One Week

One week ago, I wrote this story about a Tuesday that ended in tragedy - a Tuesday that imprinted an image of a little girl's face, twisted and broken in ways that I'll never be able to forget.

And you read it.
And you felt it.
And you prayed.

You prayed hard for Nandi. And for her family. And for me.

Thank you.

In just one week, something broke and something began to heal.
In just one week, your prayers - answered by our Sovereign God - changed things. Made a difference in this world.

I don't know how. I don't know why.
And it might be different next Tuesday.

But, this Tuesday, know that HE hears, HE responds, and even when I challenge and doubt Him, HE is working for the good of those who love Him.

After a Dwaleni dance party in the yard, with the whole family, Nandi and Tommy are all snuggled up and snoring in my house tonight.

They're just all tuckered out from Beanbag Olympics...

Thank you for praying.
Don't stop.
It changed lives this week. 

Three Things

There’s a new game in the little blue Mazda.

The Thankful Game.

It’s revolutionizing my outlook, starting conversations I would have missed, and making me laugh at how much Lennon scowls under the pressure.

I keep a reminder right in front of me. I write about it on my windshield with dry-erase markers. Scribbled in purple across the top of the driver’s side window, I constantly glance up to:

“Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise…” Psalm 100:4

And then I remember.

I want to be with Him. In His gates. In His courts. In His lap.

Thanksgiving is the key. The first thing. Always.

I don’t want to be the girl who stands across the street shouting, hoping He hears me and that magic wand sprinkles a miracle in my direction.

I want to be sitting at the feet, curled up on the lap, bouncing on the shoulders of My Father – His hand consuming mine, His eyes locked in mine – talking Family talk.

We enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise.

We enter his hands and his lap through Adoption, paid for by Jesus and sealed by the Spirit.

So we start with just Three Things.

Three things we are thankful for right then and there, safely belted into the little blue Mazda.

Yesterday I went on three car rides.

First, Lindsay and I went to pick up a donation from a local South African who decided to use her own time, her own money, and to break everyday’s routine to respond with true religion (James 1:27).

1. I am thankful for chicken, pap and juice - and for the hungry mouths that will be filled this week.

2. I am thankful for people responding to people in their own neighborhoods.

3. I am thankful for the ways Jesus surprises me through giving.

Then, Laura, Lindsay and I went to Dwaleni to find Nandi – who hasn’t been home since Saturday night.  We couldn’t find any mamas, but the kids came out of nowhere at the sight of the little blue Mazda. One 2-year old face in the rear view mirror, and another’s little legs running with a smile. Then Nandi appeared, head-in-hands to hide her relieved smile. Then 5-year old Tommy and 4-year old Charity playing with another group of kids.

I had no idea what to do with all these little longing, smiling faces. There were no mamas around to give them attention, but they felt like celebrities when the Mazda pulled up full of kisses and laps.

Well then…

EVERYBODY IN!

VICTORY LAP!

I’m not kidding… Ten kids in the car, white-girl Jesus rap music blaring, and car-dancing as we drove a circle around Dwaleni… just because we could.

Kevin got to drive

1. I am thankful for all those smiles and giggles.

2. I am thankful for the little blue Mazda and the ability to provide 3 minutes of bliss.

3. I am thankful for Laura Chaffin providing the soundtrack.

We took Nandi and Tommy to my house. They were lethargic from hunger and filthy from inattention. They played and played and played, and ate and ate and ate. They had bubble baths and dressed up in mine and Lifa’s warm clothes.

Long-legged, 11-year old Nandi loves the idea of running water and showers, but this time she wanted to be a kid… and take a bubble bath. In a bath bucket that she had to curl half her body into at a time  - but it was worth it. As I chopped green beans in the kitchen, her folded up, bubbly body sang “Hallelujah Jesus!!!” while playing with Lifa’s bath tub toys.

