1.30.2016

Dear Anna,


Hey there, my sweetheart, my joy. It’s 2:30 in the afternoon and you’re supposed to be napping like your brother in the crib next to you. How he hasn’t come to yet bewilders me. I only say this because the clunking from your baby dolls hitting their mini cradle beside your bed is enough to wake even the deepest sleeper. But alas, his slumber hasn’t been interrupted. The noise must be a familiar occurrence to him as you avoiding sleep in the afternoon has become the norm and the phrase please read quietly has fallen on deaf ears.

You missed me peaking in at you a few minutes ago. My displeasure of you still awake left quickly as I took you in. You are breathtaking. I can’t believe you are mine, flesh of my flesh. I watched you ever so gently hug your baby and with the utmost care lay her down to sleep.

Then it struck me, why did you do it all so gracefully, so carefully, so lovingly?

And it’s because of me. Me.

1.12.2016

Unqualified


Often I wonder why God placed us where we are. I get bogged down counting all the people I know who would be "better" suited to be missionaries in a refugee neighborhood compared to us. People who could love better, have more compassion, better pray-ers, people who actually speak the same language as their neighbors, who are more selfless and are willing to give all their time to building up this community. I'm discouraged after I sit and think about all those more "qualified".

And then I hear a voice that says, "But I called you, and you said 'Yes!".

But why?

Why were we called? Why was I called?