When God calls you to go but stay where you are

The best time to blog? While your child is captivated by the Rockettes Christmas Spectacular mid-April.

So, while I am singing along to the “Twelve Days of Christmas” and wishing my legs were as sculpted as these dancers and I was a bit taller so my love handles would stretch out (like my mother always said would happen…only I never got taller), I’m also going to write on a topic slightly more important. That is, until the Rockettes do the tin soldier dance. I told Lily the very first time we watched this that that particular dance was my favorite and she DEMANDS that I watch it with her every time. I’ll have to take a break from writing to give my full attention to the TV.

Not much changed in my life growing up. I moved once and it was only down the street and I was barely a year. I have such fond memories of that house. JOKE. I went to the same church, school, and basically had the same friends through high school. Things were pretty much predictable.

But when Brent walked into my life I’m pretty sure he unknowingly brought a big suitcase of change with him because that’s ALL we’ve known since his senior year in college. We’ve been unpacking that change ever since. Some of the change has been fabulous and some has been just stinky. Either way, we’ve had to adapt many times to different things and learn quickly how to deal with it. And the bottom line is that God has been faithful every time. Without a doubt. We face change with the attitude that it is just another opportunity for God to write more of our testimony because we know He will always show up with good plans.

On October 12, 2011 we were pretty ready for something to change. The only reason I know this date is because it is written in my Bible. Under the date I wrote “our ‘yes’ is on the table.” Johnny Hunt was speaking at our church on this particular date. What is odd to me is that my notes from his sermon are written on some blank space on a page in 1 Corinthians, while the date is written in Acts 1.  I have not a clue why I wrote them in separate places.  It doesn’t matter why I did what I did, what matters is what God showed me today in what seems like a very unimportant detail. I’ll get back to this…

Ever since that day in October, I have FULLY expected the Lord to call us to radically change our lives for His glory…as in, call us to move across the ocean to be on mission to make disciples. I’m a dreamer, y’all, a BIG one, and seem to long for the biggest change in my life possible (the good kind of change).  I mean, that’s the next step right? We’ve said yes to whatever He wants in our lives…so wouldn’t the next logical step to be to move to an African country and start an orphanage?

Umm, apparently not.

God has been working on my heart and in our marriage in some super cool ways. More on that in another blog post (probably the next one because it’s already written). But, through what He’s been doing I’ve had much conviction in my heart.

I’ve realized that my “yes” to God isn’t a yes to anything He wants. It’s a yes to what I envision for my future…moving my family across the ocean, or even just across the country, to love on the least of these and spread the Gospel to unreached people groups. But, a yes to just stay right where I am and make disciples? Not what I had in mind!

For now, though, it’s what He has in mind for us. Johnny Hunt said that night in October 2011, “You are to do what you know to do until He calls you differently.”

And what I KNOW He has called me to do is be a disciple-maker in my home. And I’m certain that no matter where I live or what I do, that will always be what He has called me to do as long as I have children in my home.

I absolutely love a tweet I read by Andy Stanley, “Your greatest contribution to the Kingdom of God may not be something you do but someone you raise.”

God hasn’t called me to love on orphans day in and day out, nor has he asked me to travel far and wide to bring the Good News of Jesus Christ to unreached people. If He does, my yes is absolutely still there. He has asked me to empty the dishwasher, clean a pb&j covered face, catch Lily at the bottom of the slide, scrub toilets, make oatmeal, wash clothes, buy groceries, play dress-up, etc. For now, my yes is to making my house His home, where He is always welcome, daily spoken of, and glorified through the tiniest of details.