Heavy

Sometimes I forget the gravity of the ministry the Lord has us doing here.  It becomes about changing diapers and going grocery shopping and to the dentist, that sometimes I forget to stop and think about the big picture.  

Today I was reminded of the need that the Lord is meeting in these girls.  It is a physical need for food and formula and teaching on how to discipline your child, but it is so much more than that.  It is a deep Spiritual need to walk with Jesus and know Him in every part of their life.  To let what God says affect the way they spend money and parent and work and study... it is not allowing them to participate in a cycle of downward spiral where they depend on other people more than Christ.  It is giving them some tough love that means not buying them everything they want so that they learn how to provide for themselves.

This is ministry that has no manual.  No one has the answers when it comes to broken relationships and families, babies without daddies or with daddies who don't or can't help them.  No one could say exactly what is best for each of these girls on a daily basis.  Only the Lord has the answers to that.  So this ministry is His and we try to listen and be obedient.  

Today I was reminded that others are walking this same road with people that they love.  Other people are fighting for answers as to how to love their kids well in the midst of a hard season.  Other people are longing for a manual that has all the answers in step by step form to be able to fix things for someone who is suffering.  And yet, God doesn't ask us to fix it... He asks us to listen faithful to Him and point these people that we love back to Jesus.

God is in the business of redemption.  Pray that we would have the strength and wisdom to faithfully follow His leading.