Dreams

Sometimes it's hard for me to see past the here and now.  It's easy to understand why.  The here and now is kind of overwhelming.  Spit up, dirty diapers, kids tugging at my clothes.  Goodness knows, there are plenty of good things about the here and now too.  Cuddling, giggling, playing, pretending, loving, teaching, praying, hoping.  Our days are full.  And sometimes it's hard to see beyond them.

I fervently believe that my first and primary mission field is my children.  I am sure God has called me to be at home with my little ones, shepherding them in their teachable (and not so teachable) moments.  Motherhood is a kingdom task, though not as flashy as building wells in Africa or combating human trafficking (also both important, mind you).  God has given me a task, and though it is not glamorous, it is important.

Nevertheless, I dream.  I think on the transcendent.  I hope that the story our family would reach beyond these sometimes ordinary, sometimes eternally significant days.  I pray that our family would together be about God's kingdom.  I believe God has given us dreams about who he wants us to be and how he wants to use us.

The first of these dreams is that I want to write. When I think about what I want to do when my littles are not so little, it almost always revolves around writing. I am almost embarrassed to say it, because lots of people want to be writers.  Like every waitress in L.A. wants to be an actress.  When I think about the way God has wired me, though, it becomes clear that writing is a part of my make-up.  It's how I organize my thoughts and make sense of my life.  It's cathartic.

I'm not sure what form this might take.  I've been dabbling in children's book writing.  I've thought about trying to write articles for Boundless.  There's a certain someone with whom I've been dreaming about writing a book for four years or so. (Notice this period of time coincides with the age of my eldest child, which so obviously explains why it hasn't happened yet).  I've been trying to at least keep blogging about how incredibly hard it is to mother, to grow, to believe, to hope.  However and whatever I write, though, I want it to be permeated with the gospel of Jesus Christ.  I want it to give grace to others.  It is a desire I believe God has given me. 


Secondly, we believe that God has called us to adopt.  God has broken my heart (and Daniel's) for the broken-hearted.  I am certain of it.  There a few things I am more passionate about, few things that drive me to tears more quickly than to think of the Lord setting the lonely in families.  It's about mercy, and it's about God.  He has adopted us, he has made us his children.  I believe that he has called our little family to image that in a small way.  We don't know if he has called us to adopt internationally (which is what first pricked my heart for adoption), domestically, or out of foster care.  We know that both the process of adoption and parenting an adopted child is far more complex an  than we can comprehend.  I do trust the God who has implanted a passion for it in our hearts to meet us in the process and give us grace for it. 

These dreams involve real work.  Hard work.  And some days it's hard to get out of bed much less think about filling out reams of paperwork or crafting a sentence worth reading.   I wanted you all who love our family to know, so that you can pray for us and keep us accountable to actually do something.  Because these days, it's far to easy to do nothing besides the immediate. This is the season of life in which, if we are not careful, dreams are swallowed up by the every day.  I want to see that they don't, because I believe that God has put these dreams in our hearts.