Finally, sleepy and satisfied, it was time to load up Nandi and Tommy to go back to Dwaleni – plus Lennon, Laura, Lindsay and Rae. As we pulled up, Mama Nandi walked up and grasped Nandi’s hand. In SiSwati, she said she would hold Nandi so she doesn’t run away and made empty promises that she wouldn’t beat her. Nandi grabbed my hand, clutching, squeezing, begging. She looked at me crying, big, desperate tears. “No, no, nooo, Mama Kacy, noooo,” in a voice loud enough for only me to hear. I asked if she could sleep at my house – the grip wasn’t getting any looser. Her mom said no. So I had to let go. All I could do was hug her, kiss her, and say, “I’m sorry Nandi” through everybody’s tears.

It was horrible.

So we prayed together on the solemn car ride back. And then we played The Thankful Game – even though we had to choke it out at first.

1. Thank You for being more just and more sovereign than I am - for loving Nandi and Tommy bigger and better than I do.

2. Thank You that light casts out darkness, and that Your Name IS Light.

3. Thank You that You are building a relationship with Mama Nandi. That, somehow, in that interaction, she was affected by Light. 

Every car ride is different.

Every moment is different.

He’s always the same.

We always approach Him, stand before His sovereign power and glory the same way.

Thanksgiving.

Three Things at a Time.

1. I am thankful that the thanks get bigger when the moments get harder - that Your glory does too. That Your strength and radiance responds directly to our need for it and belief in it.

2. I am thankful that not three things nor a million things could capture even one side of Your face, not the smallest measure of Your grace.

3. I am thankful that You invite me into You with each, "Thank you," and that You hear and respond to my whole heart. 

Running Low Until I Reach High

It’s been on of those weeks where everything seems to be running low.

This isn’t a whining, woeful story to start your weekend off with a good cry. This is my running trail. This is me trying to overcome all of the parts that feel like they’re running low by proclaiming Truth. I want to proclaim it to you. I want you to proclaim it with me.

There are seasons of abundance and seasons that feel more like a drought. Right now, resources are running low. In the past weeks, Ten Thousand Homes’ general funding to keep our homes and space for discipleship, as well as our most basic ministry costs has run low.

The gas in our ministry vehicle is running low.

The gas for our kitchen stove and the ones for our feeding programs are running low.

The finances we use to pay local workers has run dry.

Even the international donations for our weekly feeding programs significantly decreased this week.

On Thursday, I handed out plate-by-plate, plate-by-plate, plate-by-plate… 

Those perfectly brown and hungry-for-hope eyes just kept coming.

The line wrapped around the big tree and then around the house. It seemed like a new set of hands would come every time I placed a plate in one.

Plate-by-plate, I prayed for more with every plate.

Finally, I began to watch the pots run low.

Plate-by-plate served less and less.

Until I had to tell 30 empty tummies that we’d run out.

And then watch them scrape, lick and fight over the bottom of the pots.

Their little bodies running on empty. My heart broken by the sound of hungry, trampling feet around a pot.

On Tuesday, I went to visit 22-year old Mama Charity and her 4 babies 4-years old and under. As we approached, so did two men in uniform who came to clear out the furniture in her borrowed shack. The only thing she owned in the world, she couldn’t pay for.

I glimpsed into the empty shack – no food, no furniture.

Hope ran low in both of us as she stopped trying to hold her head up under the weight of the overcoming tears.

I looked down with this weeping woman, dressed in a bed sheet. I’ve watched the skin of her stomach stretch far and round, most likely carrying the newest joy, the newest burden, the newest mouth, only 10 months after the last one. Culturally, a woman, especially a woman who is running low on everything, doesn’t speak of a new life until it’s here. You don’t ask; you don’t speak; you don’t name – just in case.

I ran out of words. I wondered what ran through her mind. I wondered if it would get dangerous – if she would completely run out of hope.

She said she just needed a break.

So I scooped up the three children who were not breastfeeding, put them in my car and took them to our feeding program. And then back to my house for a slumber party.

Me with 3 of Mama Charity's 4 children

 Those perfect babies – low on nutrition and affection. I tried to load them with protein and vegetables, only to watch it run straight out of their tiny non-absorbing bodies.

A worthy attempt that left them laughing and running…. And me running low on toilet paper, Pampers, and laundry soap.

