Take It to Jesus

We live in the unexpected. God, in His mercy, gives us glimpses of what lies ahead of us more often than not. Those glimpses come through encouraging conversations, deeply seated passions within us, or doors that open wide before us. Those glimpses are displays of His mercy as He shows us where we go next and they don’t happen every time.

Having been “on the mission field” now since January, serving the Lord in ministry of a much different variety than our previous lives in the American church, I can honestly say I found myself nesting into our current life. Part of that nesting comes naturally when you have a baby and want to have a safe, comfortable home for that little one to enter into. The other part of that nesting is just the basic human desire to feel at home.

This can become an idol for me, taking my focus off God and putting it on myself. I mean, on those sometimes rare evenings where the whole house is tidy (it’s never actually clean...just tidy) and the kiddos are asleep and I actually have a hot drink that I can drink before it gets cold while snuggled up on the couch with a book and MAYBE even a nice fire while Billy also rests watching soccer...pure bliss! I just love it! It’s peaceful, it’s calm, and it’s homey. I desire those moments so much that I might even rush through dinner and encourage my kids to fall asleep early and maybe even have saved my coffee allowance for that moment all day! If I’m being honest.

But, more often than not, at least one child is still awake and needing love from her parents and usually my coffee sits on the counter and I have to microwave it two or three times before I actually sit down. By the time I snuggle into the corner of the couch, I’m so tired I don’t finish the drink and I go ahead to bed.

That was the case last night. I sat down and realized how tired I was, nearly ready to forget the couch and head to bed. It was a good day but a long day and I lost my cool a couple of times throughout it, fighting off a headache that just wouldn’t go away.

We are coming up to the day we will go home to the US, just three weeks from now, to apply for new visas to return here. God willing, we will be back in this house and on the appropriate visa for the service God has for us here in the next three months. There is an underlying tone of fearing the unexpected that creeps in every now and then only to be overcome by the goodness of God.

A friend sent me a song that's bridge has been running through my head every time I try to settle into the corner of the couch.

“And when I thought I lost me
You knew where I left me
You reintroduced me to Your love
You picked up all my pieces
Put me back together
You are the Defender of my heart”
(Defender, https://songselect.ccli.com/Songs/7081764/defender)

I wish my settling into the corner of the couch was immediately restful but it isn’t. It starts with a re-hashing of those moments in the day that I didn’t have self-control, that I was easily angered, that I lost myself a little bit. Singing this song to myself and reminding myself that the Lord is with me, even in those moments that I lose myself, waiting for me to turn my eyes back to Him and off of myself helps me clear away the guilt or shame I have started to save up during my day.

I get to the second verse of the song, “You know before I do where my heart can seek to find Your truth. Your mercy is the shade I'm living in. You restore my faith and hope again” and the comfy corner of my couch changes from a place of remembering my failing to a place of remembering His mercy. All of a sudden, my weakness and imperfection becomes what the Lord has already said it is! They are places for Him to make His power perfect in me. I can even take those struggles and boast about them to the whole internet world in hopes that people see Jesus in this!

And I remember the Apostle Paul saying:

“Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in my weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” 2 Corinthians 12:9-10

That’s what I feel and know to be true in the corner of my couch: Christ’s power resting on me.

Only Jesus can so instantaneously take me from wallowing in my weakness to boasting in my weakness! I laugh along with other moms as we read blogs and articles honestly and vulnerably sharing how real the struggle is, finding a bit of hope in the camaraderie that is eating all the leftovers off your kids plate and wanting to use the toilet alone for a few minutes (a latrine vacation!). But, as good as it is to find you aren’t the only one doing life in the wilderness of child raising, marriage, ministry, or whatever else, it doesn’t actually change the ache.

Friendship is a salve to the sore but not the cure.

For me, I find that laughing through some of the privileged trials of motherhood does make the load a little lighter for a while but not actually easier. It’s so nice to know I’m not the only one struggling in this season! But, honestly, it doesn’t give me the strength to do it again tomorrow. Jesus does.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30

I laugh with other moms as we share burdens, but, if we don’t take those burdens to Jesus, then we are sharing burdens that are still heavy and weigh us down together. It a relief for a while but is ultimately not the best choice for the long haul.

The best choice?

Hear Jesus asking us to bring those burdens to Him and accept what He has to offer! Sit down at the end of the day, at the middle of the day, or just start the day off laying down the privileged burden of motherhood or of being a wife or of whatever other roles you get to do and ask Jesus to carry it! Let Him take that weakness and make His power perfect by displaying it in your very life!

I call the corner of my couch homey because, regardless of how much time I spend making this house our home, it will never actually be my home. The corner of my couch becomes a bit of home when I open the Bible in prayer and desire to know Jesus more. But, it still isn’t home. My home, the place I will never have to fight my own mind or my own body or the continual desires of the world, is in heaven. It’s ahead of me and where I fix my eyes: eternity with Jesus.

In these days of the unexpected and the unknown, we will keep on taking steps and obeying the Lord regardless of where that takes us. I love this house and the people God has made our family here in Ireland. I love that the Lord has given us passion for what He has called us to here. I love meeting new people and living our a godly, though imperfect, life.

I love Jesus more.

Whatever your Will is, I want it, Lord. May we desire to be home with You more than to build home for ourselves here. May we carry burdens with friends and family straight to the cross of Christ to lay them down together. May we boast in our weaknesses and see you transform them into displays of Your Power. May we trust you to show us back to who we are in You when we lose ourselves in the day to day struggles. May we sit in the shade of Your Mercy, in the Name of Jesus.

In the Love of Christ,
Hannah