Yesterday was a wonderful day, I went with a friend to pick up 7 week old twins which her family are taking care of for a couple of weeks while their birth mother recovers. We are both grateful to Gary and Melissa's Mom for taking turns in caring for our children while Melissa and I ran around St Louis, picked up the twins, went out for lunch and took them to their Dr's appointment. It was a great day with a good friend.
But this week I have been struggling with what the Lord is doing with me. As I have written before we (as a family) long to open our home to children in need, but are unable to do so because of the place we live. So the Lord has placed on my heart the desire to recruit other families to help meet the need of families in crisis. We now have a few families in Jefferson County who are licensed and 4 others in various stages of the application process. He is also expanding my role as we are looking to open up a hub of Safe Families For Children here in Jefferson County and I have become part of the steering committee to make that happen.
The problem is I don't want that role. I don't want a position of leadership, I don't want to be spending all this time reading the training manuals, I don't want to make phone calls, I don't want to have to go to meeting after meeting and be part of the decision making process. I just want to take care of children. I am not a leader. I am a mother.
So yesterday morning I started to complain to the Lord about all of this. And in His Goodness, He dealt so gently with me. I was writing out Psalm 18:30 which begins:
This God - His way is perfect
and I knew He was speaking to me. This isn't the path I would have chosen, or necessarily want but His way is perfect and I have to believe that. As I said at the beginning of this post, it's easy to know in my head but harder to know it in my heart.
God is equipping me for the journey He has me on. He is giving me many ideas of people to contact regarding Safe Families and even giving me a passion to see this expand in our community. But it doesn't mean I'm not struggling anymore. Even as I write this I have to wipe the tears from my face knowing it is not my place (at least not for now) to love on these little ones in need - maybe one day the Lord will allow me to. Until then I keep working on being obedient and trusting Him and His perfect ways.
Michelle
