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Yesterday’s ponderings continued in prayer this morning.

Here’s the inner-dialogue that I don’t mind publishing (the kind where the words of the Spirit came rather than those other words I sometimes use).

Thank you for walking through the ugly with me.

Thank you for the beginning of an understanding that it’s worth it – even in the midst of all the broken.

Jesus, you restored bodies and souls before your work was even finished.

Can I get my heart, my expectations and my faith in the right place today?

Not for perfection but for peace? And for walking with joy in the “worth it”?

Help me to love like you love.

To walk in that kind of love.

To drink it in and pour it out.

It’s the kind of love that loves all the way – without holding back – even before it gets “good” or “worth it”.

The Love that risked dignity, life, time, space, tomorrow and parts I don’t even know how to count.

Will you keep resurrecting me in that kind of love – even when I dish it out imperfectly?

Will you keep moving stones in the name of everlasting life when I have a tendency to look for life in all the wrong places?

You keep pouring out Living Water into these jars of clay. Broken cisterns.

And you never run out.

Because you say it’s worth it to keep pouring.

And I suppose that’s all I need to know.

Let love break loose in me.

Let me love You with my all.

And learn how to love everybody else that way.

I can’t swallow it.

I can’t measure it.

I can’t even behold this love.

This so loved that He gave His only begotten son.

It keeps flowing out perfectly into the imperfect.

Does it wrench your heart, Beloved?

Is it the same feeling as when You washed Judas’ feet just before he betrayed you with a kiss?

You always poured perfect love in him. Clean water over his dirty feet.

And you knew the whole time.

And then You used that ugly, dead, murderous tree to fulfill a promise, kill death forever, and bring your first-born and your newly-adopted sons from their crosses, nail-scarred hand in nail-scarred hand.

Would you –

Could you –

Actually use all of this death –

The crosses of poverty, injustice, starvation –

The betraying kisses of disease, neglect and abuse –

For a glory story?

I cannot and will not believe this is the way you’d choose it.

If the people weren’t worth it to you.

And if you weren’t completely incapable of breaking a promise.

A rainbow painted a promise a long, long time ago.

Your favorite colors said you love us, you respond to us, and you would choose to keep pouring Living Water into leaky vases over pouring out a flood for an eternity of do-overs.

You don’t want do-overs.

You want us.

New creations – again and again.

You didn’t want your son to ever experience a moment apart from Your Presence.

You don’t like sickness spreading and hands raising.

But the justice, the love and the mercy you chose on Rainbow Day is the kind that arches over flood damage.

It promised that the beauty from up there can and will and does reach down here.

In the beginning and in the end.

And even in the middle, especially in the middle, it can make a landscape of destruction unnoticeable when heads tilt up to the heights of unexplainable extravagance.

The arch is really big.

The curve of Your Hand goes far.

Some days it makes the space between the mess down here and the beauty up there seem impossible.

But today I want to walk and talk and know that it was worth it to You to get out that paintbrush of promise.

I want to lean into the worthy arch  - that led to a worthy lamb.

And an empty tomb.

And a promise that You really do have it all in Your hand.

You have to.

Or it wouldn’t be worth it. 

This Way or That Way

I love Saturdays.

And alliteration.

Sleep-in Saturday.

Sabbath Saturday.

Secret Saturday.

For the past 10 years, I’ve delightedly schemed secret Sabbaths – just me and my Savior.

The landscape has changed from a river to a mountain to a beach to a rock as the addresses and then the hemisphere changed. But the running away from the world to be with Him is a constant.

Today I did not sing on a rock. I didn’t even crack my Bible open.

“Sleep-in Saturday” ended with a 7am rat-a-tat-tat of the not-ready-to-speak knock against wooden bed rails.

Then a movie in a pop-up tent.

Followed by a puzzle, the animal game and head-butting the inflatable world ball just a little too high.

Teeth-brushing with blue bubbles.

Picking out the perfect 4-year old outfit.

Two loads of laundry.

Harmonica practice.

Bubbles, puppies and giving a new friend a tour of base.

So. Many. Boogars.

Whispers when we’re not ready to speak out loud yet.

A mountain of grilled cheese triangles.

A too-sour orange slice and a tongue sticking out.

A grocery store getaway just for one-on-one time.

Sunshine, playground, and a circus of children.

Shouting at children to dismount the angry-bee rocks.

Secret, slightly-biased winks exchanged with Lifa because he’s perfect and gets off the angry-bee rocks when asked.

