"Yeah, It's Tricky Being a Ninja."

He’d been quiet and broody. My Mom Powers could feel the storm rolling around inside of his eight-year old spirit, but he didn’t know what it was or how to get it out. He just sat and stared.

One dad (Chris) was away for meetings in Swaziland. And as soon as Chris got home, we’d pack up and take Lifa to his other dad’s (his biological father's) house for the Easter holiday. Something had to give. One of us was going to implode from the unspoken storm surges that were stealing the spark from Lifa’s eyes. 

At dinnertime, I filled up a bowl with his all-time favourite food combo: beans, coconut rice, tomato, cheese and yogurt. (Yogurt goes on everything.) Spoon by spoonful of comfort food and regular dinnertime routines created some space for Lifa to name his internal battles. 

He was nervous about the upcoming trip to his dad’s. I watched the questions I asked him about his dad’s house not translate across his families' cultures. Things like, “Who takes care of you while you’re at your dad’s house?” And, “Where do you sleep?” He stared dumbfounded and asked what I meant. Those questions, things I thought were normal household questions, didn’t translate. He said, “What do you mean who takes care of me? Like, do what?” And, “Where I sleep changes. It depends on who is home."

The brooding and battling started to make more sense. One family’s culture, questions, routines, and lifestyle cannot fit in the same paradigm as the other’s. Just half a day’s drive away, Lifa leaves one world, one language, one life, and he joins another. He’s eight. 

Those questions unlocked something for him and for me. He’s old enough now to see the differences… and to get mad about some of them. To feel afraid, alone, and confused.

Why does love look one way in one house and another way in another one?

Are they both love?

Why do my parents act one way in one house and another way in the other one?

Do they all love me? Am I safe? Are they safe?

I had a Mom-storm stirring in my gut by this point. I’ve begged God for the past 6 years to take the pain away from him, even to tell me when to stop, to release Lifa, so that he doesn’t have to walk in this wilderness. I’ve offered buckets of tears to my Father, pleading that He would at least let me carry the pain instead of a little boy. God says to just keep taking that drive. And He meets us on that road every time.

“Lifa, is it hard to have two different houses and families?"

Eight year-old shoulders fell under the weight of two worlds at once. Somehow, relief and his typically awkward smile reclaimed his expression as he gave a big, satisfied nod. YES. 

He talked about how sometimes he wishes his life could just be like his friends at school. One culture. One family. One lifestyle. One language. He said it’s hard to worry, to be afraid and to go back and forth. HE’S EIGHT.

Many of his friends at school come from households where there’s no dad or no parents at all. They sleep in different places every night. There’s no dinner table and nothing healthy to eat. There’s not safety, security or soccer practice. But, on somedays, he’d give up his own Spiderman bed and take that just to be like somebody else. Just to stop straddling cultures. Just because he’s eight, and he wishes he didn’t know what he does know because sometimes that is safer. 

We talked and talked. I listened and learned. And then I leaned in and said, “Lifa, God told Dad and I a secret about you.” Suddenly, I had the most captive eight-year old audience ever… because God secrets are awesome.

“You know how we always call you a Mighty Warrior? Well, God told us He has a super-cool, super-secret plan for you to become a great warrior. There are a lot of stories in the Bible about little boys who had to live lives very differently from the other boys. BUT, when they got bigger, their different lives, the things that made it so hard when they were little boys, was actually training that made them strong enough to be good warriors. God said that He knows how hard it is to go back and forth, and He is with you always. And, one day, He’s going to look at you, Lifa, and say, ‘Now you’re ready, My son. You are a Mighty Warrior."

"So, right now, even when you go to your dad’s house, you’re in warrior training. Kinda like ninjas have to train for a long time to be really good ninjas. You want to be a ninja that wins, so you go through all the hard training."

Understanding washed over him now that he could understand this beautiful secret he was a part of. All of a sudden, the storm passed. And he said, “Yeah, it’s tricky being a ninja."

That was it. Challenge accepted. 

When the wilderness is warrior training, when you choose the battles for the victories, when you step back from suffering and get some perspective, it’s no less painful, but it’s somehow ok.

It’s tricky. And it’s worth it.

Whether you’re eight or you’re eighty, we want to know, to understand, to be safe, to be secure. We want for it to not be hard. During the long walk through the wildness, the Israelites just wanted to go back to slavery because, at least there, they knew what to expect.