This week I don’t think I’ve been bowing low in exalting awe. I’ve been crumbling low under the exhausting weight of running… dry, empty, out.  

Doesn’t HE get tired from all of this running low?

Didn’t HE feel how heavy Mama Charity’s tears were?

Didn’t HE hear how loud those tummies grumbled?

Didn’t HE weigh the hair-pulling stress of our leadership, trying to steward tiny resources wisely for the safety and protection of the staff and the ones we are here to serve?

“Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom.” – Isaiah 40:28

It’s just right now. It’s just this life. It’s just today’s adversity.

“…In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” John 16:33b

Some days it runs low, and some days it overflows.

This day is only a breath, a whispered memory of an eternity of breaths and todays.

“All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field. The grass withers and the flowers fall, because the breath of the Lord blows on them. Surely the people are grass. The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever.” Isaiah 40:6b-8

So today I will say, “Thank you.”

Today I will say, “I love you.”

When there’s enough, I say thank you. When there’s not, I say thank you.

Because HE is good. His faithfulness, His love, HE never change.

“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” Hebrews 13:8

Thank you for the place I have to live and the people I have to live with.

Thank you that when someone runs low, someone has enough to share.

Thank you that the more I share, the more there is.

Thank you for the hundreds of children we COULD feed this week.

Thank you that it’s not about our hands, our plates, or our money.

Thank you for Mama Charity, new life, and her precious babies.

Thank you that healing can come through chicken, vegetables and a beanbag.

Thank you for bathtub toys and extra sheets.

No matter what temporary-tomorrow brings, it will soon become a story about yesterday.

But Jesus... Blood and water ran from His body as he hung high, going lower than low to overcome death. He will always be alive.

He came. He’s here. He’s coming.

Yesterday. Today. Forever.

“Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” Lamentations 3:22-23

Maybe this is it.

This next verse of Lamentations.

I’m going to write it. I want to mean it.

To hear. To know. To say. To live…

“I say to myself, ‘The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.”

Lamentations 3:24

And for my heart to beat out this one…

“But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weakness, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” 2 Corinthians 12:9-10

Thank you for making me weak.

Thank you for being my strength.

I choose to run in You.

Lindsay and Laura's Lenses

I'm a little late with the Wednesday post, but I've been busy watching two friends and lap-fulls of children fall in love with each other and with that deep-seated, almost intangible Truth about Home.

Lindsay and Laura are just beginning a 5-week African adventure and a new season of seeing God through the little eyes, the swollen tummies, and the hungry hearts of His very favorites, the dirty-faced little ones Jesus couldn't stop squeezing.

I can't stop squeezing them either. Or loving them. Or holding them. And I don't ever want to.

But those shacks, those calloused feet, those babies bouncing on their mama's backs, those tiny shouts, those empty eyes, and those reaching hands are my everyday. I don't know how I earned this everyday. Somedays it seems too good to be true that I get to know them everyday. Somedays I can't handle how broken life is in my everyday. And I hope it doesn't ever become "ok" - not on any day.

When friends come and see what I see everyday, their hearts break.
And I get to speak to their tears, and tell them to flow. Just like they're supposed to. Sometimes it even makes room for more of mine. Or sometimes it makes for one less tear because I know there's one more heart that's all the way in and can know and see and love with me.

Because these everyday children are supposed to have safe houses, warm clothes and full tummies. They are supposed to have mommies and daddies and hope for tomorrow. The price has been paid.

When we watch God move through other people, it gives us another angle on how good He is. How GOD He is. Sovereign. Holy. Complete. It's been finished.

We get to be a part of bringing Home home. And today there's two more handing out plates of food, praying around our base, and hugging and kissing and being Home to "the least of these".

Here are a few of Lindsay and Laura's beautiful photos - a glimpse through their eyes and camera lenses into the God-flow of Wednesday and every day. Be refreshed today, and ask God to show you Himself through the eyes of the people around you.

Tuesday Sounds

Celebrating His sounds today because He's an all-in kinda God.

In all 5 senses in every moment of our every day.

Kevin and Charity discover the new bean bag in the cottage...

