blessing

This has been sitting on my screen for days waiting to be written but no words have been coming.  The last 3 mornings I’ve woken up with a knot in my stomach.  The question that keeps asking itself over and over again, “What in the world are we doing here?”

Our weeks here in the Philippines have been wonderful, horrible, busy, boring, inspiring and depressing. 

The reality never quite matches with the dreams we dream. 

We thought we were coming to be used.  We thought a calendar full of flights would tell us how needed we were here.  We would be able to pat ourselves on the back for saving the day.  Not so.    

Purpose here.  It is eluding me.  The question asks itself again, “What in the world are we doing here?”

We find out that there are hidden costs.  The bills here are piling up while we stare at an empty bank account.  Every flight we go deeper into the pit.  Every cloud that has to be dodged has a dollar attached.   Visa renewals are getting closer on the calendar.  It was so easy to trust that the Lord would provide before we got here.  There was a safety net.  If the money didn’t come through, we didn’t go.  Now if the money isn’t there we carry that great big red mark on the paper for how long? 

The cost has been so high to come here I think, as I sit here with my child crying on my lap, both of us sweating because we are so close.  Her tears rolling down my chest.  The cost to my kids.  The cost to our family. 

Yet I know there are riches here to be found.  The silver lining in the cloud.  The truth is, there is so much fullness to be had in us being here.  Fullness we have yet to discover.  Fullness we hope for in faith.   Fullness the Lord is opening up to us moment by moment and asking us to hold our arms wide open and embrace. 

So I take this question that won’t leave my mind and I turn it back to the One who called us here.  We know He called us here.  Lord, what in the world are we doing here?  Why do you have us here?

Be a blessing.  Let me use you to be a blessing.

“Lord,” I think, “ I’m not sure that is good enough.”  We should only have to go through this, travel this road, be here, if people can’t live without us.  If we can puff up our chest in pride and find value by our own shallow definition.  

The cost, the personal cost is too high, the financial cost is too high.  How do we justify to ourselves, to those who sacrifice to make it possible for us to be here, that possibly, we are here just to be a blessing?  Not good enough.

It’s terrifying.  I have to let go.  I have to look past how we define ourselves and what we think is valuable.  I can let go or I can wake up the rest of the year with a knot in my stomach feeling like a waste.  I have to recalibrate.

Be a blessing, He says. 

Be a blessing to the family you came to replace so they can go home and enjoy being with family and allow them to rest. 

Be a blessing to your daughter who is sitting on your lap crying because she hates school and struggles with reading.

Be a blessing to your husband who needs you to sit by the computer and track his moves and listen to a scratchy radio that hardly works so that he’ll know you’ve always got his back. 

Be a blessing to the family that is out from the village and invite them over for dinner even though it will be a long day. 

Be a blessing to the girl who helps you around the house when she sits down to eat with you.  Show her what a Christian family looks like.  Her dad abandoned her.  She doesn’t know. 

Be a blessing.

American dreams are about this need to become a someone.  God dreams are about becoming bread for anyone in need because they love SomeOne.   Ann Voskamp