The Making of M.O.M.

I've been traveling a lot this fall, working the ground up on a new, home based business. It's been exhausting yet incredible connecting with family I've not seen in 15 years, having morning coffee with long, lost friends and seeing people I care about live the lives they've been called to live across the country from me.

One thing that kept being brought up time and time and time again was this blog. This space on the internet where I pour my heart out and people come to read. This place that now feels so vulnerable and raw, like wound that just cannot heal.

Truly, I'd given up on this place. My heart has been trampled on, bruised and beaten down over the last 3 years and I wasn't sure that there was much left to offer. Not to God, not to my own family and certainly not to blank pages. So I walked away. My heart longs to write but I'm timid at the thought of putting myself out there again. The irony is, that while I love the writing, and I enjoy you all reading, it's incredibly uncomfortable for me when people openly acknowledge this place and what I've written. I can't say why. So, I had resolved that I would let this space go and I asked Luke if he'd have the entries printed and bound into a book for me.

And then I sat in this church two weekends ago, with a dear friend at my side, and I felt the Lord speak to me like He used to, back when I was in tune with His word and could hear His heart beat clearly.

I fought tears as I actually worshipped like I have not been able in a long, long time. I sang this song many, many times before our world seemed to fall apart with death and our dreams slipped away. (That short term trip never happened, either.)

I have struggled so much with God. Called Him a liar, spewed words and venom and hatred his way. And yet, as these familiar chords began, my ears heard these words again, for the first time.

My foes are many, they rise against me

But I will hold my ground

I will not fear the war, I will not fear the storm

My help is on the way, my help is on the way

Where have you been? Have you been on the way for all this time?

Oh, my God, He will not delay

My refuge and strength always

I will not fear, His promise is true

My God will come through always, always

Troubles surround me, chaos abounding

My soul will rest in You

I will not fear the war, I will not fear the storm

My help is on the way, my help is on the way

And then...

I lift my eyes up, my help comes from the Lord

From You Lord, from You Lord

There it has been this entire time. Just lift up your eyes, Jessica. See me. Here. I never left.

Luke can attest, I am AMAZING at the cold shoulder. When I'm upset with someone, I try my best to pretend to be fine, but I wear the hurt and anger all over me. We never fight for long because it's clear when I'm upset. I avoid eye contact with every fiber of my being, because I know my eyes will give me away.

I looked up the verse this song referenced. Psalm 121:1-4 says,

I lift up my eyes to the hills.
From where does my help come?
My help comes from the LORD,
who made heaven and earth.

He will not let your foot be moved;
he who keeps you will not slumber.
Behold, he who keeps Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.

I love blueletterbible.org because I can look up the root words and read the original scriptures and see not only the actual word used in the original language, but where it is used again in scripture.

As I looked up Psalm 121, the words life, eye, foot and moved jumped out at me.

Lift:

to lift, lift up
to bear, carry, support, sustain, endure
to take, take away, carry off, forgive

Moved (Slip):

to totter, shake, slip
1. (Qal) to totter, shake, slip
2. (Niphal) to be shaken, be moved, be overthrown
3. (Hiphil) to dislodge, let fall, drop
4. (Hithpael) to be greatly shaken

He will not allow me to be carried off or taken away. He will not allow me to be overthrown or greatly shaken.

I lift my eyes up, He has sustained me.

He did not allow my foot to be moved. I have not been overthrown. I have been shaken, but I was not dislodged.

My help comes from the Lord.

5 years ago, I anticipated, that by this point in our lives we'd be on the brink of returning from a 4 year term in Kenya. Our lives would be revolving around taking the gospel to the nations, building relationships with nationals, living among the people and serving them with open arms and glad hearts so that they experience Jesus in me.

Back then, I would have never imagined our life would look like it does today. After all, we were chasing hard after God, He was guiding us to this foreign land. It was bound to transpire just as my perfect, little brain could propose it to be.

And then, loss.

Grief.

Disappointments.

Financial setbacks.

Broken family relationships.

Pain.

Wrestling.

I have doubted my God on every level. I've begged to walk away, tried even. I've searched the scriptures for evidence that this God I devoted myself to is on a power trip and decided to wreck my life just for fun.

I've watched my children grow, as a shell of their mother attempts to shepherd them toward a God that she's uncertain of herself. I've cussed Him out, shut Him out, turned and refused to talk or listen. I've been at a place where I wondered if I was seriously delusional and if I dreamed up this whole missions thing because it was trendy, sounded fun and looked like it made us a better version of ourselves.