Mama Charity proclaims Truth in her own language: Isa 55:1-2

"Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters;

and you who have no money, come, buy and eat!

Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.

Why spend money on what is not bread,

and your labor on what does not satisfy?

Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,

and your soul will delight in the richest of fare."

Isaiah 55:1-2

A Cupcake with Sprinkles

A handful of miracles are woven into 66 books, whose names, song and stories come together to make one big book - a highlight reel of the story of glory.

But today is Monday.
There is no book of Mondays.
And without looking for Monday's miracles - the miracle of the very presence of Eternal Love living in me and dancing around me through the love of other people - I get cranky on Mondays.

Mondays are get-it-done days. Mondays are usually the days I try to do everything else in the whole wide world that has to be done so I can spend the rest of my time hugging and kissing and holding and sharing and getting covered in red dirt. I just landed on my beanbag, sitting for the first time in about 15 hours.

But Monday was full of miracles.
And cupcakes with sprinkles.

This Monday I was lavished with gifts and surprises.
This Monday I made cupcakes, had coffee, and sealed a month of memories with a new friend from Brazil.
This Monday I welcomed two friends off of an airplane and into a new month of miracles and moments, starting around the dinner table and ending with those cupcakes again.
This Monday strangers told me they were inspired by what God does - even from right here on this one little blog.
This Monday I was given a whole week's worth of drinking water for free in the name of friendship.
This Monday we wrote "Feedings" on the board in faith.... knowing there wasn't enough money to fill even one plate.
This Monday just enough money came in to feed those almost-500 hungry tummies that will come seeking nourishment this week.

But if I hadn't taken time to see the sprinkles, I would have thought it was just another Monday.

Sunday Lunch

Something feels just right about Sundays.

Sunday’s story is about the two neighboring communities Ten Thousand Homes currently works with.

In Mbonisweni, we host feedings at a local church – my church. Pastor Sthembiso is a shepherd, and the youth of the church come together to host the entire feeding themselves. Because of this church Home and the people who come to serve God in His house, the Mbonisweni feeding on Wednesday afternoons feels like a backyard family picnic. After two years of feeding every week, the peaceful and playful chaos of 200 children, laughing, braiding, wrestling, tree-climbing and singing feels like the deepest sigh of satisfaction and a time-tested seal that Hope and Church really works.

Dwaleni is different. Zionism, a version of Christianity that believes you have to consult the ancestors to get to God, and traditional witchcraft prevail. When you drive the winding, shack-speckled road to Dwaleni, you can feel the spiritual oppression hovering like a storm cloud. On Thursdays, we feed 300 children from a house donated by an American missionary who dreams of it becoming a house of worship. Dwaleni’s feeding is no family picnic… The children latch on to whoever will touch them, fight to lick the empty pots after the food is gone, and their version of “playing house” is a horribly violent reflection into what they are probably avoiding going home to.

Just a few miles apart from each other.

It’s been an uphill battle to build relationships in Dwaleni without a church.

And then God opened doors to an incredible family. I asked Mama Charity if I could be part of her family, and she said yes. With no previous framework on family, besides the one that beat her and abandoned her, she had no idea what she was getting into with me.

What started with a baby and a bath bucket in the back of a truck in October 2011, has become trust that defies shame, laughter that trumps tears, and a little crack in the door of Truth.

After 5 months of regular visits, health care, hide-and-seek, baby-kissing, snack-bearing, and rescue missions, Mama Charity asked to come to church with me. ABSOLUTELY! 

And then she asked for a Bible in her language. YEEEHAWWW!

For the past two months, I’ve loaded…overloaded… the little blue Mazda with Mama Charity’s family of five, plus their cousins Nandi and Tommy, plus Busi and her baby. We roll that heavy car right over a mountain and into the yard of Mbonisweni Evangelical Reform Church, where everyone instantly feels at home.

Maybe it started as an exciting outing and a car ride.

If you could see past Lifa's crazy-face from last week, you would count TWELVE in the Mazda!

But then an elder from the church gave Mama Charity and Busi a bag of clothes for their children. 

And Pastor Sthembiso welcomed them to the front of the church and blessed the children, calling them each by name and declaring the church would welcome and care for them.

