As we prepare to leave for a new continent, there are so many things to do, and so many areas in which to work, that to me, I feel like our family is on a tiny rubber raft in the middle of the ocean (and someone handed out scissors to all of our children!) with the waves tossing us up and down and all around. This is a picture that makes sense to me, since, in my head we are somewhere halfway between here and Africa, which I believe, is some place in the middle of the Atlantic ocean.
I know, and am convinced, that God’s plan for us is to go to a new continent to care for orphans with intellectual disabilities. But that doesn’t make the preparation any quicker, or any easier! I find myself thinking, quite often, that if God calls us, wouldn’t it be great if he would also do the fixing up of the house for selling, packing of stuff, figuring out what needs to stay and what needs to go, and finding all the health care needs our family has, as well as the myriad other details we need to do each day? I’m sure I will look back on this time as good preparation, and solidification of God’s call on our lives, but right now, while we are in the middle of it, the overwhelmingness of each day is off the charts.
I am so thankful that in God’s good providence, He has provided people to encourage us, help us organize, clean, fix plumbing, help us with computers, counsel, address letters, and many other small items that stack up into a Seuss-like picture of a Wuzzle, Nuzzle, or Kafluzzle with 26 appendages all holding up a spinning plate. Those folks who are doing one little detail certainly feel like God’s grace to us as they remove one plate, and take it home with them! I look forward to the day when I have no more American plates left to spin, and the African ones start. I can’t imagine this could be true, but I have heard that African plates spin much slower than American ones, and at this moment, that is a joy-filled thought.
I look forward longingly to the time when we are actually walking on African soil, ministering to a parent who needs encouragement, or training orphanage workers who will begin to love and care for children who otherwise would have no attention, food, or a home. At that point, I do not think the seas will be any calmer, or make my head spin a any less. I have no false illusions, after living my life to this point, with all God has allowed and brought into my life to love me, grow me, and always remind me that He is God and there is no other, that the sea will be calm and storm-free. But, I am convinced that, if God is calling me, there is no safer place for me to be than on the swells.
“Sometimes he calms the storm with a whispered ‘peace be still’,
He can settle any sea, but it doesn’t mean He will,
Sometimes He holds us close and lets the wind and waves go wild,
Sometimes He calms the storm and other times He calms His child.”
It does seem to make all the difference when you do know “what kind of man is this, that even the wind and the waves obey him”!
Holly
*Worship song by Scott Krippayne, Sometimes He Calms the Storm.
