My husband and I have known for many years that God was calling us to enlarge our tent and expand our borders.
Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes. For you will spread out to the right and to the left; your descendants will dispossess nations and settle in their desolate cities. (Isaiah 54:2-3)
The Rearview Mirror
We married at ages 22 and 26, and almost as soon as I became a wife, I became a Christian, and then a mother. We had our (fabulous!) children in years 2, 4, and 6 of our marriage. We started child sponsorship with Compassion right away, one per child. My mother-heart wanted to keep growing, and at that point, we fully expected to have more kiddos.
But then we didn’t.
By this time we had moved a few times for our ministry roles, and settled in to one of the most challenging and rewarding seasons of our life and ministry in northern Maine. This was right after our littlest had her first birthday.
(Look at all that cuteness! How could we not want more??)
But the next 6 years rocked and forever changed us.
Boundary Lines
The boundary lines of our lives were growing wider and our tent was being stretched further, but somehow I couldn’t see it. God wasn’t working how I expected Him to.
We began to explore what it meant for our family to expand our borders. If it didn’t mean more biological children, then it must mean adoption, right? A quick look into international adoption showed us that our immigration status at the time disqualified us. After all, we had recently entered a different country for my husband’s work. A quick perusal of domestic adoption looked like it held potential, but that door soon shut too.
I was confused and discouraged. Why did I have a desire to expand our family borders if in reality we wouldn’t be able to bring others into it?
Pure and Undefiled Religion
At about the same time, God was pressing in on us what worship looks like:
Pure and undefiled religion before our God and Father is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained by the world. (James 1:27)
With this passage, God was igniting our hearts for orphans and widows even though no adoption doors were opening. We studied it, prayed it, and even wrote a song, “Undefiled Worship”, for our congregation. Then all of a sudden, two of the teens in our youth group were effectively abandoned by their family. Surely this was what God was preparing us for! We invited them into our home.
And they turned us down.
God’s Ways are Higher than Ours
We just couldn’t understand why we felt such a burden to enlarge our tents if God didn’t intend to increase our family borders. I confess I was ready to give up on God’s plans for us in this regard. And instead, we just threw ourselves into our ministries, and started filling our empty bedrooms with interns and missionaries. If God didn’t want to expand our borders, then we would.
But His ways are higher than ours. His thoughts are higher than our thoughts. (Is 55:9)
Little did I realize, this was part of His plan all along.
We began what became a years-long arrangement to provide housing for students interning for ministry. And over time, several stayed with us for one year, two years, our home then becoming their home-base when back from the field.
And what started as a favor to a University we supported became a deeply rewarding facet of our family’s life.
We couldn’t have predicted how our hearts would enlarge to love these young adults.
We could not have expected our children to embrace an older “sister” and “brother” in this way. Our borders had expanded indeed.
Nothing is Up to “Chance”
Then a “chance” meeting with a couple from our church kindled the flame for enlarged borders even more. Even though we barely knew them, they came to our house to share with us her story of adoption. She had placed a child up for open adoption while in her late teens, and had been able to have an active role in his life as he had grown. We couldn’t have known that our “chance” meeting to hear about adoption was another part of our own border expansion. Because it was going to look so different than we could have predicted.
We began to grow closer to this couple, and to do ministry together. We celebrated the birth of their second son with them not long afterward.
And then tragedy struck in the form of a wintery accident, and we had a widow with two tiny boys to love.
Expand Our Borders
Nothing really prepares you for caring for widows and orphans. We just knew we were called to it. God had been whispering to us about it for months…years. And since caring for a young widow in her primary season of bewilderment and grief opens up so many opportunities for withdrawal, misunderstanding, and exhaustion, it is tempting to retreat. But God beckoned us into it, and she welcomed “family”.
We didn’t really know what we were doing, other than loving her and her boys. So we simply made our home their home whenever needed, and tried to listen more than we spoke. We made meals together, changed diapers, cried, and continually offered ourselves to the Lord to be used in their lives. Birthdays, holidays, and regular days were all shared. Our children became like siblings.
Days became weeks, and weeks became months, and months became years. And “Mondays” continued to be a constant for our families to be together.
She emerged from her grief a woman of strength and grace, and her boys triumphed as vivacious and strong bundles of energy and character. And their family ministered to ours over these years every bit as much as we did theirs. Our lives are exponentially richer for this season.
We could not have predicted how God would expand our borders when He began calling. And we would not change this season for the world.
And Now…
It is ten years since that tragic phone call, and both of our families have moved away from each other. Our hearts remain intertwined, our family borders blurred.
And God is calling us to enlarge our tent even more.
I no longer have a preconceived idea of what that might look like. For us it wasn’t having another child or being able to adopt one. Enlarging our tent has looked like:
Hosting people without family over the Christmas holidays
Bringing large groups of students in our home for meals and games
Loving our kiddos’ friends and bringing them on vacation with us
Sharing our faith
Hosting a life group
Friends-giving
Offering our vehicle for others to use
Grieving with those who grieve
Celebrating with those who celebrate
And reaching out to others for help and prayer when we’ve needed it most.