In every aspect of our lives over the last 3 years we've been broken. I've spilled tears over the simplest of things and shook my fist at God from the darkest parts of my heart. I've turned bitter, angry and spiteful.

Who needs God anyway? I mean, really. What kind of a God loads your whole family onto a rug called obedience then jerks the damn thing right out from under you? Not any God I want to follow, that's for sure.

The arrogance in my heart and the trust I had in my "strong faith" disappeared. In an instant, the person I thought I was and the things I thought I believed seem to lay before me on the ground like the contents of a beautifully potted orchid that had been thrown from the 10th floor window.

I couldn't read blogs, attend missions events, listen to songs or fake my way through a missions Sunday at church. I would get up and leave, telling God to screw himself as I walked out the door and down the hall.

Was this some kind of a sick joke? Who does that?

I've asked, desperately, what we should do now and the only thing I have gotten in return is silence. No whispers of His voice, no profound truths from scripture, no words from the teaching of the men and women that had so clearly been instruments of His words anymore.

The anger continued to well and finally pour out. I've been angry at everyone and everything for a very long time.

Anger does crazy things to you. It makes you blind, deaf and cold. I would interact with my children and I could see myself, almost in the 3rd person, reacting in ways that I would not typically react. It was surreal and almost as if I was living a life that I was simply watching, not a participant.

Finally, after a long silence with the Lord, I begged Him to reveal to me why we are in this place when it's not at all where my heart desires. I got no profound answers. I didn't see a hand writing on the wall or hear the voice of God audibly.

Instead, a dirty faced, chubby cheeked almost 15 month old toddler came toward me with her half drunk saunter. She grinned and juicy animal crackers dripped from her chin as she struggled her way into my lap and wrapped her arms around my neck.

A clingy 3 year old rounded the corner and squealed with the delight at the sight of me. I delight her every time I she sees me.

A fresh, new 5 year old crawls into bed with me on the morning of her birthday. Soft, blond, wild curls cover my face as she nuzzles her head under my chin. "You smell nice Momma. I think my nose is better when I'm five," she giggles.

Two six year olds sit poised with pencils in hand and scribble out shaky letters. One of them reads every word his eyes see and he beams with joy, the other beams with pride over words of praise and affirmation.

An eight year old boy finds a love for baseball. He carries his glove with him everywhere he goes and he wears his Daddy's number from college on his back. He's the scrawniest player on the team but he hustles and works hard and he's determined to prove himself.

Eight and ten year old sisters find a love for horses and cultivate a friendship unlike anything I've ever seen. They giggle and talk about horses and boys and how to decorate their room until long past their bed time.

When the anger subsides, this is what I see. I see the nations. I see my life revolving around these people who desperately need the gospel. I see me serving them with open arms and a glad heart so that they experience Jesus in me.

I see the one job my arrogant self assumed was not good enough now being the most important, the most challenging, the most necessary.

I see the nations before me. I see them in dirty socks left on the kitchen counter, unending loads of laundry and middle of the night nursing sessions. I see them in gentle corrections, hugs after a hard consequence and love despite their flaws. I see them in endless snacks and cup refills, in spills and messes, in cherrios crushed under my shoe.

I see the stage being set for world changers who grew up sitting right around my very own dinner table.

I see that in order for me to live within the full glory of God's desire for my life, and in turn to create these people who will no doubt love others beyond themselves, it begins by serving my children joyfully and with a heart devoted only to their very best.

I have spent much time wondering why the pain of the last few years has been heaped upon our family. I've wondered why the anger and resentment has been rooted deep inside my heart, seemingly planted there by the One who is suppose to take away doubt, fear, shame and bitterness. I wondered why He set us up for failure, for grief, for brokenness.

And then I looked up and I was overcome by exactly what I was suppose to see all along. They are it. We were not set up for brokenness. We were set up for this. This perfectly chaotic, unkept, totally filled-to-the-brim life. The scales tip whichever way I give them weight. I can choose anger and grief or joy and grace.

As the anger is slowly being washed away, joy is filtering through. Joy in the lives of these 8 people that are forever connected to me so deeply that there is no grief, no disappointment, no financial loss, no brokenness nor pain that could ever sever me from them.

They are my mission. And finally I can say with fullness that if they are my sole purpose in this life, it is enough. They are enough. Just as they are, just as I am, just as He has always been, I will fully pour myself into them, not reserving even one drop for what could have been or what I could hope will one day be.

I will share with them the good news of a Savior who never quits on them, even when they try with their whole self to give up on Him.

With love, I will serve them with joy and gladness, just as I would have the most honored guest at our Kenyan dinner table. Because they are worth it, and I am able because He is faithful, forever.