you tickle her, tuck her in, or say how pretty her skirt is, and she twirls and spins around…

She is like a princess, struggling for her fairy-tale ending. And aren’t we all just like her…on the inside?

• And who of us, just falls into happiness?
• Who of us were set up, like cardboard creatures, and moved effortlessly into ease, perfection?
• Who of us are a story unbroken?

We sit around at our Growth Group Saturday, share our testimony in six to ten sentences.

Yet, how do you put a lifetime into a few words, cram what Jesus did, in just some small letters?

Because happy ending, blood family, and big changes are what princess dreams are made of, aren’t they? 

And yet, He is our ending, the blood inside our veins, the King on His throne, the one that’s given us a new name, chosen.

Yet, so many wander, like my little one….

Caught in a world they didn’t orchestrate; floundering, struggling, and likely wondering….what happened to Jesus?

Believing the lie…“If my life isn’t good, either God isn’t good….Or neither am I.”

Yet, fairy-tale victories are birthed in our minds, not in our life, or the stock piles of the lies that success is outward seen or materially calculated.

She seems so tough sometimes. That little girl still in her bed on her fifth birthday.

What has her birthday’s looked like in the past? Does she remember the ones with her mom and dad?

A fluffy skirt waits on the chair, a new shirt, a bright sunny outfit that reflects who she is…

And yet, how many are blinded, only seeing what is before them, and not what someone is called to become, on the inside?

She wears this skirt as she ushers in this new year, holding so much hope, the promise of entering Kindergarten…

Yet, I wrestle before waking…Wrestle over this hard work of fostering…

Holding out the option of my cushy life, one where I don’t need anything. Living for me is appealing, playing with my daughters, and folding a life controlled, and completed…

What person in their rational mind wouldn’t take that?

Yet, He has spoke and I have seen Him. And He has shown me there is more.

• We are called to leap large.
• Reach for what He sees as beautiful, holy.
• Wake up in the evenings to crying babies, and with this idea that even one broken life is worth helping…if it means we get to taste and see His image in it all.

Our stories don’t need to end how they begin. No ones does, really.

We are called to…

• Fight for justice, and holiness.
• Live for others, and His purposes.
• Be like Him…giving our life as a ransom for many.

And if we don’t, we must ask, where does our heart lie? Where is our true Kingdom? In this life or the next?

And truth be told, I am pleading constantly, to hear His voice…

To live His will, not my own. To know the Ancient Path, and to walk in it, so that when I finally get home…

He will tell me, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

And, oh the joy in those blessed words.

For I have known the successes and praises of men…And I have learned, they are nothing compared to the glory I have seen in the heavens.

And I want His will, not mine. I want to live for something other than myself.

In my waking and my sleep, I see them…Children dying, in orphanages, in other countries and our own, without any hope…

The church living too comfortable to find them.

And have we forgotten, James 2:7? Perfect religion is caring for the orphans in their distress?

Yes, I only plead for His heart.

And this morning I wake to hear the Father, before placing my feet on the carpet…

The morning this little girl in our home turns five.

And He tells me, “Where would you be? Why do little girls fight and wrestle? Isn’t it because they need to feel known and loved, and wasn’t that your story too?”

“Have I forsaken you?”

Those words. They stop the freight train I have been feeling. They grip me, awakening me to who I was before He found me.

And I am reminded how I fought and wrestled, ran from the love and grace He was pouring out endlessly on a child undeserving, like me.

And all the while, He ran towards me, not away from me. Shouldn’t I do the same for others?

And I wonder, in this life as Christians. This walk of grace. Doesn’t He have us each right where we are, right where He has placed us, for a reason?

And isn’t it our choice whether we press into the dark, to not just speak, but be the light that’s needed?

It is our call to take the Kingdom for Him…

Even if that means doing hard things? Even if that means pressing in…when everything inside us tells us to shrink back, to run for the empty comforts around us?

And isn’t this life about risking, loving radically, and giving it all for the sake of our neighbor, a friend…

Or even a little girl still sleeping on the morning of her fifth birthday?

Lord, let me crucify my selfishness. Help me to live with a Heavenly perspective. Reminds me what I was like before you found me.

I open scripture, think about my testimony, while remembering that child laying upstairs who I do not know the middle name to….

And He speaks to me, clearly…

“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths or rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal…

For where your treasure is, there you heart will be also.” (Matt 6:19-21)

Just then, she turns the corner, rubs her eyes, and crawls on my lap, His Word of pure love opened before me.

It’s her birthday. She is five today…

And yet, I don’t even know her middle name.

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