But once you know, you can’t not know.

So, hear this and know: You weren’t made for that. Not for slavery or security.

You were made to stand between the world and heaven, and call down the Kingdom of God. You were made to straddle cultures, not fit in. You were made to walk into the wilderness with triumphant joy because you’re entrusted as an ambassador for a Kingdom. And you want to be ready for that. And you want your kids to be ready for that too.

I’m about to go wake an eight-year old warrior-in-training for the trip to his dad’s house. Pray for us today as we drive through the in-between and send God’s little ninja into another round of training. Pray for him to remember he’s part of eternity’s best secret and that in those scary times, low points and hard stretches, Lifa will remember his worth in the arms of Christ and that it’s tricky being a ninja. 

Hope Doesn't Float: It Flies Helicopters

We spend a lot of evenings around the dinner table laughing at Lifa’s inability to stay awake between bites after 6:30pm. Being 8 years old and a soccer ninja is just exhausting. 

#ninjalife

A few nights ago, he actually got too tired to chew. So he just started swallowing his food in big, loud gulps. In effort to keep him awake, I started telling stories about some of our very first dinners together. 

I talked about what it was like to teach little Lifa how to chew and swallow his food before we even spoke the same language, and how his body was slow and super-ultra-gross in learning how to digest nutrients. Before our dinners, he had mostly lived on flavourless porridge that slid down his throat without requiring chewing and without delivering any nutrition to his swollen little body.

Although his bones were melting from end-of-the-day exhaustion, our healthy and happy Lifa held his fork and knife just like Chris taught him, and thankfully ate his healthy dinner. (And then spent the remainder of his energy trying to convince us that surely not all food had to be chewed… Chewing cheese seems ridiculous!)

We live in a nation full of swollen starvation.

People are starving to death, and they’re not hungry. 

They have no idea their bodies, minds or hearts can feel different because they only know what they’ve tasted and seen.

Yesterday, we loaded our car with big-hearted mamas who spend their days cooking and serving healthy food to the beautiful little mouths of their own communities. Hundreds of children flock to them after school each day, eager for the plate of food and the safe place these ladies offer. 

As we traveled to the seminar we were hosting for them, Chris turned on Justin Bieber and I started asking questions to stir up conversations and dreams. (We make the perfect team.)

I asked the car: “If you could learn ONE THING to make your life better, what would it be?"

While my family answered things like learning how to fix stuff (Lifa), fly a helicopter (Chris) and get really big muscles (me), these ladies laid out their hearts and dreams… because there was finally a place for them. The first mother said the one thing she wanted to learn about was how to talk to people better. “So the children can feel safe and I could help when there was problems with other mothers. I don’t know how to help. I don’t know what to do.” The next one said, " I’d learn how to be a better parent so my kids will feel loved and not manipulated."

We were dreaming dessert kind of dreams - flying helicopters and building biceps.

They were begging for basic nutrition. Something they could chew on.

The women leading CarePoints - the ones who, in my eyes, exemplify the healing, filling, meaty hope of Christ - sat in the backseat and dreamt that there could actually be more than what they know. 

I bowed before them that day and taught them about loving humbly, something they already live so well. They ferociously scratched notes on this word, “humility” that they had never even heard.  Then, my handsome husband stood before them and taught them the basic Biblical principles and practical steps of managing conflict. Their eyes unlocked and smiles broke through - just like the day Lifa finally understood what it meant to chew and swallow before taking the next bite so he wouldn’t gag himself anymore.

The most handsome man giving Mama Edith a certificate
of completion for yesterday's Equip Day seminar. Photo by Angi Bittle.

They’ve been hungry for so long. Not starving for physical nutrients, but for spiritual and practical ones.  

A thought flashed before my mind for just a moment in that car ride. I wondered if I should feel ridiculous for dancing to Justin Beiber and dreaming aloud about squats and lunges and an awesome butt while these women were dreaming of the most basic life-sustaining nutrients. They just wanted to know how to save their kids. 

But you know what… Hope is fancy, not flavourless. Hope craves, dreams, desires. Hope comes with dessert and an awesome butt. Hope talks about muscles and helicopters and fixing stuff. Hope even comes with a catchy soundtrack and a music video. Because where hope comes from, nothing is spared.

Just surviving… letting porridge slide down your throat so you don’t feel like you’re starving anymore… makes you lose your appetite for life.

You have to see the menu to know there’s something else available. 

