So I just spent Mother’s Day weekend looking after two abandoned babies who do not know, nor never will know their mothers. One of the boys 22months old has HIV and is recovering from TB and the other is three months old now, was abandoned at birth by his HIV positive mom.

 I have had a terrible cold since I arrived to be the full time “House Mother” for these boys for 4 days.  When I went to hang the laundry I could not tilt my head down or my nose would run away from me and I sacrificed 2 whole boxes of Kleenex on my tired and pressure filled sinuses. It has been miserable… I do get some help but overall they are my responsibility. There have been times when I am in tears with exhaustion and wondering what the heck I am doing…then God speaks. “My child why are you so tired?” “My darling why are you working so hard to impress others?” “Why do you think you need to ‘do’ to impress me and others…please just rest, be still and be hungry…hunger for more than this missionary life, for the projects you have in the future, for the funding you need, and for the husband I have picked for you…hunger for me.”

It is so simple…it is SO very simple…now my tears flow out of a sweet place of surrender… When I first really met God I was so tired and so unsatisfied with my ‘perfect life’, I surrendered so much of myself- I gave it to him, I said help! And he did.

But it is almost like I forgot what it is like to surrender. I have gained control again and I am tired and confused and wanting to achieve so I can feel good about myself as a person, as a missionary, as a child of God…what rubbish God said to me “I did not create you to strive. I want you to be just be still and know…”

Someone recently said to me maybe I would get more support once I am out of school(finished YWAM etc.) and am actually doing mission work. Well the thing in this is not really what it is about… it is not about how many hungry I feed or even how many I lead to Christ it is about how hungry I get to be and how well I trust God to be the only food, the ONLY thing I need. We just get so caught up in thinking we know what God wants but do we ask him? Does he want you to run to Africa, to sponsor a child, to make sure you go to your small group, or does he really want you to just be HUNGRY for him? What does it take for you to get hungry? REALLY hungry, I mean nothing like you have ever experienced? Does a family member need to die? Do you need to catch your spouse cheating? Do you need to live like every sin you commit would add a drop of blood to Jesus on the cross?

Deep Breath…

In June I will attend the Iris Ministries Harvest School of missions for 10 weeks. I will sit in the dirt in a hot and beautiful part of Mozambique to get so wreaked for God I will not ever be able to feed myself with my accomplishments, or my husband, or children, or my ‘mission work’, but really to saturate myself in the love of God to a place I am addicted to his love.

 In her book “There is Always Enough” Heidi Baker puts it like this, “We give our offerings, but our offering is going to have to be us. We have to say “Go ahead. Take Me. Take Everything.” The deal is, you have to see His face. You have to be completely wrecked by His love, so you will hilariously give your life away. You start to love the people you did not think you could ever love, even the means ones. But you have to see his face.” (Page 179 Copyright 2003).

…So here’s to seeing his face and not doing anything else!

This is "Surprise" one of my Favorite Orphans!