Category: the Cost of Love

Within the Wall

A week ago our guard heard a faint meow. Figuring it was one of our cats, he asked the girls about it. Since the girls knew the cats were sleeping inside, our guard discovered the sound coming from our property wall.

Inside and between our cement wall and our neighbor’s cement wall was a tiny kitten whom had been dropped by its mother between the two walls and abandoned. And thus began a rescue mission.

The rescue mission required a rake being lowered into the wall with a small plastic container taped to the end with tuna in it. With the bait set, Matt and the guard coaxed the reluctant kitten toward the tuna dish the the aid of two extremely long sticks and prepared to pull up our homemade elevator.

Kitten’s level of fear was not in our favor but patience proved this successful victory:

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She was petrified, hungry and had one eye gunked shut, but within a few hours she was flea free, fed and settled. And a week later with still no sighting of her mom, we named her Heidi. … for she was hiding in the wall. 😉

Welcome home, Heidi.

Family suits you well.

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What Really Matters.

She was excited for the interval, hungry for the next chapter. It didn’t matter that she was sitting in the middle of a straw mat in the heart of Africa with Portuguese and local dialects all around her. She had patiently waited, greeting everyone and sharing in hugs and hand shakes. She had made sure everyone was settled and happy with various picture books and white computer papers for origami.

And so she happily smiled, flipping to her previous page and soaking into her book when in an instance it was snatched from her hands. She turned to me and laughed at the irony. A young girl sitting beside her motioned quietly for her to wait as the girl looked at the book’s pictures sporadically included in the English chapter book. My little girl just waited, See, she knew in this kid cultural moment it wasn’t rude. She saw the young friend’s bubbling over excitement. Books are so scarce here that they’re super exciting. And besides, this is just how you love people here- you share when it’s not always convenient.

The grace my little girl showed was such an encouragement to me. It has been a slow whispering, an awakening to the true value. Books and things are always fun, but the hearts of those around us make us laugh in the ironic moments and share willingly with those around us; even when they don’t read English, were a little too excited to contain themselves, and when the irony of the situation is just too fun to not share with locked eyes and a chuckle. Kids here see with their hands. And they almost always hand it back momentarily. It’s just a game of patience while everyone gets a look before you get it back. Community is strong here. And how beautiful to see my little lady play her role so sweetly.

And sure enough, with patience and the passing of 30 seconds, my beloved little girl was back to her thirst-quenching exploration of the world of yet another novel character.

People will always matter more than things.

And irony is totally worth laughing at

there on a straw mat in the heart Africa.

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Braving the New

I love catching those moments of just the raw normality of learning to fit into a new space.

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A new people.

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A new friendship budding through vulnerability.

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How I am blessed to encourage and witness the brave steps of these little ladies.

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Friendships are worth the challenges of crossing languages and cultures.

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It’s so beautiful to watch the Lord care for each of their hearts.

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Thank you, Jesus, for answering this Mommy’s prayers for her loves. 

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The Sometimes and the Most-of-the-Time

Sometimes you just want what you want. Selfishness moves in where compassion once lived.

Sometimes the day has worn on too long. The heat too strong. And your emotions cave and a crying monster emerges who desperately needs a hug and an early bedtime. Not a punishment bedtime, we won’t even tell you that we put you in bed early. But we’ll just so happen to read an extra chapter of our bedtime read-aloud that day, requiring us all to pop into bed a little early. And there over the top of the book, I will watch you drift off before I even complete the first chapter.

Or sometimes. you just can’t put into words what it feels like to live thousands of miles away from those who used to live within a finger’s reach of you, for as long as you can remember.

Sometimes you need to tell me again how much you didn’t like Portuguese school, even though I also remember how much you couldn’t wait to go. Because today you remembered someone saying something mean and assuming you couldn’t understand it. Today you remember the harder instead of the good. The growing pains over the victories. And you just need someone to listen and agree with you, even if it’s not where we both know you’ll land when you think about it again tomorrow.

Sometimes all four of you have those kind of moments in one day. Or a series of days. And it’s tiring for us all. Emotionally and physically.

But then there’s the most-of-the-time that catches me. How we look back at your photos of just last year and you notice how your face has changed. How you have grown.

And I remind you how God has been shaping you this whole time. During those sometimes moments as well as those elated moments of joy during the most-of-the-times.

And I see that little girl in a phase of wrestling to surrender selfishness for loving compassion, pouring over a puppy when no one else is looking.

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You are listening and internalizing, even if the battle is uphill sometimes.

 

I see a “me too” little girl finding her welcome place amid a new sister-and-friend dynamic.

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Even when dynamic changes can come with growing pains.

 

I see a young girl growing into a confidence of self-control and responsibility not being an unwanted consequence,

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but choosing instead to embrace them as a gift, even if it costs a sacrifice of selfishness.