No I'm not sorry.
Yes, I own that music video.

You have to see someone who is healthy to believe in health.

You have to smell a juicy steak to know what to crave.

You have to hear a Justin Bieber song to know how to dance.  

My job is not to end world hunger.

It’s to dream about dessert, and to get really big muscles.

I constantly ask God to increase my imagination because His Word says He can do more than we can even imagine. (Eph 3:20)

I’ve given my life to Christ. Why would I just slide through this world without craving, moving, growing, learning, yearning, and doing?

Jesus came and worked, healed, taught, cried and died. He flipped over tables, and He said, “Lifa, you have to learn how to chew that cheese because the meals only get better and better.” 

Jesus did stuff. 

Hope doesn’t float.

It learns how to fly helicopters. It goes to the gym. It fixes stuff. 

Hope does stuff. It moves. It breathes. It pushes the roof off so you can see heaven.

What if our job wasn’t to solve the world’s problems by shouting about what people don’t have?

What if the world started to change because we change ourselves? What if we increase our imagination, our abilities, our capacities to whet the appetites of others who just didn’t know. What if two ladies in the backseat of our car saw healthy parenting boundaries and that was enough for them to start wondering if there was something more than manipulation, threats and fearfulness for their families? What if that was enough to chew on for them to take a new idea to their own communities and show the families there? What if a healthy family wildfire started in that backseat?

Want a taste of this stuff that changes the world? Want a bite of hope? Go do stuff. 

Change yourself so the world can change. Somebody needs to see it so they know they can do it too.

Our Family Vocabulary: The Double Pour

Your words shape your world, your values, who you are, how you love.

Every relationship that truly reaches you develops it’s own lexicon that characterizes it, impacts your story, hems you into it, and sets it apart from all the others in the word.

Moment by moment and laugh by laugh, we are creating our own household vocabulary because we want the legacy we leave as a family to be definable and worth talking about.

Less than six months into being a family of three, our word game is strong.

Please let me introduce you to…  The Double Pour.  

(If you didn’t read that with heroic background music and a dangerous tone at least 3 octaves lower than your regular tone, please go back and try again. It’s important.)

Necessary background information:

Lifa is scared of water. I mean, SCARED SCARED.

When he was 2, he would scream the kind of scream that puts people on the 5 o’clock news. Sheer panic would shatter the hearts and eardrums of me and all the neighbors that came rushing over every time I would bathe him in 2 inches of water.

We’ve tried swim lessons.

Chris has surprised him with a few perfectly timed cannonballs.

We’ve made games with every kick, bubble, and strategy you could think of, but that deeply entrenched fear is like kryptonite on our super-kid.  

Then, we told him he could no longer use a washcloth to wash his hair and face. He is 8, and it’s time for actual, flowing water. (Side note: One time I took him to get a haircut and was totally embarrassed when piles of sand came out on the clippers.)

Hair and face-washing showers became breakdowns; bath times became long, painful, stressful events dreaded by everyone.

And the thing is, Lifa loves the idea of water.

He wants to love it; he wants to own it; he wants to be in it.

But when it comes near his face...  Stress City.

Cue: The Double Pour

My handsome super-husband is committed to helping Lifa become the courageous warrior God designed him to be… even when warrior training looks like both guys putting on swim trunks and Chris getting in the scream shower with Lifa.

One evening, during the bath time saga, Chris went in with a new strategy. I watched him head to the bathroom armed with a plastic cup, patience and a purpose. I was cooking dinner and realized it sounded different in there. Suddenly, both of my guys marched out looking like champions – Lifa was extra clean, and both of them were exuding manliness, chanting and grunting about, “THE DOUBLE POUR!”

"Yeah, Mom, that’s right: THE DOUBLE POUR."

RAWWWWWRRRRRR. Muslce flex. Man pose. Back to goofy kid smile.

THE DOUBLE POUR:

 proper noun. ultimate challenge. victory banner.

1. super innovative, super high-tech cleansing system that involves filling your plastic cup and dumping it over your head two times in a row without stopping to maximize shampoo removal and minimize panic.
2. The way to make you feel like you just won the entire world in a bathtub.

Overnight, Lifa went from dreading bath time to talking about it on the way to school every morning, asking us to time him, and then stick around to watch him hold his nose and go under the water for at least 5 seconds.

