Sweetest Name I Know

A few weeks ago while we were visiting family in Garland, I mentioned that the Spanish church we were sharing our space with that week sang songs that I knew. It was then that I was told the songs that I had grown up with, singing Sunday to Sunday, were new to a lot of churches. These hymns that seemed to have fallen by the wayside within the English speaking church had just recently been accurately translated into Spanish. I remember thinking how awesome it was that though our words sounded different, our hearts were saying the same thing.

I spent the evening with my Aunt B today. In a year of firsts, today we soberly realized that this day was the first day last year that life as we had known it was winding down. A year ago today I watched my momma & my gma dance for the first time. But today, for the first time, I reflected on all of the details lost in the blog post I wrote last year.
Momma & gma danced because gma had fallen that morning. We were sure that she had broken her recently healed hip as the telephone cord jumped right in front of her, tripping her up & causing her to take the tumble she wouldn't recover from. I remember the anxiety of the day. I remember waiting for the x-ray machine to come to the house - that was such a God thing. I remember watching my daddy & my brother pick her up & carry her to the bed. I remember the moaning & the pain that caused. Then we watched as they picked her up again to move her back to the couch when we couldn't get the machine in the bedroom for the privacy had she requested. I remember the dark walk home that night. The first of many more to come.
But today would bring out something from deep inside me that I just didn't expect. The whirlwind of emotions I felt in the weeks & months to come have been closely rivaled by the emotions I've felt leading up to today. But for the first time in a week, I woke up this morning without that sense of dread I had been feeling. For the first time since last fall my first thought was - Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. The trio of words that were spoken from that hospital bed more times than I can count. For the first time this morning of all days though, I finally remembered gma saying them. 
In a year of firsts, it's funny how the little things come back to you. It's almost as if through all the pain God translates something you took for granted & makes it fresh & new to bring you that indescribable comfort only He can give your heart. In a year of firsts, there has been tears and laughter. There have been phones picked up & put down only to remember she wouldn't answer on the other end. There have been voicemails replayed over & over in those quiet, lonely moments. There have been memories revisited and new celebrations made. In a year of firsts, I find God being just as faithful as He was when He walked us through all that would unfold.

Tonight as I walked home, checking the fairy lights along the way, my words were much different than I had expected them to be. I found that it wasn't just my heart speaking, but my voice singing because in a year of firsts God continues translating my pain into something new.  ~  There's within my heart a melody. Jesus whispers, sweet and low, "Fear not, I am with thee. Peace. Be still. In all of life's ebb and flow." Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Sweetest name I know. Fills my every longing. Keeps me singing as I go.

Jesus. Jesus. Jesus.

