There are moments when God's timing simply blows me away.
Moments when His goodness, grace and sovereignty catch me off guard, re-shape my thinking and opens up whole new possibilities. Moments where He tells me to stop worrying, that He has my future in His hands and even blesses me with a glimpse of what it may look like - so long as I keep on saying yes to Him.
The past week and a half have been a struggle for me. Talks on and discussions about marriage and singleness and having families made it abundantly clear that God was asking me to do more than just entrust my choice of husband to Him: He was asking me to put my dream of a husband in a drawer - potentially permanently.
Which also meant putting my dreams of bearing my own children in a drawer.
Now, before you all jump on whatever bandwagon it is you're about to jump on, let me explain.
I've known for a while now that there is a call on my life to live and serve in places that are dangerous to people it would be dangerous to associate with. And, to be perfectly honest, the thinking of the last few weeks has not been knew thinking - this has just been the first time I haven't skirted the issue. The first time I have had to really face the matter - and all that it entails - head on. And deal with the consequences.
And yes, the pain.
Do I want a family? Yes.
Do I want a husband? Yes.
Do I want to hear my children's first cries? See their first steps? Hold them as they cry? Yearn to soothe their teething pains? Deal with their broken hearts? Teach them about what it means to live - and to live as a child of God? Yes, oh yes!
But far more than that, I want to serve God. I want to be free to go where He calls me, when He calls me.
And I'm not giving up my those dreams - just putting them in a drawer. They're still there. And I firmly believe that if God chooses to, He will fulfill them. But, as a friend of mine said, if there is a man God wants me to marry, I will not be able to avoiding meeting Him just because I choose to serve God first. And serving God does come first.
Still, even knowing that God does come first and that He might still fulfill those dreams, the past few days have been a struggle. I have been in tears at least once and come close to them more than once at the thought that I might never be a mother. I might never be a wife. (Because surely it's better to realize that, process and embrace it now than to turn around in 20 years time and be bitter about not having anything? Surely life will be the sweeter whatever happens if I don't expect those particular gifts. Because they are gifts, not entitlements.)
Then, yesterday afternoon, I walk into my bedroom to see that Mum had bought me a book I'd been eying off for months - Kisses from Katie.
And as I read those words, as I read the story of that woman not much older than me - the same age as me when she first set out - who just said yes to God, who just keeps on saying yes, and the crazy, out-of-this-world way God has used her simple yes to transform hundreds of lives. Her own included. The way that 18 year old just out of high school wound up as a 26 year old with 13 adopted girls (or more) and the founder of an entire ministry in the villages of Uganda. How the girl who gave up her dreams, her boyfriend, her friends, found herself living a dream far more wondrous and more fulfilling than anything she could have dared imagine. As I read about all that; I realize something:
The friend who held me after my confession of heart break over the weeks realisation was right: I will always be a mother.
I will always be a mother because there will always be people who need to know the love of a mother and I have that love and a reason to give it to them. I have a Father telling me to love the orphan because He loves them. Because He loves them and He wants them to know that, but how can they if they've never known love?
And all I have to do is keep saying yes. To keep saying yes to loving the people right in front of me. To keep saying yes to loving people I've never yet met. To keep saying yes to loving God. To just keep saying yes to God.
My life will go to places far greater and far more beautiful than I could ever have imagined. Because the very centre of God's will is wondrous.
And a sense of deep peace fills my soul. No, more than that, a sense of deep, wild, excited joy, of glee fills me up.
And that crazy girl from Nashville, Tennessee and her 13 Ugandan children teach me a lesson about living solely for God: the joy, the sheer, inexplicable, all-consuming joy of obeying God far outweighs the pain of any sacrifices that are made along the way.
No comments:
Post a Comment