Our Hearts Soared
My Head is Spinning!
Yes. Summertime! As your schedule might get a little more leisurely, ours ramps up.
We have been invited by several ministries to serve their communities -in Spanish and in English- through devotional workshops, collage debriefs, kids camps, intern discipleship, hosting, and women’s ministry painting.
And let me tell you, planning the first, second, and third for each project, not to mention supply acquisition, required no small amount of imagination and listmaking! But it was so worth it.
Our hearts soared after each session. And we thought, “this was the dream, was it not?”
We worked side by side, with each other, with the Lord and we expressed his vision, His precious Word integrated with visual art. Did we struggle to understand each other? Did we fuss when we were tired and juggling all the to-do’s? Did we need to spend some time away from each other just to get along? Did we go through a mini depression when our youngest son left to work in the States? Did we watch all the Rocky/Creed movies on our heaviest week, just to rest our brains from organizing each workshop? Yes. Yes we did.
But it was so worth it. This is the dream and vision from the Lord that developed with tid bits for twenty years. God was putting it together as we lived, talked, prayed, and journaled…
I love how the Apostle Paul, writing to the church in Corinth, said,
“You are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read by all men; clearly you are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart.”
You know what? It’s so true. The people we serve, young or old, are the letters we’ve been journaling about for years. They are the incarnation of the calling we hoped for and waited for patiently. Lately as we prepare for a session, it’s as if the wind blows and I hear the words, “even if only one person shows up, that is enough.” And what I understand in an instant is, that one person is a deep well and a treasure, a miracle.
Before we moved here, what I dreaded the most were days when Freedom would say, “we should invite people over and cook something.” I feared, I worried, I didn’t think we had enough, were enough to “entertain” people. I compared my hosting abilities to my capable sisters who hosted and entertained without breaking a sweat, whose homes could be in magazines. My heart breaks for the missed opportunities, and the friendships I didn’t deepen because I didn’t think my hosting abilities or our house was enough. It’s funny to think about because hosting, I’m sure of it, is part of our calling. I think I get it now. You are hosting the presence of the Lord and inviting people into it. Wow! Isn’t Christ so precious?
Mindset moment.
But sometimes we have to host his presence in a dark place. I admit that as we prepared for our workshop with End Slavery Ecuador, a ministry that faithfully reaches out to women who are trapped in a life of prostitution, I was shaking in my boots. But you know what? When they arrived at the community center, they were so humble and thankful. Freedom practiced his Spanish and held a baby…he’s so good with the babies. The women painted pots as a sign of new life and I shared, “In the beginning God created,” (Gen 1:1) and “In the beginning was the Word…” (John 1:1) It was a devotional about God creating with His Son and His Spirit, and His desire for the New Creation within us. It was the most peaceful, heartfelt workshop we’ve had.
Even though our heads are spinning with the busyness, our minds are blown by how open people are to receiving His word. We are all His letters, His masterpiece. Even you. Just you is enough for Him to show up.