It has looked so different than I could ever have imagined.
For 2018
At this point, I simply open my hands to receive whatever might come our way. In these early hours of 2018, my prayer is that God would help me to continue to open my arms up wide. I pray He would expand our borders in whatever way brings Him most glory.
We will set extra places at our table, make extra beds, or walk with people through seasons of grief. We will have hard conversations, depend on the Lord to fill us with love, and hold people to accountability.
And we believe that as we expand our borders in this way, we will spread out to the right and left, and our joy will be let loose in the desolate corners of the world.
We live in a broken world where things seem to have a tendency to go wrong. The trajectory of the corrupted world seems to be toward sadness, brokenness, incompleteness. Because sin. And even when our lives seem to be going fairly well, we don’t have to look far to find hopelessness.
We have find reasons to rejoice.
The blessed narrative for many of us in the Western world is one that rises and falls, often in rapid succession. And the drops tend to yell with louder voices, commanding greater attention. Even as we try to fight the gravitational pull downward toward difficulty, we have reason to hope.
How do we live in this broken world, and find hope in our everyday lives while the world screams at us that there is none? When so many enormous trials face millions of people, how do we find reasons to rejoice as we face our everyday, mundane disappointments?
We have to look for reasons to REJOICE
So over the last few days, I have been looking….
Monday, October 2nd, 2017
6:00AM – I awoke, like most others, to the tragic news of a senseless act of violence in Las Vegas. I couldn’t even wrap my mind around it, and the disbelief swirled around in my mind as I prepared for the day, the numbers of deceased and wounded steadily climbing. I pray that the joy of the Lord strengthen those facing this tragedy. I have reason to rejoice because I know He is faithful.
7:00-8:00 – I embarked on the familiar morning ritual of repeatedly encouraging a fourteen-year-old girl with fourteen-year-old hormones and blood sugars running high to get ready for school. And I happen to be at the point in parenting my third where I am annoying 93.5% of the time. I remind myself, “Children are a gift from the LORD ; they are a reward from him.” (Ps 127:3) I have reason to rejoice because He has given me the opportunity to shape her life.
8:20AM – I chose tosingmy hope as I drove to work. I dropped my daughter at school (miraculously on time), then prayed and sang, and asked God to move in Las Vegas, to move in my daughter, and to move in me.
And then my suburban was hit by a semi…
And I realized I was okay.
8:39AM – And, as though the Lord Himself were holding me, I was able to move out of traffic, and remain calm while assessing the damage. I had no pain, I didn’t think I was in shock, and I didn’t even feel anger toward the other driver.
I just sat there & looked for hope.
There had to be reasons to rejoice even in this moment.
My son had decided not to come with me that morning, so he was not in the passenger seat, where the majority of the impact was.
I was literally one minute from my work.
We were in a roundabout, so our speed had been reduced.
My husband was almost immediately accessible to drop everything and come.
One of my Pastors (and friends) was on the scene within minutes.
My 13-years-faithful suburban had remained so today.
No one was hurt, and I was not at fault for this collision.
There were so many reasons to rejoice in these unexpected moments.
10:30 – But after the police report, the tow truck and the rental car, a phone call came from the police officer. He was full of apologies as he revealed I was at fault, according to a new law neither he, nor I, (nor any of the insurance agents I talked to through the day), had known about.
And I felt myself slipping toward disbelief and almost anger. How quickly I felt my trajectory change! I could not (still cannot!) wrap my mind around this law that allows semi drivers to ignore posted traffic patterns and forces other drivers to go against conventional wisdom.But even in my frustration, I can rejoice.
It just may be a little more difficult
11:30AM – So after attending to obligatory accident details for the rest of the morning, I finally arrived at work, my intended destination. There I met my caring co-workers who were concerned for me, and encouraging to my heart. They helped me continue to look for reasons to rejoice, as I joined our meeting (already in progress) and we celebrated what God had done over the weekend.
2:30 PM – And when we were finally tired of sitting and working through some difficult items, we went out for fresh air. My team looked for reasons to rejoice together.
And we found them:
We welcomed the staff of a new bank to the neighborhood,
We laughed as some of us raced down the sidewalk
Also, we successfully avoided the doughnut shop (it helped that it was closed…)
And we stopped at a playground to swing as high as we possibly could.
The sun, fresh air, and blood pumping through my veins lifted me out of the pit of irritation that wanted to swallow me whole. I just had to choose to be lifted up.
After intentionally looking for reasons to rejoice that afternoon, it was much easier to return to the tasks of the day. Minute by minute, that one day threw several curveballs that distracted and tempted me to lose sight of hope. But, curveballs or not, it is 100% my choice to rejoice.
And we all have that choice every minute of every day. So, how can face this world, with all its bad news and disappointments, and find reasons to rejoice? Is it true that we can bless the Lord at all times? (Ps 34:1a).
Bless the Lord at all Times
I believe that in all circumstances, there are three things that can quickly re-focus us to bring hope:
God hears me.
