“You’re opening lots of doors!”
Lately I’ve been seeing our next steps through a lens of chaos and uncertainty, so the above response was generous to my soul.
So what if we’re heading to Costa Rica for four weeks while also working our way through Foster Care training while also trying to do our jobs while also entering my final year of graduate school…
Lots of open doors.
I like that. Maybe I need that. Maybe it helps the crazy feeling feel a little less crazy.
I was frantically getting ready for church yesterday morning because I was, of course, running behind. I began thinking about Foster Care and what it would look like to have a four-year-old living in our house that we would also have to get ready for church. And while that might be a perfectly normal thing for most 34-year-olds in the world, the thought hurled me into a: what are we doing moment. I don’t know how to be a mom.
I decided recently that I need to react more quickly to the urgings that are pressed upon my heart. The times when I think, “I wonder how ___________ is doing– I really ought to reach out.” Or, “I should probably give that homeless man something”. Or, “We should invite that couple out for lunch.”
These are the types of thoughts I think often and then, almost as soon as I think them, they are gone. I haven’t actually done anything. My good intentions vanish into thin air and I’m immediately consumed by another thought that’s, most likely, self-absorbed.
But what if I didn’t move on?
What if I paused and sent the text message? What if I stopped the car and found a way to reach out? What if I went out of my way to extend the invite?
It’s crazy how quickly I can talk myself out of doing something.
It’s crazy how much my own insecurities and fears send me into the spiral of self-focus and how quickly a situation becomes about me instead of the person I was just thinking about.
I get scared that I’ll be rejected. Or that I’m too much. Or that I’m not enough. Or that no one really wants (or needs) me.
Or, that I don’t know how to be a mom and have never been a mom and that I’m much too selfish to really handle bringing a child into our home. How much earlier would I have to wake up, anyway?
They’re never good reasons. Even the best-sounding ones aren’t actually good. They’re just selfish. Fearful of change. Fearful of the unknown. Fearful of my world not revolving around me and what I want, when I want it.
I didn’t mean to make a New Year’s resolution. I just meant to do something different…to live differently. It just happened to be right around the start of 2019. It’s not about being “my best self” or living my “best life”. It’s just about responding. Responding to the urgings to ask, to call, to text, to show up, to care, to go. It’s about not talking myself out of things, but talking myself into following through with the initial thoughts. It’s about kindness and generosity and hospitality and hope. It’s about letting go of me.
In some ways, this is like the “summer of yes” for me. Only, instead of saying “YES” to things people are asking me to do, I’m saying YES to (what I think is) the Holy Spirit moving me toward people. Saying YES to getting over myself, my fears, my worries, my selfishness…and going towards others.
Saying yes to opening up more doors.
Even doors that might lead me to other countries. Or doors that involve us inviting kids in who need a safe place for a little while. Or catching up with someone from a long time ago. Or doors that remind me that God cares deeply for others and He wants me to learn to do the same, regardless of what it might cost me (after all, just look at what it cost Him).
We’re opening up doors. Asking God to show us which ones to walk through.
And I’m also resolved to respond to the promptings.
To say yes.