Starting at the Beginning

I’ve mentioned a few times over the last few weeks that the Lord has been speaking loud to us and doing some incredible things in our family. Over the next several days, I’m going to share with you our story of our journey to the mission field. Really, we are just at the beginning of this journey, so that is where I am going to start.

About a year and a half ago, a book by Max Lucado, Out Live Your Life, dropped In my lap. I began reading it not really sure what I was going to get out of it. I read things like this:

We are common folk. We sit in the bleachers, eat at diners, change diapers, and wear our favorite team’s ball cap. Fans don’t wave when we pass. Servants don’t scurry when we come home. Chauffeurs don’t drive our cars; butlers don’t open our doors or draw our baths. Doormen don’t greet us, and security doesn’t protect us. We are regular folk. And we wonder: Does God use people like us? He did. God stampeded the first-century society with sway-backs, not thoroughbreds. Before Jesus came along, the disciples were loading trucks, coaching soccer, and selling Slurpee drinks at the convenience store. Their collars were blue, and their hands were calloused, and there is no evidence that Jesus chose them because they were smarter or nicer than the guy next door. The one thing they had going for them was a willingness to take a step when Jesus said, “Follow me.” Are you more dinghy than cruise ship? More stand-in than movie star? More blue jeans than blue blood? Congratulations. God changes the world with folks like you.

I don’t know about you, but I have a hard time stepping out of my comfort zone. I have a hard time just admitting that I have a hard time steppin’ out.

Which is really quite ironic considering the enormous amount of weight the Lord had been putting on my heart for missions.

Max Lucado put it in perspective for me. “It all began with an honest look and a helping hand. Could this be God’s strategy for human hurt? First, kind eyes meet desperate ones. Next, strong hands help weak ones. Then, the miracle of God. We do our small part, he does the big part, and life at the Beautiful Gate begins to be just that.”

This was the beginning of a nudging the God put on my heart to step out and want to really get knee-deep In my community and begin to serve. I wanted to do my small part so that God could do the big!

I am a mom of seven precious children and my mission field is my home. The home is where I serve first. But I wanted to do a little more. I wanted my children to fully understand what it meant to serve. Not just each other, but those outside of our family as well.

So I began researching. Researching on where in our community of Garland, TX we might be able to get a little hands on serving.

Side note: It has always been a running joke between my husband and I, that we could live anywhere we wanted to since Dan has a teaching degree and could probably teach anywhere. Colorado, Arizona, even Hawaii, Anywhere, that is, in the United States.

While I was researching where our family could get involved in serving in our community, one of my google searches landed me at a sight that said it needed teachers to teach overseas.

As a joke, I sent it to my husband saying, hey remember how you said we could live anywhere we wanted?How about a  job as a missionary, teaching children in a foreign country? Ha. Ha.

Thinking that he would laugh it off, I thought nothing more of it. That is, until he came home that evening after work and said with all the seriousness in the world, “why not?”

I think I had a small heart attack in that moment.

Looking back on that moment though, I really shouldn’t have been surprised. God had quietly been whispering to my heart for quite a while…faith, trust, serve. Our oldest son had been contemplating the field of missions, so my prayers already focused that direction. Earlier in that year the Lord had brought me to my knees to a place of total brokenness and complete dependence upon Him, through a desperate battle with depression.

In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will,  in order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory.Ephesians 1:11-12

He had foreseen what I had not. He had chosen us for just this task

So, no. The shock shouldn’t have been there. But it was.

Yet, after a moment of my mouth hanging open, I looked at my husband and said why not?

Why not?

Two simple words that changed our hearts, our family of eight, our direction, our world.

Two simple words that set us down this path of total, complete trust on the Father.

And so… we prayed. We applied. We were accepted.

I wish there was a word that described the feeling that you have when you are both excited and terrified at the same time.

Maybe that is really the true definition of faith?

Join me Wednesday, as I continue to share our journey to the mission field, or consider subscribing so you don’t miss out!

Linking up today with: These Five of Mine, The Better Mom,  The Beauty in His Grip

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