(Real time update: I just got called into the bathroom while writing this so he could defy the double pour by pouring TWELVE cups of water over his head in a row and chanting, “I LIKE IT,” as water ran down his face. If it wasn’t so weird, I would have videoed it.)

All it took was naming it.

It’s not that you can’t overcome your greatest fear, but you have to stop letting fear be your greatest fear. 

Without a name, it’s just a lurky, murky, knock-the-legs-out-from-under-you shadow.

You name the enemy. You look it in the eye. And then you take it on.

Lifa has yet to conquer the swimming pool, and then one day the ocean. But he's casting out his fears: pour by pour. 

Chris named Lifa’s greatest challenge, and suddenly that larger than life fear was an enticing, empowering invitation for victory from a loving father.

Your Father wants the very best for you. He has already poured Himself over every shadow and fear in your world – whether your world fits in a bathtub or an ocean.

He took the cup, and then He put it in your hand.

He is standing beside you cheering you on to your ultimate victory:

Today is the day for your Double Pour.

And we are a Double Pour kind of family. 

The Secret of the Shovel

I sat in the loudest, most chaotic “library” I’ve ever been in, and leaned in close to talk with a teacher who is not actually a teacher. He thought it would be nice to try teaching, and the need is great, so he was placed in a classroom of 63 third graders. The teacher doesn’t always make it to class, but when he does, he doesn’t know what to do. He’s not even sure about all the subjects. 

I sat in a coffee shop with a social worker in training and listened to her dream about making a difference. I took that hopeful social worker to-be to meet an experienced social worker, so we could learn together about the untapped resources and the potential buried within the nation. The experienced social worker was not lacking in knowledge or information; instead she had a full detailed report of all the social services that are supposed to be available, yet have dried out. Oh, and there’s no option for kids with no birth certificate. She doesn’t get it either.

I sat in an office with a community developer. He carries a heavy burden on his shoulder and in his eyes. He sat, sunken into the chair, and reached, grasped, begged for some beacon of hope - something that might work. He can’t figure out why no one wants to make sustainable change. His best strategy is trying to sprinkle in the hope of Christ over deeply entrenched ancestral belief, like adding a touch of salt to rancid meat, serving it and wondering why people aren’t getting healthy. 

There is a drought in this nation.

A literal, physical drought that is putting our farmers in a crisis, and a hope drought.

Eyes, hearts and dreams are drying up as needs increase and resources decrease. 

 

Chrisleeladd on instagram tells the best photo stories.

That overwhelmed teacher, that exasperated social worker, and that desperate developer have been weighing on me. Those conversations at been gnawing at my own hope, chewing away at some of my own dreams for this nation and for my own family. A drought leaves no one untouched, and makes us feel powerless.

There was a drought in another nation a long time ago.

The Lord spoke to the exhausted infantry that was tired, dehydrated and battle-weary. They needed water for themselves and their livestock. They had been marching for days. As their strength waned, they leaned in hard to hear Hope’s refreshing, alleviating voice. “He said, ’This is what the Lord said: Make this valley full of ditches.” (2 Kings3:16)

Hope Himself told them to pick up a shovel and get to work. 

Digging ditches doesn’t make water.

It makes a space to hold it when there’s excess.

There was not a drop, but they dug.

Every day here, we get to work and try to equip people to do their part - to use their gifts, to use their hands, to build the Kingdom in the practical, life-changing ways.

Cook a meal.

Read a book.

Read more about this education genius at http://www.bkonmission.com

Hug a child. 

Everyday, we also have to remind ourselves that we can spread a little light over someone’s shadows and shake a little salt over someone’s wounds, but we cannot make it rain. When the real resources you need are not yours to make, you either lay down and die, or you do something anyway. A shovel does not make rain, and neither does a plate of food, a hand to hold, or even a birth certificate. But the secret is not in any of those things, and the secret is not in the shovel. 

 

We are not in charge of the rain, the salvation of the people, or of promises being fulfilled. They will be. They have been. They are.

The story of the ditch-digging army continues like this: “You will not see wind or rain, but this valley will be filled with water. You, your cattle, and your other animals will drink. The Lord considers that an easy thing to do…” (2 Kings 3:17-18a)

We have been entrusted to the land. Entrusted to partake in something that matters.

We have been invited to pick up our shovels and work right beside, behind and before our Maker. It’s not because he can’t do it on is own, but because He wants us beside Him. He wants us to work up a good enough sweat to drink deeply of Him.

