Gazing

With tears steadily streaming down my face, my chest began to heave as I mourned with Layla Grace's father as he described her last week on this earth.  Moments later I couldn't stop the tears as I scrolled through photographs of broken region inhabited by unbroken spirits.

In my unrighteous indignation my tongue lashed out at those around us who don't have a view of anything larger than themselves.  And before I could complete the sentence it became a compound sentence,

They don't have a view of anything larger than themselves; I don't have a view of anything larger than myself.

Humbled and crushed by my own selfishness, my own lack of compassion, I wept the more when I heard our sweet Charis begin to cry from upstairs and I realized that my heart was saying

Again? I don't have anything else to give.

And as I sat in the darkness holding my precious girl, His mercy washed over me and gratitude filled the hollowness. And I am reminded that He gave everything.

And in the quietness the longing that has been tucked away for a season is reawakened. So much of me longs to go. To hold those children who are fighting for their lives, to feed the hungry, to comfort those experiencing so much pain. The longing remains and together, as a family, we pray about the Lord's calling on our lives. We pray that we will hear His calling when He speaks of what tomorrow holds.

But for today, I am exactly where I am called to be.  A wife, a mother, a friend, a sister, a neighbor and in the concerns that today holds, I want Him to find me faithful.

There are those who are hungry all around me, our street is full of them.  There are souls longing for comfort, starving for love, our street is full of them.  I sit at this computer staring out our window at the houses that line our street and I know the One who can feed them.  The One that will give them food so they will not hunger, water so they will not thirst and I realize I am still sitting.

My calling indeed is to go. Today it is not to China or Africa but just down our little dead end.  For there are souls to feed here.

So while we live in our little house on this street, I will pray for the grace to feed the souls of the three sweet girls with which we have been entrusted. Then, rather than worrying about whether the crumbs have been swept from my counters again or whether that dust bunny in the corner is taken care of again, I will try, in His grace to have a view that is larger than myself.

For a moment my post had ended, but there is more...

In order to have a view that is larger than myself, in order to see needs beyond the ones of the person I see in the mirror,  I must have the biggest view of God. Only when gazing at Him will I be able to see beyond myself and truly be able to feed my own soul and those around me. And I remember why seeing Him clearly matters - for the sake of the Gospel, for the feeding of souls.

So before I go (don't worry, I'm still going) I'm going to sit and gaze a bit.

Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.  More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance,  and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.  For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.  Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.  For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.    ~Romans 5:2-10