Less than one hour to go and I was standing on a wall in our garden, toys
overflowing from my hands, frustrated tears running down my cheeks in front of three
men, feeling very silly.
I was feeling silly not because I
was crying in front of three men, who probably felt more uncomfortable than I
did at the tears, but because I KNEW that the reason I was feeling so
overwhelmed was the enemy. He was coming in and undermining me just before we began something new and was reminding me of all the stress in times past when our house was jammed full
with children. The enemy was reminding me of the cost, and not of the prize, of course,
and in that moment I just wasn’t sure if I was ready for the garden to be run
down, toys to be broken and lost, diffusing childishness, cleaning up mess…
That was 9.45am
this morning before the first service of our new season started in our house.
Of course, as I knew even
standing there having my mini-tantrum at 9am, everything went fine (in fact, it
went amazingly well!). But even as I
took a moment after lunch to put a tired one year-old to bed 3 hours later than
usual, I wondered if we would really have to do it all again next week. Did we
really have to have gatherings in our house, or in fact, anywhere, ever again? Was
it really worth it?
But then I asked myself: What
else would we do? What else are we here in Peru for, if not to reach out to
others. And I know that if it wasn’t the hurdle of having lots of children
running around it would be something else.
Nearly every time we advance in the
kingdom there are emotional hurdles to jump first.
The birthing pains of breakthrough.
And I felt like the disciples
when Jesus asked them if they too wanted to turn back, and all I can answer is: ‘Lord, to whom shall I go? You have the words of eternal life. I have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God.’ And there is nowhere else to go but
forward!
And chatting with a dear Peruvian friend
this afternoon who is the trenches once again with her family situations, I am
once again reminded that the
Christian life was never meant to be comfortable – it is meant to be war.
And today, battle weary and in the trenches, one foot in front of the
other, we are winning.