Giggles, trampolines and ninjas running with sticks.

Small talk and family talk.

A kitchen full of busy people.

Two chocolate cakes. Two pans of cornbread. A boat-load of chocolate icing.

From scratch.

A family braii. (BBQ)

A table full of smitten women staring at the slowest, most diligent little chicken-chomper in South Africa.

Bath time and sleepy eyes.

Torrential tears in a towel because it’s just so much change – and more attention in one day than the last two months put together.

Snot-covered jammies because we can’t pull it together.

Snoring and kitchen cleaning.

And. Finally.

She sits.

I’ve done Saturdays every way.

I’ve gone away alone and basked in His presence.

And today I ran around in circles with dishrags and bubble wands, knowing He is in his presence too.

Today I feel it.

That I can do Saturdays that way or this way.

That His Presence never leaves, and He shows up when we ask.

And that this way doesn’t really make sense.

The way where I’m flicking his boogars that I find all over me, and where my heart is dropping when I see that flicker of hurt from the stories I don’t know- because I wasn’t there for them.

The way where I did it all backwards – moved to the other side of the world to become a “single mom” with a little boy my family’s never met.

I wrote about Nandi last week.

There’s not a real update to give you – except that we told her mom where she is, she hasn’t run, and she smiles – big.

Her mom might see her for the first time in over two weeks tomorrow. It might all happen in the close quarters of my car or in the back row of my church.

(So keep praying.)

Because this part doesn’t make sense to me either.

And I fought an ugly fight with God all week about it – about why it’s “ok” for little boys to not have ID’s or consistency, and about why – WHY – runaway girls in grave danger still get washed up into the ho-hum-hopelessness of “Africa time”!?!

 When every single one of this little boy and that little girl’s breaths, days and weeks are exactly as valuable and intentional as the ones of those so comfortably tucked into clean sheets in painted rooms in America.

And when every day of these kids lives were written before they were born by His hand, just like mine and yours.

But as I melt onto this couch after the busiest day of rest I can remember, I can’t help but remember that I could have done it that way or this way.

And God would be there either way.

He knew I’d do it this way today.

The juice box, mom-voice way.

That I’d get more life and more restoration from this exhaustion than from an extra nap or cup of coffee.

And even when it doesn’t make sense for it to be this way, He HAS to be here.

Because HE IS LOVE. And He loves love.

And Family.

He wishes a lot of things were another way.

Nandi’s story.

Lifa’s story.

A good chunk of my internal dialogue that you’ll never get me to publish.

But He knows.

And He shows up.

He’s always going to come. Even when it’s still this way.

When it hurts. When the timing’s not right. When we are still whispering or still waiting. When it doesn’t make sense. Even when we’re doing it all wrong.

This way or that way.

He comes.

It’s Show-Up Saturday.

Thank You, Jesus.

Thank You for today.

To Tell You The Truth...

I’m sorry it’s been so long since I’ve blogged. It’s not because I haven’t had anything to say. It’s because there’s been too much.

To tell you the truth, this weary lady could use your prayers as I’ve let myself get overwhelmed by the extremities of the jagged edges of injustice and the safe arms of restoration, by the suffocating chokehold of hate and the reviving breath of forgiveness, and by the empty-eyed desperation of need and the giggling celebration of provision.

Building Hope in a culture whose death rate says, “live for right now because later is not guaranteed”, and creating Home amongst a people group infected with shame, poverty, and injustice, requires a lot more than I have in my own strength. (Which is really good news.)

To tell you the truth, “building Hope and creating Home” doesn’t just happen with butterflies and cupcakes. You can’t put a coat of paint on a dilapidated shack and call it home. You can’t smile and wave at an orphan from the comfortable interior of your car and call it hope.

But it’s happening.

Hope and Homes is happening in South Africa.

It’s happening to the beat of that two-steps-forward, one-step-back shuffle that started in the produce department of Eden, when we took our first step back.

Life’s been messy here.

I’ve been teaching Family to a local church.

I’ve been passing out hundreds of plates of hot food to hungry tummies.

I’ve been kissing and kissing the droves of tiny voices and feet that follow me wherever I go.

But to tell you the truth, my real sphere of influence runs deep with only about 3 families.

It developed through countless cups of tea and car washes at GoGo’s house, slumber parties with Mama Charity’s kids, sewing lessons with Nandi, Sunday lunches, church at Busi’s house, Band-aids and bathtubs, and hours and hours of sitting in their yards. Laughing, dancing, picture taking, meal sharing, and all the usual parts of relationship building have swung the doors of Family wide open and given me the unique favor and honor to speak Truth into their lives.