Then God talked to me about Sunday Lunch.

Sunday Lunch is my new favorite part of the week.

After church, I bring that whole carload of perfection home with me, and we eat together. We break bread… cornbread… because something happens when you eat as a family.

Given and Kevin

It’s not a shuttle service to church. It’s not about beating the Bible into them and dropping them back off into their empty shacks with empty bellies. It’s about tasting and seeing that the Lord is good… about learning what His Family looks like.  

The meal is not gourmet. And it’s the same every week.

It’s what I can afford to do every week, with hopes of inviting more as car-space allows.

Beans, rice, cornbread, juice and dessert – today it was peanut butter cookies.

It started as chaos – exactly what family looks like to two young, orphaned mothers. I was exhausted by the end of every long Sunday.

Last week we had a family meeting. I taught – and trusted God to translate the words they couldn’t interpret – about a family with boundaries, a family who takes care of what they have so they have more to share, and a family who works together.

Mama Charity hung her head in shame the whole time, expecting me to repeat the family stories she’s known before. “You’ve worn out your welcome.”

I’m inviting her into a Family that says, “You’ve been chosen for eternity.”

She leaned in, unable to hide her smile, drinking up foundational family words. There were new rules – she loved them. She wanted them. She needed them. She’s never known them, not a single boundary, and now is 22 with four children and paralyzed in her own fear.

I gave everybody a job.

Four-year old Charity carried the cups.

Five-year old Tommy carried the spoons.

Eleven-year old Nandi carried the full plates.

They cleaned and set the table.

We prayed together before we ate together around one big table.

A simple routine with the power to cut-off chaos and unify even those who’ve never known unity. 

Something Family happened. Something they needed, wanted and that we were all designed for.

Can sitting around a table and sharing a meal together really silence the orphan cry – even if just for one day?

Can the spirit of adoption really be imparted, at least a little, through a simple meal served with love around a carefully set table?

All Together: A previous week's Sunday Lunch with co-founder  Micah Burgess

I brought out basins of heated water, and we all washed our own plates.

The mamas washed the rest of the dishes and cleaned the kitchen while I held and kissed the babies.

Tommy washing his plate

 It sounds like the sweetest story, tied up pretty with a bow.

It’s not. It’s me, still learning to live and the way His Family does, two overwhelmed mamas who’ve never even seen a functional family, and seven kids who speak no English.

Busi and her beautiful baby girl

Like every family, we have our moments… And so many more than that…

Like the one where I found all the kids locked in the bath house cackling and crying like wild hyenas…

Or the time I found myself playing Hide and Seek with Nandi and Tommy – and my team was the one with the baby whom I was feeding a bottle, a huge dog, two toddlers and a four year old whose pants can’t stay on when she runs - and who were all afraid of the huge dog…

And even that one time there was a DISGUSTING explosion out of Kevin’s backside that called for an emergency bath, load of laundry and sidewalk spray-down…

Um, and all those moments were just from today.

But, somehow, it’s still beautiful. And I’m still smiling. And overflowing with, “Thank you, thank you, thank you Jesus.”

Pastor Sthembiso wants to start a branch of our church in Dwaleni.

But first we have to find people, build trust, and look like a Church.

I think there’s something to Sunday Lunch.

I think there’s Church at that table.

Lifa praying for our meal at a previous Sunday Lunch

I believe God is laying a foundation for His Family – to live just like the original church. Can you imagine what kind of redeeming hope and desperate love can be birthed out of this church of orphans called Family?

 

Western Hemisphere, pray for Sunday Lunch as you wake up every Sunday morning. For joy to spring out of baby sounds and bodily functions, for contagious family love, and for a Story and Salvation sweeter than dessert to be consumed.

Karabo and Charity

Sabbath Saturday

Yesterday my eyes and my heart were filled to their brims with a swallowing sorrow, baptized over and over again by crushing waves called, “Why?”

And then I talked to you. And I remembered.

And you responded, and so did He.

Thank You.

