Sometimes my students from Metrolina flood my mind. Besides the fact that they were a huge investment of my life and time, they were a beautiful lot. I loved them for many reasons. They were my treasures, and still are. So I started thinking of many of them last night. I have not written to them in quite a while and wanted to hear from them, but I'd lost all of my contacts. And I didn't know what I would say. It feels like I have nothing to say. Lately, I am plugging along trying to have the girls clothes cleaned and folded so they can have their favorite things to wear, have Bryan's clothes for work ready to go, feed the chickens (15 of them) fed and watered, the bunny, the cat and dog, the gecko (that reminds me) and think of sunday school materials i need to pick up for 30 or so kids that will be waiting on me on sunday, preparing the workers, being an available aunt, vacuuming, windows, you know. and my mind just wants to sit and spill words out and arrange them into meaning so as to reveal the beauty of God. When in the world will i ever ever ever have time to be a vessel? to be a disciple? to do this grand thing that i have been called to do, marked to do, glorified to accomplish?

And so Sarah wrote to me. And Haley wrote to me. And delivered messages from the Lord of love. And as I sat this morning, taking a break from laundry to respond to Sarah, I realized something very key and powerful. It was through ministering to her that God revealed himself to me. And something that didn't occur to me until this instant is that when I am doing what God has called me to do, God shows up and says this is my son listen to him! I was helping Sarah to see the Lord through her confusion and in that, God spoke to me. The hauling of this cross occurs as you face these duties with grace. The way my spirit responds to chaos and to the relationships I have where no one else wants to help or is able to help is Christ in me. What I must do is to be Christ in His patience, His love, His forgiveness, His patience, His love, His forgiveness over and over again. I cannot manage people. I am a horrible leader. I am an encourager. Let the leaders be born. Let them come out. Let the feet be in motion, and the hands reach to help else the entire system, the whole body is in a cast of motionlessness. All I know how to do is to continue to encourage the others to move, move closer in. Forsake the fear of becoming too predictable. God wants to assign new glory to those establishments that man has marred. That will occur through our willingness to be Him in ordinary situations. Whether what i am called to is successful or doomed for failure, I must be Him daily. And I can't determine my own worth by how much I master a new thing He's revealed to me. I must sink lower, go further away from pride in spiritual accomplishment and call myself chief of sinners, so that as I become less and the light of revelation is lowered deeper into the caverns of my being, my breath is slow and steady and His spirit becomes a loving wind that goes out and not stays in. Okay. it is miserable to be outside of the body of christ and to then manage productivity on my own. this. this is what we were created for. at all stages of life, to be for someone Christ's voice and power and love and hope. it cannot happen alone.
i see that from the time of my teaching high school, teaching pre-school, and now teaching students. people need to know that He's still here and they will often know that by Him in us. If no one is around, if you and I are alone because it's easier to be alone than to deal with people, how will He ever be known? It isn't mysterious. It's mud upon my eyes. It's so grit real, so much in the table full of snacks and the pots of chili and the bowing and getting back up and loving and the ceasing of analyzing for a second to praise God for THIS place, THIS time.