Will you trust Me – for today and for tomorrow?

 It was a hot July evening in 2012, sitting on the grassy bank of a stream, as the evening light began to fade and the mosquitoes started making their presence known. It was a quiet place to think. A place to get away and alone with my thoughts... which, this particular evening, was a scary prospect.

I had been away from East Africa for a year now, yet I was still awaiting the morning I would wake without a heaviness in my chest and an ache in my heart of missing Africa with every fiber of my being. I was back in the States on purpose, to further my education, and prepare for a move to SE Asia. That had been the plan all along. At least, that had been my plan. In fact, I had spent the last year reminding myself of this. And I was no further along this evening than I was the first days of arriving "home" to American soil.

My heart was in knots. My spirit in turmoil. And to add to the plot, there was also this one guy... the one I kept resolutely factoring out of the equation when his name was whispered continually through my mind. After all, we were just friends. We were of different cultural, linguistic, and social backgrounds. We lived on different continents. We came from very different communities. And yet, my mind (and my heart) were continually drawn back to him. Despite all my denial, we were skyping on a weekly basis and corresponding even more frequently.

I was a mess. All my "well laid" plans and expectations were now a complex ball of limbo. Internally, I was battling fear of being my own worst enemy and making the wrong choices and the wrong decisions and royally messing everything up. So, that night on the bank of that stream, I was too consumed with swarms of fear and confusion and questions without answers to even heed the swarming bugs.

As I poured my heart out into a journal, hoping the verbal processing would bring some sort of order to my mental chaos, I wrote until I could no longer see the page through tears. I finally dropped the journal into the grass and cried out, "Why are You silent!? I NEED answers. I need to KNOW what You want me to do. I don't know, and I need to know. Why won't You just tell me??"

As the words faded into the buzz of mosquitoes, His voice gently flooded into my agonized spirit, "B, do you trust me for today?" Still in an attitude of frustration and impatience, I irreverently snapped back at Him that since it was already night time, that was a dumb question. Unfazed and ever patient, He whispered, "Ok then, will you trust me for tomorrow?" Realization flooded through me, that this was about to be a significant decision point. Mollified, I said yes. "That is all you need to know. Trust me, love." He finished tenderly.

Each morning following that evening encounter, He whispered the same two questions to me when I woke: "Do you trust me for today? Will you trust me for tomorrow?" He was asking me to surrender my need to know, my need to plan, my need for the answers... to, rather, trust Him, and His love, and His sovereignty, and His goodness and guidance. Yes, Lord, for today and for tomorrow, I will trust You.

And I discovered that in trusting Him--one day at a time, and walking in trust and obedience THAT day, and then the next day, and then the next--I found peace in His capable hands. He shifted my focus from the problems, the confusion, the limbo, the questions, to His heart.

Today, almost 3 years later, I am amazed to see what God has done with that simple trust. You know, that guy--the one on a different continent who I kept factoring OUT of the equation. He is now my husband. And I still wake up each morning with a love and ache for Africa, as I wake up on her soil;  she is now my home.

Linking up this week with The Grove @ Velvet Ashes.

"to be a help" or just "to be"?

THIS. I have been looking for THIS quote for over a year now. It is one of those that has shaped my own view of "ministry."

"I found a very subtle snare... I sought their fellowship in order that I might minister to them, 'be a help,' you know, to these 'weaker' ones. What a rebuke came when I sensed my real motive--that 'I' might minister. Love hacks right at this, for she refuses to parade herself. I learned to recognize no 'spiritual planes,' but simply to LOVE, purely, in every group. Trying to 'be a help' even has a smell of good works in it, for it is not pure. Our motive is only to BE--do nothing, know nothing, act nothing--just to be a sinful bit of flesh, born of a Father's love. Then you see, Beloved, there can be no defeat." 

(Excerpt from "The Shadow of the Almighty: The Life and Testament of Jim Elliot")

What do you think?

how to fold the laundry (married life musings)

You know, those ingrained habits we all have? Those ones we don’t see until suddenly someone else is there and, somehow, someway, revealing all these things you were unaware of about yourself?

Like, how you fold your laundry. Or that you actually, like, had deeply rooted feelings related to how the laundry is folded. I mean, c’mon, really? Who cares? Well, apparently you did. Hah! Joke’s on you.

Thirds or quarters? Length-wise or width-wise. Put in the cabinet facing backwards or forwards? Fold out or in?

But the biggest question is: Does it really, freaking, matter? Well… No. But then again, kinda yes.

No, it doesn’t matter, ultimately. There is no right or wrong way to fold laundry. There are “more effective” ways, and “less wrinkling” ways, and “space saving” ways… but there is no law or rulebook on how laundry MUST be folded. Just as there is no law or rulebook on how you should wash laundry, or how your should take a shower (with or without water spraying against the wall or straight down or whatever), or how you should cut vegetables up, or when you should take the garbage out, or what categories your should organize your bookshelf into, or how to squeeze that infamous toothpaste tube. But sometimes… it certainly feels like there should have been a rulebook… Am I right?

Now, I had always considered myself quite flexible. I mean, seriously… I have moved over a dozen times in the last 8 years, living in multiple countries (sometimes at the same time), learning bits and pieces of multiple spoken languages, not to mention countless sign languages. Crossing cultures and adapting… All the time. I’ve had more roommates in the last decade of my life than I can count (no, really… more than I can count). So… I figured, yeah… I’m set. This whole adapting thing will be no sweat. WRONG.

My last roommate before marriage was the best and worst thing for me. Our relationship and living together was effortless. Like, we never, ever had to think or talk about it. It just meshed, and flowed, and sailed along with all the ease of a tailwind. A blessing, because she came a crucial, stressful and overwhelming season of my life and job and just picked up all the pieces and wove them into something organized, manageable, and shared. And, though we’ve traveled the world together, shared hotel rooms, shared clothes and food, and shared some crazy experiences… honestly, I have no idea how she folded the laundry. Whether she kept all her preferences in check (I doubt this, highly – nobody can do that for 2 years living with outspoken me) or we just complimented each other that well… it did not prepare me for switching to a lifemate, who isn’t even going to try to hide preferences… because this is supposed to be about middle ground and compromises and blended lives.

So back to the laundry… in this and many other things, I’m learning to let go of how I think it should be done, and just rejoice that I have a Love and Life-mate who wants and enjoys doing things like helping fold laundry, wash dishes, clean the house, cook meals, etc. I am so thankful. And yes, in some ways, it does kinda matter how you fold those towels, pillow cases, and blankets. Before, when they were thrown in the box on top of my closet, you had to fold them to fit into the box. But now that they go in that new cabinet, the old way of folding them no longer works – cause they stick out and prevent the doors from closing. So, even this girl with all her particularities, it learning how to re-train and re-fold. And, get this, all our randomly sized and shaped towels and blankets all have to be folded differently depending on their shape/size because they won’t fit into the cabinet any other way. Bahahahaha… don’t tell me God doesn’t have a sense of humor. Or that He doesn’t have a vested interest in continually pushing me beyond my own personal boundaries. Smile. Cause He does.

In conclusion: I love the lessons and stretching of married life. I love my husband. I love this new journey we are on together. And yes, I will give up my unspoken rulebook all over again and again, for this beautiful adventure of compromise and blending lives.