 

Yes, I see your quiet efforts of increasing self-discipline and chosen obedience

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even when responsibility costs the price of your perceived frolicking freedom.

 

My ladies, I am proud of you. I am really, really proud of you. Kindness, self-control and responsibility can feel like very sacrificial choices at times. And I am praying for God to continue to give me the grace to extend to you all as you learn these critical lessons. Oh the sometimes moments have happened and will happen again. Maybe even for another series of days. But I trust that just as He sustains me when I turn to Him to teach me how to love you better, He will continue to grow you through all that He has given you in this life. And I am proud of you. Keep wrestling to do right when wrong feels so easy. Keep fighting to be kind and gentle when roughness and selfishness feel so natural. And know that even in the rawness of the processing, I am still thanking the Lord that He has given me the gift of being your Mom.

 

I love you, little ladies. What a privilege to fight the good fight together.

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When You Let Go of Your Last Known Embrace

It’s really hard to process. I don’t even really know where to start.

Part of me wants to go back home and hide and pretend like we will see each other again next year or the year afterward.

While the other part has a stinging that’s hard to put into words.

It’s just so hard to possibly explain to you how bittersweet it is to have other missionary friends.

Like not just the kind who live in the same town as you by the mere grace of God, but the kind that live literally ALL over the world.

And then to make it worse, there’s the kind that are returning to the States because their shorter term mission is nearly complete and the whole rest of their lives is about to unfold.

I feel like they should come with some kind of a warning label. Something that reads like, “I’m amazing, but I’m also going to rip your heart out when you realize we will probably never live in the same part of the world. Ever. But we absolutely will have to be friends.”

Oh man, it’s that kind of stuff that I just don’t even know how to process.

I have never had a file for that. That kind of box just does not exist in my world.

Oh the plight of missionary friends. Missionary friends that are amazing. Absolutely “kindred spirit” amazing. Their passion for the Lord, their burning fire for sharing His Word in even the hardest of places, their sharing of Scriptures and times that God just presses into them and drives them to deeper layers of faith, their hysterical laughter over the ironies of life, their shared resilience that just pushes and encourages you so. Oh man, why do they have to be such a blessing?!

You know, like if they weren’t such a wonderful family it wouldn’t hurt so much to say, “See you ‘later.” When all the while we both want to leave the conversation on the note of “you never know what meeting He could orchestrate in the future,” our hearts ache within us at the thought that He just might not orchestrate a time to see each other again.  No one wants to even say it. But it catches in both of our throats as we walk away. You return to your country and me to mine. Please, Lord, may that not have just been the last time I get to see them on this side of Heaven.

And THIS is why I feel like they should come with a warning label, people! Ugh. It rips your heart out.

Like think about it, our distance, friends and family, is intense. I don’t really like to think about it. I still like to feel like we live in your backyard. You know, just your very large, kind of wild backyard. 😉 And while the distance feels almost too much to bear sometimes, there’s a comfort that we can both rest in at the end of the day. Lord willing, we have every plan to come back. We have a time to look forward to when we will grab you up in our arms. We know where to find each other. For now we find each other online, but come our Stateside assignment, we get to find each other side by side for a beautiful season. A beautifully “promised” season. (I put that promise in quotes but don’t be scared, anyone. I’m just trying to learn not to speak in 100% definites if it’s not found in Scripture. I’m not the planner here, just the willing tool in His hands. So while that’s the game plan on absolutely everyone’s radar, God holds the ultimate trump card in His Sovereign hand and I want to be yielding, even in passing speech, to whenever and wherever He would lead.)

But for my international missionary friends, there’s no reunion hanging out there. No lingering meeting to hold in our hearts on the “the distance is too far” days. We’re not even on the same continent, some of us! How in the world would we ever even cross paths?!!

I can’t explain to you how this fact about our lives feels. Because in all honesty, I don’t even have words for it. It’s that lump caught in my throat when I think about it. That thing that makes my eyes hit the floor sometimes cause it’s too intense of a hurt to put words to.

Oh my, but how beautiful it is. How incredibly beautiful to have precious hearts literally all over the world sharing in the same drive. The same devotion. As much as Mozambique becomes even on your radar, friends and family, because we live here, there is an endless list of countries that pop off the map for us too because we have “family” living there. Serving there. Pouring out there. And a piece of our hearts are with them.

That’s just how we’re wired.

And it hurts to let go of the last embrace known to us. And it hurts to take that first step in the opposite direction that they’re going, wondering if your footsteps will ever line up again while here on earth.

But you can’t possibly keep from loving them. It’s just not even fathomable. They’re family. They’re precious.

And part of you is just overwhelmingly proud to call them family. Overwhelmingly delighted to encourage them in their pursuit of spreading the Gospel to the very ends of the earth.

There’s just no words for how proud and honored you are to call them family. Just like there’s just no words for how much it hurts…

when you let go of your last known embrace.

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