Open-Handed?

This morning I was struck with a new thought about life. While we were talking this morning about thoughts and feelings toward going on the mission field, I realized one of my fears. What if I love it? What if I get invested there and I don’t want to come home. I’ve been thinking about my time in Honduras in a very concrete way. This is generally what I think it will look like, this is how long I’ll be there, this is when I’ll come home. What if that doesn’t happen? What if God, in His perfect plan, allows me to really fall in love with a people and want to stay there in ministry with them, or come home and go back. Right now, to be honest, I’m not okay with that. That doesn’t fit my life plan. So… I’m praying starting tonight for the Lord to make me open handed with my future. I have thought that I’ve been praying that I’ll along… but I guess I hadn’t even realized that this was something that I needed to let go.

The Lord has never, up to this point, gone along with my life plan. I’m not really sure why I thought that He would start now. In my life plan, I would be married now, probably with two children. I would be living somewhere somewhat challenging, but certainly not overseas, staying near my family and friends. I would be doing ministry, but at my leisure since my husband would be the one with a full-time job. Oh how different my life is from what I expected. But up to this point I have never been unsatisfied with where the Lord has brought me. I really can look at my life and say, without a doubt, that this is the Lord’s GOOD for me! He has made me to be the person that I am and to be where I am. It’s fun to be here learning more about who I am and also just being reaffirmed in the things that I have been learning about myself on my own. The Lord has made me unique and given me gifts and talents that He desires to use for His kingdom to go forward in the world.

There is a Caedmon’s Call song with the lyrics, “He doesn’t need us, but He lets us put our hands in”. This is how I feel most days in ministry, or at least when I’m thinking rightly about my place in ministry. The Lord allows me to be a part of this… what a blessing.

I still want to get married. And I would rather it be sooner than later. But as I meet these families here who are following the Lord all around the world with kids, or leaving their grown children behind, I am so challenged. I don’t know that I will live overseas for the rest of my life. But I want to be open-handed with the Lord. Single or married, kids or no kids, whatever my life stage… I want to be constantly asking the Lord where He wants me to be and what He wants for my life and how I can fit into the work that He is already doing in the world. I don't think I have a choice in that any more. He has compelled me to seek Him in a really big way because He has assured that wherever He takes me is for my ultimate GOOD. Why would I want to be anywhere else?

I think I need to save this and read it every couple years :)