It’s daily life with these three families that I’ve been so overwhelmed by the extremities of life and that I’ve danced the two-step-forward, one-step-back shuffle with.

Nandi ran away last Friday.

And to tell you the truth, nobody (else) seemed that worried about it.

We couldn’t find her anywhere until Wednesday. Nandi was hiding in the bathroom at Ten Thousand Homes’ feeding program in Mbonisweni, a few miles and a mountain away from her house in Dwaleni.

Nandi and her mom - Jan 2012

With the help of my pastor’s wife and the alluring bribe of a bright purple Band-aid for the cut on her finger, we learned that Nandi was hiding because she was simply out of places to go. This hard-faced, empty-eyed 11-year old was betrayed by her own tears as she crumbled in fear, explaining that her mom said she would beat her until the police came if she went home. And the extended (also not-so-safe) family she was staying with now said she couldn’t stay there anymore. She wept and begged to stay at my house.

I had to choke out that it wouldn’t be safe for her to stay at my house either. When her mom found out, she would lash out. I couldn’t become a threat to Mama Nandi and risk losing the ability to be a part of Nandi’s life. This situation required more than a Band-Aid, more than a coat of paint, more than a right-now repair job.

My pastor’s wife and I just started at each other, with dirty, barefoot, shivering Nandi tucked between our bodies to protect her from the winter chill.

We needed Hope.

We needed a Home.

Finally, I reached down deep and decided to take a chance.

“What about GoGo’s house?”

GoGo lives within shouting distance of the church. Nandi is from another community. They have no real connection, but they are both my family.

So we marched down there and asked if she could stay, at least until Sunday. They didn’t ask a question, didn’t bat an eyelash, and didn’t hesitate for a moment.

“Of course she can stay!” (Um… that was after the awkward clarification to GoGo that Nandi is a girl and not a boy.)

I was blown away.

Because to tell you the Truth, THIS is what it looks like to build Hope and create Home. I was the one taking lessons in Truth this time.

A friend who visited TTH earlier in the year seemed to have insight into this very Truth and the generosity that comes with it. Scott and the New Hope Church team left me with a stash of cash to meet needs as we saw them. I had it and was ready to tell the Truth with it.

As soon as Nandi was situated at GoGo’s, that little blue Mazda headed to town and bought her socks, underwear, a sweat suit, an outfit for church, and we threw in Amanda’s sparkly silver Toms too. Then we went to the grocery store and loaded a basket full of food for GoGo’s family, who hadn’t thought twice about another mouth to feed. We even had Lindsay’s perfectly-girly Knit-A-Square blanket to cover that extra body piled into GoGo’s 2-bedroom house of 6.

We burst through the cold winter night into GoGo’s house with loaded arms. Before she even knew I was there, I caught a glimpse of Nandi with little Fiona tied to her back, playing with her hair. Nandi was beaming from ear-to-ear.

The whole family was packed into the living room, just being a family. They ooed-and-awed and celebrated Nandi’s new wardrobe, clapping, cheering and dancing. Lindsay passed out sweeties, and Tshepiso cooed over new oranges. (They hadn’t even seen the big package of chicken yet!)

I stood there, soaking up the warmth. The Truth. Family.

I told them that this is what the Body of Christ looks like.

When one person has a need, there’s always someone who can meet it. Nandi needed a Home and a family and a sanctuary, and GoGo’s family responded. Before they even saw the need, people in America responded to God’s promptings, and we were able to bring the food and clothing they would need.

The Truth is, He sets the lonely in families. (Psalm 68)

The Truth is, He died so we could have access to Family. (Galatians 3)

The Truth is, Hope and Homes is happening.

One house, one little girl, one pair of shoes, one bag of groceries, one knitted blanket, one sweat suit, and one choice at a time.

“For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat,

I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink,

I was a stranger and you invited me in,

I needed clothes and you clothed me,

I was sick and you looked after me,

I was in prison and you came to visit me…

I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.”

Matthew 25:35,36, 40

Nandi - March 2012

Prayer Request:

Please continue praying. Nandi is smiling, laughing and adjusting beautifully at GoGo’s, but this is only a temporary place. She is not attending school. Pray for breakthrough with Mama Nandi as my pastor’s wife and I go visit her on Monday. We have no idea what the next step will look like or what God has in store, but we know He’s got His eye, His hand, and His heart on Nandi.