Slipping in between

  As I was rocking baby Hope close to me and thinking about her little body….i savored the moment with all my heart. I breathed her in and smiled all over. I held her long after she was asleep cause the house was quiet and I could.

 And my brain went into extreme gratefulness mode. For my baby. For my girls. For health and for family. For getting this opportunity to shape them, love them, create a home and worlds, and memories for them. For bear hunts at the river and dancing to marry poppins, for reading bible stories, and for cuddles each night.

Then I started thinking of my Syrian refugee friends and dreaming of what it could look like for a whole camp to be transformed. Of mother’ s laughing instead of yelling, of marriages filled with joy and serving one another, of children that were emotionally free no more nightmares…not playing in the trash…of schools and play groups…of exploring and discovery groups… of prenatal and post partum education and support groups. Of people who felt they had something to give and not despairing. I started dreaming of Syrian refugees that banded together and started “giving away the kingdom” to surrounding camps.

 I laughed as I caught my thoughts ebbing and flowing between my simple beautiful life and world crisis. How God has entrusted me with treasures and I want to creatively dance with them and God every day we have together. I want to make memories, I want to laugh, I want them to feel lavishly loved on.  That at the end of the year I want memories – they are my gold, my essentials.

 But that I also love to dream and scheme and sacrifice in order to help the huge abyss of a need all around me. That we will find back roads to get to the camps cause we want to show our friends…we still show up. 

the road closed...

That I will sort medications and order medications and plan meals around clinics.

That loving my neighbor means sitting in tents when I have headaches or stomach bugs, or when I did not sleep the night before. To listen to their pain, their frustrations and yet to cultivate a deep, unwavering Hope in the midst of it.

  So I will continue to slip between the practicals of packing school lunches, chopping vegetables, and praying for sick people. Of creating a home with a foundation of faith and the knowledge that God is good, and yet able to cry and hurt when friends of mine don’t know if their brother is alive in Syria.

    

                   Stepping deeper into grace each day….