The Truth about today, the one ordained with glory, came to the forefront of my mind, and I started looking for the Light instead of stumbling in the dark. I committed to telling you about it so we could change our outlook on our todays as they melt into our everyday.

Saturdays are my Sabbath.

So we’ll keep this one short…ish.

Mountain drives and meadow walks.

Community gathering and Brazilian hot dogs.

Birthday songs and birthday cake.

An infantry of 10-year old boys and a cottage right in the middle of the battlefield.

Cookie baking and onion chopping.

A smelly candle and a cup of tea.

That was today.

Honestly, I didn’t feel God or hear Him much today. Not like I love to on this holy and set apart day of the week.

But I saw promises scatter and take root as seeds danced through the wind and as I sang to Him on the most beautiful walk.

 And I tasted the sweetness of community as six cultures came together around a cake and a trampoline to celebrate a child’s life.

And I gave thanks one cup of flour, one recipe book, and one egg yolk at a time during my newest routine… the two-hour Saturday night sanctuary in the big kitchen, with headphones singing His love from the front pocket of my apron as I prepare for Sunday’s lunch.

Quality time. With Him. And His people.

He’s there. When we feel Him and when we don’t.

When it’s a beautiful mountain scene and when it’s a messy kitchen that’s water just ran out.

And that’s exactly where I want to be. Giving thanks right there.

That’s the only thing that makes this string of todays become a story of everyday glory.

Everyday and Today

My 10-year high school reunion is coming up… TEN YEARS!

There is date-setting, event-planning and website-creating happening to commemorate 13-years of celebrating small-town daily life together. Memories and ridiculous pictures are resurfacing, marking and memorializing the spectrum of our stories together: coloring sheets and note-passing, play dates and game days, chicken pox and cootie shots, field days and game days, first kisses and first hurts, playground giggles and parking lot stories, choosing white or chocolate milk and choosing the next step when our everydays would no longer start at 7:42am in the Gym 3 parking lot.  

Our everydays shape us. The people. The places. The moments.

Ten years later, I remember and am still being influenced by the people who played, spoke, cheered, and loved into those critically-shaping 13 years.

Nothing looks the same in any of our lives as it did 10 years ago. And, 10 years from now, nothing will look the same as it does today. Our everydays turn into life-moving stories and immeasurable change, marked by pages written one day at a time.

And, somedays, the everydays don’t seem to be worth counting. Or remembering. Or marking.

I’ve been dragging the past couple of days in the “post-Lifa slump”… the mornings start with me waking up and checking on him, only to realize his bed is empty. Dinner doesn’t seem to be worth cooking for one. I even miss washing all the tiny clothes and the pee-pee sheets. The cottage that felt like the perfect Home, bursting with love, creativity and the crazy-beauty of the Spirit and His Family just days ago, started feeling like four empty, cold walls and a roof.

Yesterday at the feeding in Dwaleni, I had 12 beautiful children sitting on me and 4 more with their hands in my hair. Their beautiful, piercing eyes just blinked, waited and watched. And I had nothing to say, nothing to do, nothing to give. 

And I actually thought, “Did I really get a Master’s Degree in Marriage and Family Therapy to make PBJ’s, paint toenails, wipe snot, scoop beans, and sing ‘Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes’ over and over again?”

He whispered, “YES. It’s beautiful. It’s perfect. Everything was orchestrated for today. This slice of your everyday.”

I heard Him, but I still had nothing to say. They kept blinking with those perfect eyes. They kept touching with those dirty and longing hands. They kept puckering their little pink lips, knowing that, even when Mama Kacy doesn’t have anything to say, she’ll never deny a kiss. That was enough for that day. It had to be.

They rotated places on my lap. They consumed my arms, my hands. They rubbed my skin. They drank up my touch, maybe even the part of my heart that longed for my child. They wanted to be longed for. To be touched. To fill up all the empty spaces in me and on me, and for theirs to be filled too. They would even come and cry for no apparent reason at all. And I rubbed their backs. And tried to release His comfort over all of us.

Everyday was written with profound meaning, glory, intention and love.

Yours and mine and Lifa’s and those children in Dwaleni.

