The reality of Mondays.....

Mondays --- that day when my to do list always seems the longest!  Why is that?

A Facebook friend of mine challenged everyone to find something they're thankful for every day of November, to make Thanksgiving a month long thing and not just a day to eat turkey and dressing.

I liked this challenge!  Today, I'm very thankful for the two raindrops I felt on my back porch.  Truly!  I told God "Thank you!" for those two raindrops!  I'm also thankful for the peace and quiet this year is providing me in the mornings - time to spend with God, with no one to blame but myself if I don't.  I miss my kids and homeschooling terribly (if any homeschoolers are reading this blog, and wondering if they should give up homeschooling, I have one word for you:  don't!).  But, some homeschool days were just so *busy* that I didn't always get the chance to read His word and spend time listening for what He might be saying to me that day -- nor to just sing at the top of my lungs to Him, and not worry at all if it was irritating anyone else by singing off key.  Instead of seeing the glass half empty (I miss homeschooling), I am choosing to see the glass half full (I have uninterrupted time, past 5 am!, to spend time with my Savior).  And that's a good thing!  Singing is probably my very favorite thing to do....and I enjoy it more when it is just me and God - because I know He loves to hear me sing (though many others don't! haha).  Also, I love singing because it realigns my heart to what truly matters, to Who truly matters.  I get so caught up in the day to day.....so worried about trivial matters.......singing praises to my King lifts me out of the rut I can so easily put myself in.

If you're praying for us, please pray for me - that I'll trust God more, trust myself less, remember His goodness and that He will take care of us, specifically our kids.  Moving to Rwanda will be such a challenge for them, and such an uprooting thing.  Taking young kids to the mission field is not thought to be as difficult by the "mission experts"(though lugging baby stuff all over the globe cannot be easy!). To young children, their parents are their world - so, their world goes with them.  But, for teenagers, parents are supposed to be less and less of their world, and their peers more and more central.  This is a necessary part of them breaking away and beginning their new lives.  Yet, we are asking our teenage and pre-teen children to leave their friends, their roots, so much of what defines them -- and to come with us to a whole other continent.   And to a rural, rather isolated part of that continent!

I love my kids more than life - the last thing I want to do is make them uncomfortable, unhappy, unsettled - and yet we are risking all of that and more by taking them from Kerrville and bringing them to Rwanda.  I am amazed and proud of their courage so far, and of their trust in us.  They are bravely willing to come along with us to this new, totally unknown place, even though they would prefer to stay home.  They aren't complaining about it, even though it's a bit scary.  I cannot count how many times I've had to either change an answer to a Rwanda question they've given me, or have had to answer "I don't know" to one of their queries about our life there.  I wish I could tell them what it will be like.  I wish I could really know how to prepare them for what lies ahead.  I love them so much, and a mom's love many times feels the need to comfort, protect and help her kids.  In the end, though, who do I love the most?  Jesus.  And who loves my kids way better and way more than I do?  Yup.  Jesus again.  I need prayer that I'll have the faith to continue to trust Him with my children and to remember that and believe that He who called us to Rwanda also called them -- that He is able to - and promises to make all things work for the good of those who love Him - and that includes moving to Rwanda and leaving friends and familiarity and comfort behind.

Sometimes when I think of these things that keep worrying me -- all the things I keep having to let go of, I wonder if God shouldn't have called someone a bit stronger for this task.  I have the desire to go, and to help, but do I have the strength?

One last thing I'm thankful for today:  A church sign in our town that daily answers this fear for me.  I drive by this sign on the way to Ruthie's school in the morning and again in the afternoons, and I feel it was put there just for me.  Thanks, God!  It says,


"God doesn't call the equipped.  He equips those He has called."  

I'm counting on that to be true for me in Rwanda!