Summer 2011...long overdue

This has been quite possibly the most challenging and most rewarding summer yet. Well, it's neck-in-neck with nannying those three little ones last summer.

They are each a blessing in their own way.

What continues to blow my mind is how great each of these 192 chillins (children) have impacted my heart. Each holds a delicate piece of it in their hands. Naturally some have bigger pieces. After all, you can only get to know a few so well in 9 (relatively) short weeks.

Goodness, God is so gracious to me.

If only I could recount all the amazing things He has done this summer. After running full-force ahead for nine straight weeks, it's going to take a few weeks to fully recover and a couple more months to let the beautiful details of His brilliant plan sink in. I wish I could explain how I experienced Him in even the smallest of details.

Jon Bloom captures the essence of what I want to say:

...nothing that happens to you today is really ordinary. Every small and great thing you encounter or do has millions of stories behind it that are so enthralling that you would sit dumbstruck for days just to learn about them.

And your extraordinary life is shaping and being shaped by many other lives, human and non-human, as it goes along. In ways both witting and unwitting your words and actions are influencing the course of other lives. Your choice of a parking spot could have a life-altering effect on someone else.

Do not let a belief in the sovereignty of God dull your amazement over this. Let it add, not detract, from your wonder! Just think of how God designed his creation to occur.

I wish I knew each of these kids' stories. No two are alike. At the same time, I don't think I have the capacity to handle the weight of each of their stories. Broken homes. Broken families. Broken hearts. And yet, I see the infinite grace of God and His plan of redemption in each of their eyes. That is a gift in and of itself. In the midst of brokenness there is hope.

Hope of eternity spent rejoicing in the holiness of our Father. Hope that I pray God will reveal to each of these precious treasures.

For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, "Abba! Father!"  The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.

                                                                               (Romans 8:14-17)

The one thought resounding in my mind for the past few hours has been that the most rewarding things tend to be the most challenging.

We are not promised a piece-of-cake life.

But, oh, taste and see what is to come!  

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

And that which, by His amazing grace, we are able to see now...

 

And always enjoy the ride...