When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles. (Psalm 34:17)
God turns his ears to his children. He hears the prayer of the son or daughter who calls out to Him. No matter our situation, God is El Roi, the God who sees us.
God holds me.
For I am the LORD your God who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear; I will help you. (Isaiah 41:13)
God is like a tender shepherd who gathers his lambs in His arms. He pulls us close to protect us under the shadow of His wing. He will not let go.
God calls me to Himself.
Jesus said, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him to life on the last day.” (John 6:44)
God has made a way in Jesus to bring us to Himself. And as we draw near to Him, He continues to draw near to us. Because He has welcomed us as sons and daughters into His own family.
When all around you the world seems to be falling apart, remember that you have reasons to rejoice.
Last Monday, I had my second opportunity to lead in prayer on Facebook Live. It was the fifteenth day of 21 Days of Prayerfor Waterline Church, where I am the Director of Relational Arts. You know, I absolutely loved my time leading online and experienced fantastic engagement with the people who joined me live. We talked about how to live a life that overflows with thankfulness.
Thankfulness
The theme that bookends each week of our 21 Days is thankfulness. Therefore, we begin and end each week with gratitude. The Scripture I shared was Colossians 2:6-7.
And now, just as you accepted Christ Jesus as your Lord, you must continue to follow him.Let your roots grow down into him, and let your lives be built on him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness. (Col. 2:6-7 NLT)
I love how the Message words this same passage:
My counsel for you is simple and straightforward: Just go ahead with what you’ve been given. You received Christ Jesus, the Master; now live him. You’re deeply rooted in him. You’re well constructed upon him. You know your way around the faith. Now do what you’ve been taught. School’s out; quit studying the subject and start living it! And let your living spill over into thanksgiving. (Col. 2:6-7 MSG)
#BOOM
Paul paints a clear correlation here:
Rooting + Building our lives in Christ —> Strong Faith + Thankfulness
I believe most of us want to be thankful people. And I think many of us want to have strong faith. But it’s hard to muster those things up. It seems they depend on our rootedness in Christ, which leads to lives built up in Him – living Jesus.
When we begin to live Jesus, to truly walk out the things we’ve learned (from the Word, from our Pastors, from our worship songs, from others’ life stories), then our faith grows, and we become thankful people.
Does that sound scary to anyone? Doesn’t walking out what we’ve learned mean stepping out before you are sure God will catch you? Isn’t that kind of like jumping out of the plane before you know for sure the parachute is going to open up?
That’s faith, my friends.
Faithfulness is one of the spiritual fruits listed by Paul in his letter to the Galatians.
Fruit
One of my sons likes to grow things.
At any given time, we could have potted plants from pineapples and cantaloupe to avocados and tomatillos in various stages of growth around our house and patio. I don’t know if any of you are gardeners, but I’ve noticed that sometimes fruit grows v-e-r-y slowly. After all, nurturing young plants requires incredible patience and diligence. And it generally helps if he keeps going back to check them, care for them, and assess their progress.
Sometimes I think our spiritual fruit grows in us so incrementally that I wonder if we even notice. And I wonder if we forget to keep track of its progress.
So, I want to help us notice fruit.
Monday evening, during prayer time for the 21 Days of Prayer our church is walking through on Facebook Live, I issued a challenge I’d like to extend here too. Instead of looking for external things to be thankful for (let’s face it, there are a TON), instead, why don’t we start to look internally for some fruit to thank God for?
Overflowing and Spilling Over
Did you notice that Paul said our thankfulness would overflow? The Message version says, “spill over.” That means it comes from the inside. And it can’t be contained. After all, things that overflow come out from somewhere, and can’t be held in any longer.
So what’s on the inside? What’s going on inside of us that might begin to spill out thanks?
Now, an incredibly important discipline for the joy-seeker and the one who wants to be grateful is to look for things to be thankful for. So let’s start the inward search. Let’s take inventory of our fruit – the ones that are ripe, and the ones just blossoming.
As you take your time considering each of these spiritual fruits, allow God to direct your thoughts. Important: Recognize that our fruit doesn’t grow all at once. Often, we are in a season where God is helping us to grow just one type of fruit. Other times, several types might be growing at once, but you’ll still find it s-l-o-w.
How do you start?!Survey your day-to-day. Do you notice you reacted differently to any situations than you might have a few months ago? Think about conversations or your inner thoughts. Do you have a sense of contentment where there used to be anxiety? Do you notice you have been able to be kinder to someone difficult in your life?
Where are you changing?
Then, as you notice that you indeed have grown, even if it is just a small amount of growth, begin to celebrate that! Speak it out to the Lord. Write it in this leather notebook, or on the printable above. And tell a prayer partner or friend.
Let your living spill over into thanksgiving.
Live a life that overflows with thankfulness
Habits take time to form. So I invite you to keep today’s printable handy. Let it remind you to go back to the garden again and again. Assess growth, nurture, and cultivate it. And with every new leaf or new blossom, thank God – loudly! Praise Him that fruit is growing and you are living as Jesus.
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