Blessings and Raindrops

God shut a door.

It’s as simple and as complicated as that.

We had a trip planned to visit Congo next month. A trip full of influential people willing and ready to invest time and energy and resources into the work we have committed to there. The first HOPE center would launch. I anticipated God’s provision pouring out and felt the palpable excitement over what was unfolding. It felt like the culmination of three years of hard work, and the realization of a dream of implementing sustainable, community-empowering long-term change.

Then, the door shut. Political tensions are currently high, our team on the ground worried for our safety and theirs.

The trip was cancelled.

It felt like a punch in the gut. All of the work halted. The team will now visit Uganda and see the amazing work being done there by our Help One Now partners. Good will come out of the trip, absolutely. Yet, for me personally, I’m left feeling untethered. I could still join the team and travel. Yet, Dave and I both felt unsettled about me traveling without the Congo portion of the trip taking place. We couldn’t justify the expense of both money and time. Although, I wanted to go. I wanted the adventure. I wanted to step foot on African soil again. I wanted to love on little ones afar. Even still, I could see my place wasn’t on this trip. It was clear yet so very disappointing.

The work will continue. The daily feeding program, the raising of funds, the Hope Centers still on the horizon. Yet, the disappointment around this particular trip is strong since it would have kick started the work in a way we haven’t been able to thus far.

In this same season, I’m feeling such a strong pull to rest. I have journal pages full of this call to be still. To find Him in the quiet moments, rather than the mountain moving ones. To find my footing again.

Maybe this door closing was, for me, in this season, a gentle leading back to quiet and stillness. A putting aside of the doing and striving and going and a picking up of the loving and slowing and embracing.

Healing has come slowly for our wounded little one. In turn, my own heart has been battered and bruised. My own soul desperate for healing and renewed strength.

Maybe this is the summer for our own healing. Her and I. Maybe I can’t go and pour myself out across the globe because I need to be poured into first. Certainly, when you’re empty, you can’t give of an overflow that doesn’t exist.

Through my disappointment and frustration, I will seek Him with fresh eyes. I read these words this morning in my First 5 study and felt goosebumps run up my neck, “Let’s consider the wilderness might be exactly where God needs us to be. What if our wilderness experience is where God will reveal Himself and prepare us for a bigger purpose?”

I’m praying for this particular wilderness experience to be exactly where God wants me and a time for Him to reveal Himself in a new way. I’m looking forward to what He will do this summer in my heart and in my family. I’m setting aside expectations and trusting Him for His best. Because, I know His plans are only for our good. Even when we can’t see the good in the moment and the tidy bow hasn’t yet been tied into place, He is still there, still working.

Trusting and believing in His plans not only for me and my family but also for the families we serve across the globe.

Although they had a “graduation ceremony” last week, today was the boy’s last day of school. I knew they would grow and change a ton this year, yet, now that we are crossing the finish line and placing kindergarten in our rearview, it is sort of hard to wrap my mind around how much they have grown and all they learned this past year.

Side note: Based on the two photos above, you can clearly see how I’ve given up on caring what they wear to school.

I’m all kinds of sappy and nostalgic this week. Can we talk about these sweet boys who wave out the window all the way down the drive when daddy takes them to school? I can hardly handle it. I love this age so much. They still love their mama unabashedly and aren’t the least bit embarrassed by me. 🙂

I have a giant pile in need of sorting full of folders and worksheets and art projects that have come home all week. As they came home, I added to the ever-expanding pile. Avoidance is a form of denial, I’m sure of it.

Yet, we are all ready for a break. Ready to sleep in, swim until toes are wrinkly, run barefoot and skip bedtimes. Summer is here and we are all ready for it.

Happy, happy summer, dear friends!

My boys.

Last night you were recognized on stage for completing your very first year of {“big kid”} school.

What a year it’s been.

You have grown and changed and have learned so much.