The shovel might seem irrelevant. Just like my meetings with teachers, social workers and community developers. But we make space with those shovels. We blister our hands and strain our backs to make promise-holders, landing places for the water that truly saves. We lean in and lean over until there are deep places to catch the life-water so it can be absorbed; it can wash; it can make clean. 

The ground gets hard in a drought. If the rain comes today, in a dried out heart or in a dried out land, would it create a mudslide of confusion with nowhere for the water to go, or would we have already gone before it and dug a ditch for it? Would our blisters and thirstiness be worth it while we watch the rain fill, refresh, restore and save?

We set tables. We share burdens. We dig space-makers, promise-holders. We dig for the end of the drought.

We don’t make the rain. 

We pick up the shovel. 

One year ago today...

It was February 3, 2015, and I had just returned from a week out of town. Chris, the nice and neutral Tennessee man, whom I had bonded with about life in South Africa and come to respect on a deep level, wanted “to talk”.

No, it did not play out like the romantic movie scene currently playing in your mind. And the only soundtrack was a 7-year old wild child, bouncing around in his underwear.

The only jitters or feelings came in the form of Chris feeling sick to his stomach as we sat on opposite couches, and he methodically reported everything he had come to say.

He said I was scary.

I was scary because I had all the qualities God had told him to choose in a wife, and I came with…. bonuses. You know, second grade, superhero-like bonuses, that he had never envisioned for his own life.

BONUS! Just in time for the awkward years!

That night, during what I like to call “The Business Meeting”, Chris Ladd told me everything God had spoken for his life, and I told him what God had spoken for mine. We laid it all out, matter-of-factly, on the proverbial truth table and decided we could do all of those things together. And it would be better together.

I looked at that Tennessee man sitting on the big couch, and I said, “I choose you.”

“If we’re going to do this, I’m going to choose you every single day. No deal breakers.”

And there it was. It all came down to a choice, followed by a few moments of mutual panic, an awkward side-hug, and a promise that, if I put anything on Facebook that night, he would definitely throw up on the way home.

One year ago tonight, I crawled into my bed and thought, “Oh crap. I love Chris Ladd.” Not because I liked him or felt whooshy when I was around him… because I didn’t yet.

Because I chose him. I chose to choose him every day.

And that is love - choosing every day.

Eight months after that business meeting, we had another meeting under a big tree, in front of our family and friends.

Today, we live together in South Africa, the epicenter of the world’s “Orphan Crisis.” We wake up every morning not knowing what South Africa has in store for us, yet already knowing  how we will choose to respond.

We will not cry about an orphan crisis. We will celebrate the Family of God.

My handsome husband captured this moment.
You can see his awesome photos on instagram: chrisleeladd

We will choose to speak and see things as they truly are. 
We just traveled for 3 days straight to get back to this home-spot on the map, yet we know the epicenter of the orphan crisis is not found on a map. It’s found in a heart. The real orphans are the ones who don’t know they have a Father, and the true crisis is an unclaimed inheritance, just waiting for the chosen to come and collect it.

Some of the kids here are orphans. 
And some don’t have parents.

It’s the same all over the world.

Some days we sit on tires under the tree and make sure the ones around us know about the Father that chose them with no deal-breakers and with all their bonuses.

We have all been chosen.

Some day, we will sit across from our Beloved, and He’ll lay it all out on the Truth table. He’ll remember the times you choices you made,  the times you looked someone square in the eye to tell them there was no deal breakers on love. He’ll call you by your name, and He’ll celebrate how you woke up each morning and decided to spend your eternal inheritance wildly, knowing there is enough for everyone.

On that day, your Beloved will say, “Well done, my good and faithful chosen one. Come in and share my happiness.” And a whole lot more people will be in there with you.

We are chosen. And then we choose each other.

It’s better together.

Stretch Out Your Skin: part 2

Dirty, desolate Benji sat outside the gates and watched.

That malnourished, un-held little boy body did not have enough health or hope to think about what could happen if he went inside those gates.

 So dirty, desolate Benji sat outside the gates and watched.

 

All photos taken by my smokin' hott husband.
To keep up with his insta-awesome, follow chrisleeladd on instagram. 

He watched cooking mamas, smiling and singing. 

He watched the other dirty kids skipping inside the gates to have their hands washed by those smiling, singing mamas.

He watched cheeks and tummies filling with healthy food and unlimited affection.