All I have to give

I have always hated the term "mission trip". If you take the two words on their own by definition, you get a combined definition of a journey taken for the purpose of a task or activity. But when you dig a little deeper, you find that "mission trips" have traditionally been short term vacations with a purpose including time set aside for designated projects & activities that all make us feel super good about what we're doing for these poor people, complete with a photo montage so that you too can feel good about what I'm doing. Don't we all feel so good about what we're doing for God now? I bet he is just waiting to congratulate us. If only my arm was a little longer I could scratch my own back instead of merely just patting it. - Ok, so I added that last part for myself but seriously - look at what we in the western church call "mission trips".
So please, please, please do us both a favor & don't put me in the awkward place of telling me face to face that you're going on a mission trip. My questions would probably start with - So, how are your neighbors doing? What do you know about the culture in the place that you're going? Did you know that there are folks in our own hometown who sleep outside & that you don't have to go to _________ to "minister to" them? What does "ministering to" people even mean? When will you return to that place? Are you investing in each other's lives or merely going to "save" theirs?
Now, before you begin to get offended & start pointing fingers, please finish hearing me out. Eight years ago, I went on my very first, and last, mission trip. Eight years ago, God knew I needed a safe place & he took me to Garland, Texas to find it. In an old Gold's Gym, God met 8 heart broken adults & 9 kids in the body of one of the spunkiest little white haired ladies I've ever met. Through her, Jesus loved on us. Through the other staff members, God has taught me what the church is supposed to be like. Through the kids that would come to eat at the state's free summer lunch program & the teenagers that came to serve community service, God reminded us again what unconditional love looked like by splashing it across their faces. That summer, I had nothing to offer them. Nothing. They gave me so much more than I could have ever given them. Ever.
And so, year after year, we have returned to Garland, not on mission trip, but to reconnect with our friends, our brothers & sisters, who live here. I've got at least 4 years worth of duct tape name tags stuck to my bathroom wall as a daily reminder to pray for my boys. It's so humbling to be in a place where these elementary aged boys have people shuffle in & out on a weekly basis & yet they remember me. "Miss, didn't you have a mustache last year?" (I dressed up like King David everyday.) "Miss, didn't you put gummy worms in chocolate pudding them dig them out with your face that one time?" "Miss, can we make slime again this year?"
So when it came time to begin preparing for getting to visit with my boys, there were a lot of questions I had to ask myself. Can I go & trust that God is in control with everything that's going on with Gma P & Aunt S? Will I be able to physically do this? How can the schedule be arranged so that I can teach both the boys & the girls? But there was one question I dreaded most of all - What will you do when there's no call Wednesday night from gma asking how things are going & then praying over speaker phone for not only those of us who drove 4hrs to get here, but those at home, those who walk here, those who came to eat lunch, those who didn't AND what will you do when she's not there to take down the list of boys names & pray for them this next year?
In a room with 7 children & 3 other adults, I admit I cried myself to sleep last night. You see yesterday, we talked about how God can take our broken hearts & fix them into something new. Just about the time that those 30 boys were about to get rowdy, I smashed a beautiful red plate with a hammer. They were shocked. I asked them if anything had ever broken their hearts & watched those very active bodies sit still as I sat down on the floor in front of the stage where they were seated & told them about my gma. I told them how my heart had broken & how sometimes it still felt broken. I told them how gma loved them even though she never got to come meet them. I told them how she prayed for each of them by name everyday. It got really quiet. "But Miss? You'll see her in Heaven again one day, right?" I smiled. "Yes, and so can you. She'll love to actually meet you there."
Yesterday I realized, these boys have people who come through all summer long & want to convert them into little tiny Jesus lovers. They know all about Jesus & his 12 friends that went everywhere with him. They know about a short tax collector & a tree....which incidentally wasn't part of anything I had prepared....but anyway.... I have nothing more to offer them but myself. To be silly with them & wear a mustache. To fake the "Eww...gross" when we make slime on Friday, which also wasn't in my plan. To ask them & listen when they tell me what was for lunch. (I wish I could run downstairs & play soccer with them, but that's just not in the cards for me this year.) And to ask them again on Friday for their duct tape name tags so that I can pray for them again this year. I'm sure my momma will pray with me since gma's waiting for us.
These boys & girls don't need somebody announcing their wonderful plans to take a purpose-driven vacation. They don't need somebody to come in & re-invent the wheel of Bible school. They really don't even need me to tell them about Jesus - they have heard about him. They just need me to love them like Jesus would and that's all I really have to give them.
There are faces that I miss incredibly this year - some who have aged out, some who have moved on, some who are out of town for a while. But this is NOT eight years of mission trips for me & our birth children - this has been eight years of being completely invested, giving everything I am & everything I'm not. Eight years of boys. Eight years of laughter & tears God has given me. Eight years of watching them grow up a week at a time. Eight years of God writing their names on my heart. Eight years of spending a short week with our friends from a different town. Eight years of watching God grow & use the many staff members we've come to treasure & love. Eight years of being fully committed to loving & praying for them year round.
Until God tells me otherwise, I will continue giving them all I have to give, which is just myself. But because of Jesus, myself is just enough.