You read books to daddy and I at bedtime instead of the other way around. You now shower and wash your hair and get dressed on your own. You pour your own cereal and dig through the pantry to find your own snacks. You hold opinions about what you wear, how your hair is styled, what we watch on TV, what we eat for dinner. You help put away the laundry and the dishes. You solve math problems and spell words. You write your own thank you notes.

Mornings find you waving as you run into school. I smile as I watch your backpack bobbing up and down as you confidently enter the building with your friends.

I sometimes feel like bursting with pride and love for you both.

They played the song “Let Them Be Little” last night during the slideshow and I cried.

So let them be little, cause they’re only that way for a while.
Give them hope, give them praise, give them love, every day.
Let em cry, let em giggle, let them sleep in the middle.
Oh, just let them be little.

This season is so brief. You are the brink of more and more independence, you’ll continue to step out into the world and find your place in it.

I want you to be so full of confidence and assurance of your worth that you never doubt how deeply loved and treasured you are. I want you to be a light in this world – a light shining others toward the tender, gentle and mighty God who created you so intricately.

I want you to trust that you are here at this time, in this place, a part of this generation for a very important purpose.

I want you to walk in a faith that is fully your own, not passed down from daddy or I. I want you to have a deep friendship with Jesus, one where He guides you and you lean in to listen to His voice.

Oh, my loves. You are truly the very best of me. You inspire me and remind me to see the world as a bright place full of opportunity. You love unabashedly. You see the good in others and genuinely care for your friends. You are silly and wild and loud – all things a six year-old boy should be.

Before I know it, you will be on another stage for yet another graduation. Next time, you will be graduating from high school and venturing further out into the world. My prayer for the next twelve years is for this to be a time where you can learn and stretch and grow and feel safe enough to make mistakes. I want you to know you have a safety net behind you; encouraging you, loving you, helping you back up when you get knocked down.

Ben and Nate, you are going to shake up this great big world and I can’t wait to watch the stories of your lives unfold. Along the way, I want to soak up each moment. I want to treasure these big milestone moments as much as the everyday ones.

Shine bright, sweet boys. Happy Kindergarten graduation. Daddy and I are so very proud of you both!

I try to be intentional with our schedules and am incredibly protective of unscheduled family time at home. Even still, all of the things that make a life – laundry, doctor appointments, field trips, birthday parties, conference calls, backpacks to empty and papers to sort, a full calendar with too few days lacking commitments- have been abundant here lately.

I have been craving slow and simple. I’ve found myself yearning for unhurried days at home without piling in and out of the car, constantly running.

May is always a bit of a whirlwind around here. We have had a sweet season of celebrating little loves. First, Charlotte turned two and then my boys turned six. SIX. I’m having a hard time wrapping my mind around the pace at which my babies are growing. I think this has only fueled my desire to slow down our daily pace.

This morning, we had a slow start with nowhere to be. The rain softly falling forced us to pause from the endless tasks demanding attention around the farm. It was exactly what we needed without our even realizing it. After the rain cleared, we took a long walk through the blueberry fields. We fed the chickens and collected eggs. We splashed in puddles and threw rocks into the pond. We scooped up and devoured barely-ripe, tart blackberries.

I realized as I walked alongside my favorite people in the whole wide world that sometimes we really, really need to be unproductive and unhurried. The earth will continue to spin if we step away from the noise.

Our souls yearn for stillness.

Go outside. Don’t tell anyone and don’t bring your phone. Start walking and keep walking until you no longer know the road like the palm of your hand, because we walk the same roads day in and day out, to the bus and back home and we cease to see. We walk in our sleep and teach our muscles to work without thinking and I dare you to walk where you have not yet walked and I dare you to notice. Don’t try to get anything out of it, because you won’t. Don’t try to make use of it, because you can’t. And that’s the point. Just walk, see, sit down if you like. And be. Just be, whatever you are with whatever you have, and realise that that is enough to be happy. 
There’s a whole world out there, right outside your window. You’d be a fool to miss it.” 
― Charlotte Eriksson

Here’s to a weekend bursting with moments of stillness and contentment and freshly picked wildflowers!