my mind can race a million miles an hour with stories, and menus, and creations, and 5th grade grammar, and planning, and dreaming, and “wishin and hopin and thinkin and prayin” nope that’s a song from hmmm name that movie…
see already i digress because my mind wonders. that’s how it goes for me all the time. i’ve got big plans, but so often they fade into oblivion when it’s bath time for the littles or time to walk the dog or make cookies or whatever. i get side tracked- don’t you get sidetracked? i mean we live in this buzz of activity, and it’s all i’m sitting down with tea and bible study one minute; and boys yelling that the dog threw up on the floor the next. it’s all sweet 4 year olds singing “i am the way and the truth and the life…” one minute; then homemade laundry soap boiling over on the stove the next. what a crazy, awesome life i live.
so i’ve had big plans for writing amazing things on this blog. God has been teaching me, and rocking my boat a bit. i’m wrestling through my thoughts and God’s ideas on ministering to the poor; befriending non-believers; orphan care, and bursting the christian bubble i’ve lived in for so long. but those plans have been thwarted by the real life doing.
today i picked up a crib (maybe that’s not the best way to start a paragraph for the sake of my mom and grandmother who might be reading this and how dare i let out that news on my blog. mom, no new little one’s in this household.) last weekend the hubs and i picked up a table and dropped it off at an empty apartment. an apartment devoid of furniture and decor; no pretty curtains hanging on windows, only a few bags of clothes and some toy trucks scattered across the floor. i’m delivering table and crib to a single mom. her baby girl has been in the neonatal intensive care unit for several months. she’s not from my church; she’s not the daughter of a sweet older lady i know from bible study. she’s just another mom who’s giving baths and telling stories and making cookies (when she can afford the ingredients). so i’m taking tortilla soup and forging relationships.
this is foreign territory; it’s not scripted in the life i’ve lived; it’s not chit chat with other football mom’s on the sidelines; it’s not meet me at starbucks. there’s no easy way to put it anymore; i’ve felt a pull for years to step outside- to reach beyond; but it’s scary and unknown. it’s not just writing a check; or visiting third world poverty for a week; or crying over videos of forsaken children. there’s no overlooking what waits down the street; i’ve jumped in. there is no simple. my heart’s wide open and raw and unsettled. it’s all more like Jesus and less like Jennifer. my mind swirls and chokes and strains at possibilities and scenarios as i learn to give and love.
i’ve got big plans, but God keeps changing them.
on the doorposts 