He watched those full tummies and happy faces laugh, play and dance like children were made to do.

Dirty, desolate Benji has probably never had a smiling mama to wash away the dirt or to sing away the desolation. He lives with relatives, but he has no parents. He shares a living space inside a culture that feels no obligation to reach for you, touch you or sing over you if you are not their own. No matter how many baths he takes or how many people are around him, without being seen, reached for, touched, he will always be dirty, desolate Benji.

One day, somebody saw Benji and didn’t skip past him. He saw that, past the thick layer of dust on his skin, Benji was physically breaking from not being touched. He stopped at that gate entrance and looked inside of those desolate eyes and found almost nothing.

Meet Benji. Sweet, sweet Benji.

My husband’s voice still trembles when he tells the story of seeing Benji and knowing – knowing in that way where you know, know, know – in that way you wish you couldn’t know so well…

Benji was going to die.

Chris knew that was probably the last week that dirty, desolate Benji would sit outside the gates and watch. Benji was not starving to death, but he was dying the devastating death of being untouched and unreached for.

We are made to be held. To be touched. To need each other.

More than we need food and water, we need each other.

We need hope to fill us and hope to touch us.

Chris knew that Benji needed Hope’s hold to save his life, and Hope had sent a whole bunch of hands and holders from Baton Rouge, Louisiana to save Benji’s life. Chris asked… no, Chris told the team from Fellowship Church to make sure someone was always holding Benji.

No longer allowed to sit outside the gates and watch, dirty Benji was scooped up and held tight for a solid week by outrageous Louisiana love, covered in life-giving prayer, and his desolation was shamelessly smothered out by endless affection.

Benji no longer sits outside of the gate and watches. Doting and delighted Benji dashes inside, does his sweet, momentarily shy Benji thing, and just waits for love to scoop him up.

THIS IS BENJI!

Hope grabbed a hold of Benji. Hope’s name is Jesus.

Hope came from a husband and father who could see, and from a church in Lousiana armed with compassion and Truth .

Hope put on skin and stretched it out vulnerably on a cross.

He did the worst and promised we would do more than He could.

Hope overcome dirty desolation with skin that reached and stretched, and Hope told us to do that too. 

Hope gives us eyes to see, hearts that know, and hands that reach. Hope makes our skin stretch further than we understand.

Hope asked my husband and Louisiana to reach out their skin so heaven could hold Benji. The dirty work has already been done, and in this world full of desolation, all we have to do is stretch out our skin and let Hope hold.

As Chris and I pack up to go back to South Africa on Sunday, we want to thank you for reaching for us, holding us and hoping with us.

If you have Jesus, you bear Hope in your hold, and there’s great power and reach if we join hands, hearts and resources to do it together. We believe God is asking us to reach a little further and stretch a little wider this year.

Would you pray about extending Hope’s reach by becoming a monthly supporter to join in the work with us this year as we head back to South Africa?

Please email me for more info at kacy.ladd@childrenscup.org

Or click here to make a tax-deductible one-time donation or automated monthly giving. Just click "Support".

Stretch Out Your Skin: part 1

I found her homeless, lost and scared in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike on Galveston Island in 2008. Ms. Armstead was 87-years old and the evidence of her long life had been washed, tossed and left for debris in one night’s windstorm. I met Ms. Armstead in a hot, humid, roach-infested hotel room, and she couldn’t find her son.

All she had in there with her was a Bible and a diamond bracelet. The bracelet was debris that had washed up with the hurricane floodwaters. She found it when she accidentally ran her shopping cart over it during her daily walk to the grocery store.

I visited Ms. Armstead often, holding her hands, wiping her tears, answering her phone calls, and finally making a few calls of my own. It wasn’t long before we started meeting in her new rental house – all it took was loading her up in my little Ford Ranger, calling every imaginable social service office on her behalf, locating her son, doing her grocery shopping, coordinating church and medical services, and signing her lease myself.  

Technically, I was her crisis counselor…

I might have stretched the boundaries of that slightly. She became a family member. I remember the day my cousins bought her a dining room table, and the day we picked up couches for her and decorated her house. I remember bringing my grandma, mom and sister to visit her, swapping stories and photos, and the day she anointed my sister and my head with cooking oil - and we felt equally blessed and worried about breaking out.

She lost everything except her faith. The less she had on this earth, the more she reached for God.

