Every so often ...

Every so often he quietly asks, "why haven't you been writing much?"  This man that God so generously and graciously gifted to me, this man that so often knows the me that I hide, and yet he loves on.  This love that loves beyond the failure and loves despite the ugly; this love that knows that I am hiding from my writing ~ this love, He uses to cut to the quick, to dive into the core of me.  And this man standing before asks with no judgement or condemnation and I hear Him ask in the same manner ~ "why aren't you writing Jennie?"

I have two answers ~ one simple and justifiable and the other, not so much.  First, the easy, I am exhausted and most days I run hard until I crash into bed and rest in the arms of the One that guards and restores.  The second, now we are getting personal, I am afraid to write.  Afraid.  Scared of what my writing will become and more assuredly scared of what it won't become.  That is the truth. 

The same man that quietly questions, "why no blogs, stories, poems," he also wisely says, "it is an act of obedience for you Jennie, you have to write because He has given you words to share."  And I stammer around and declare, "that no one cares, who will read?"  And again he speaks truth, "it does not matter who reads it, you still have to be obedient even if no other soul ever lays eyes on it."  I always quietly turn inward here; terrified still, even with truth spoke directly to me; I wrestle with self and with God and I am disobedient. 

But, here and now, I do declare that "He has not given me a spirit of fear but of power and love" (2 Timothy 1:7) and out of that power and love that He has bestowed I will write for an audience of One, the only One.

Much has happened this Fall in our ever-growing family and God has been so good.  We are nearing the end of our first semester as a small school of 6, our first family vacation was greatly enjoyed, our newbies were dedicated (as was our niece) braces and doctors still fill our schedule (and pocketbook) we spent Thanksgiving in TX surrounded by wonderful family and God is stirring again (always stirring).  I will not clog the blog with details but one story must be told ~

The above mentioned family vacation was to the gorgeous mountains near the N. Carolina border and we were surrounded by an array of the hues of Fall as they laid beauty around the lake and days were filled with beauty and mountaintops (as a family we trudged to the top, 3 1/2 miles straight up and then the march down) and our family should have been entirely at peace. Yet, we weren't.  For weeks before we had been battling in our house, a storm was brewing and it raged in her eyes almost every time I dared look at her.  Anger, pain, loss and loneliness set in deep upon her and she wandered the halls of the house like a little storm.  Pain and loss grip the young hearts of previous orphans, understandably, but this storm was a storm of a different sort; this was the storm that whips up winds of angry words and insolent attitudes as the Enemy knows another is nearing the heart of the Redeemer.  And our family dug in deep and prayed and watched and waited and prayed some more and she spoke words that cut deep and God immediately layered His love upon us to keep the wounds from festering.  And she stomped and stormed on and we bit our tongue, sometimes; and we left for our "first family vacation" certainly uncertain of how much rest and relaxation we were in for.  The first few days in the cabin our little storm tore through beautiful Table Rock and fussed and fretted even there in the midst of God's glorious beauty.

And then one afternoon she cracked open and the anger spewed from her and she said things we all regretted and we dug in deeper and we spoke of His love and how all is impossible without it.  The storm quieted, and she barely whispered these words, "I want Jesus," and the heavens parted and the angels danced  and rejoiced and another orphan found her true "forever family" and met her Forever Father.  And this earthly mother and father were humbled again by the call, His call, to "care for the orphan and the widow." 

Life since that blessed moment in the mountains?  Exactly as you would expect it to be after an encounter with the God Almighty ~ entirely and eternally changed.  She is nothing of the old, but then again isn't that the truth of us all who have come home to our Forever Father?

And we watch and wonder and pray ~ what has He in store for these rambling six?  What will He do with these who are young in age but mature in faith?  We pray that He uses them to His glory and we rest in that.

And we race on?  Absolutely, we race on as He lays a new course before us (more of that to come) we race on and on and on ...