We all have that same, wanting blink in us. We want our empty places to be filled. We want to be reached for and to be touched.

We want to be known. We want to be chosen. We want to belong.

And that’s for today. That’s for everyday. But it’s especially for today.

Even the today when you’re washing dishes and sheets. For the today when you’re performing life-saving surgeries. For the today when you’re on maternity bed-rest. For the today you spend driving your child back into a home with no hope. For the today when it feels and looks like you’re just doing the same thing you did yesterday. For the today when you’re achieving your biggest goal. For the today when it feels like your dreams went bankrupt.

When we’re tired, when we’re sad, when we’ve got nothing in us, and we cry out to Him – or even forget Him because the day feels like a spiritual faux pas - He says, “YES. It’s beautiful. It’s perfect. Everything was orchestrated for today. This slice of your everyday.”

But in this piece of my everyday, the last few todays and the next few, I need help. I need family to remind me the promises of His Family… and that His promises have already been fulfilled, everyday designed and written exquisitely and intricately for His perfect glory.

So here’s what we’re going to do…

I’m going to do my very best to spend every day of the next week intentionally marking my everyday for God. I’m committing to writing to you about HIS glory-story revealed in my everyday, no matter how un-glamorous it seems. 

Hang in there with me, and try to do it in your own everyday. We can use our words, our perspective and our lives to speak Light and Life or darkness and death. And somedays it takes more effort than others to choose the capitalized-letter words. And everyday it takes a Family.

“…All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” Psalm 139:16b

“Sing to the Lord, all the earth; proclaim his salvation day after day.” 1 Chron 16:23 

The Really Cool Surprise About Jesus

Yesterday I took Lifa back to his father’s house. The two homes, “Mama’s house” and “Baba’s house” are like two different worlds, like a twisted knot of culture and time travel, and as opposite as light and dark. But God says keep going back and forth. He says it’s worth it. So we keep going because it’s worth it.

During the transition part, I always ask Him again if it’s worth it. It’s hard on a little boy whose four years have been a broken record of abandonment, confusion and uprooting. And now his story is told in three languages from two different realities.

I wonder if I make it worse. And then I remember it’s not about me.

We were both emotional on that day I tried to spin positively- the “special day where you get to see Mama and Baba!” Lifa explained to me that he gets in trouble if he cries at his baba’s house, so I gave him permission through so many words and actions to be extra angry, extra sad and shed extra tears at mama’s house. I handed him pillows to throw and kick over and over and over again until his tears turned into giggles. And then we started all over again when the tears came back.

It’s like light and dark.

After we prayed together on the way to his father’s house, I explained to Lifa “the really cool surprise about Jesus.” With so many of his favorite words in one sentence and a bag of Doritos in-hand, he couldn’t resist listening, no matter how emotional he was…

The really cool surprise about Jesus is that whenever you feel sad, or lonely, or angry, or frustrated, or scared, or when you’re all by yourself, or when somebody hurts you, or when you’re around bad people, or when it gets too dark, is that all you have to do is say, “Help me Jesus” out loud with your mouth, and He will come make Light where it’s dark.

Lifa, can you believe that!?! All you have to do is say His Name. Say, “Help me, Jesus.”

Yeah, Mommy. And if I just ask Jesus to come and to help me then I won’t be feeling scared anymore p-p-p-p-p-cause He comes to make it Light.

But Lifa, what about when it’s REALLLLLY dark and you can’t see anyone or anything? And you’re too scared?

Mommy. It’s ok. I can say, “Help me Jesus” and it won’t be dark anymore.

But Lifa, what if nobody around you knows about Jesus? What if they can’t help you?

Mommy, Jesus will help me. He will come and make me not scared or not sad and make the Light come.

Such a really cool surprise.

A mama and a little boy’s countenance, confidence and faith was illuminated as something was sealed in that conversation. Not one single detail of the rest of the trip was easier. But my little boy knows that all he has to do is say the name of Jesus and the Light will come.

And Light and dark cannot exist together. Darkness flees. Light prevails. His little light is gonna shine. I’m clinging to that.

…”I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” John 8:12

“If you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” Romans 10:9