She would stay up all night on some nights crying out for the brokenness of her community. I can still hear her shaky little 87-year old voice, weeping and praying “the blood of the lamb” with a toothless mouth over me and every single person who walked by her house.

She always, always, always prayed for me. She prayed fervently about my wedding day, and she dreamt prophetically about it for the year and a half I spent working with her.

At the end of 2009, when I told her I was leaving for South Africa, she wept with my grandma. She sent me with her blessings, the blood of the lamb, and that diamond bracelet to wear on my wedding day.

In 2015, I wore that bracelet in South Africa on my wedding day. And walked down the aisle with two blessings greater than Ms. Armstead could have known she had prayed for.

My husband, Chris, and I drove by her home when we got to Texas. I didn’t expect Ms. Armstead to be alive anymore because our letters of correspondence ended a few years ago. I just wanted to bring that handsome answer to her prayers to see the place where the prayers were lifted and where the dreams of him were birthed.

A woman from her church was going to check on her house right as we drove by, and she told us Ms. Armstead is in a nursing home after a bad fall and would turn 94 the following week!

Days later, I walked into the room where she napped and cupped her enormous, age-softened hand in mine. The second she opened her eyes, she said my name as loud as her voice would allow, and she wept. She said, “You’re married. I knew it. I never stopped praying for you,” as I flipped through the wedding album and told her stories about Chris, Lifa and South Africa.

It was like we never missed a beat. She could barely speak; her skin has lost all elasticity and only loosely drapes her fragile bones; but she is still Ms. Armstead. She told me she couldn’t take care of herself anymore, and she just wanted to go home to Jesus. She was tormented with worry for the salvation of her granddaughter and great-granddaughter, and she just wanted to rest.

I held her hands, and I kissed her nose. I looked deeply into her tired eyes, and I spoke loud and clear, “You’ve lived a good life, Ms. Armstead. You’ve done well, and you’ve done your part. You can rest now.”

I made a promise to her that I would take on the burden of praying for her family members, and she could rest. I saw relief wash over her glassy, gray eyes. She said it would be our last time to see each other, and she blessed me and choked up with her hands on mine. She said, “Just tell people about Jesus, baby.”

I kissed her forehead over and over again.

It was the softest skin I’ve ever felt.

Thread-bare by a life well lived.

Skin stretched thin by a 94-year pilgrimage of lamenting for the lost, inhabiting His Word, and reaching and reaching and reaching for heaven.

I prayed for her and told her that I am spending my life with a husband who looks, sounds, walks and talks just like Jesus. I told her we will spend our lives telling the world about Jesus and every prayer she prayed for me was answered. The storm that seemed to sink it all brought about prayers that would literally reach the nations and bejeweled the arm of this happy bride in the process.

As she held my hands in her soft, life-stretched-thin hands and told me, “Just tell people about Jesus, baby” she put her strong mantle on my family and me. I gave her permission to rest, and told her we would pick up the work from here.

I remembered the passage of promise for the desolate woman that told her to increase her space because her legacy would stretch far and wide. “Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide.” The literal translation for that passage, written in a time of animal skin tent dwellings, is “stretch out your skin”.

Ms. Armstead has stretched out her skin and increased the inhabitants of the Kingdom of God. She made every one of those 94 years count.

So we pick up the work from here, and we remind each other:

Stretch our your skin, and make it count.

As long as you have skin to stretch, make it count.

Because when you reach, when you spend you skin on what will still matter when your skin won’t stretch anymore, it counts.

When Ms. Armstead closes her eyes for the last time on this earth, after she’s shed that final tear and she leaves that old, tired, stretched out skin, we will continue, on the wings of her prayers to the ends of the earth. And even greater than that, her Bridegroom will put a shiny diamond bracelet on her arm, kiss her brand new skin, and say, “Well done, my beautiful bride. You told people about Jesus, baby.”

From Isaiah 54:

“Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes.

For you will spread out to the right and to the left; your descendants will dispossess nations and settle in their desolate cities…” 

“Afflicted city, lashed by storms and not comforted, I will rebuild you with stones of turquoise, ^ayour foundations with lapis lazuli.
I will make your battlements of rubies, your gates of sparkling jewels, and all your walls of precious stones.

All your children will be taught by the Lord, and great will be their peace.”

Ps: It feels good to be BACK ON THE BLOG. A new year of great things ahead! Stay tuned for more changes, a new website, and the part 2 installment about a boy named Benji.