Skip to main content

It's Love

Hello, people! :) So, a friend recently mentioned my blog and I had an "oh, yeah" moment--like, "oh, yeah, I have one of those!" Then I got on to see when I'd last posted and realized it was a little over a year and a half ago. Wow, sorry, y'all!!

I'm working on learning to be more intentional with life, not letting my time and energy be so much controlled by "the tyranny of the urgent". I'm still definitely a work in progress!! But one of the things on my "live life on purpose" list is blogging, so I'll try to be more consistent with this!

For tonight, I'm just going to post something I wrote a while back. I've been, in various ways, a part of House of Faith for nearly 3 years now, but it feels somehow like I've always been there. :) One of my favorite things about HOF is the opportunity to be involved in TWO of the Backyard Bible Clubs, where we take Jesus into the yards of the elementary schools and the lives of the K-5th grade students who attend them. Every Wednesday and Thursday afternoon finds me out in a yard, checking in over a hundred children and then loving them however I can. Sometimes, it's crazy and challenging, but I love it!! :) Goliad, my Wednesday club, has been especially challenging this year on a number of levels, and I have been stretched and grown tremendously through it.

Our weekly programs that we have during the school year are over for this year, but this little reflection is something I wrote one Wednesday evening as I thought back over my day at Goliad BBC and the 150+ kids who are there that hold my heart...


I’m surrounded by noise and chaos when I see it. Kids are running wild, shouting, laughing, arguing—a fight is about to break out across the yard, a few kids nearby are building with marble works and chatting happily, a crowd of children runs up and surrounds me; some just to say hi, most with a breaking crisis to report. So-and-so called such-and-such this or that, where's Marci, this little one needs to go to the bathroom, where's Marci, I can’t find my backpack, where's Marci, can I have a drink of water, where’s Marci, that kid hit me…the list goes on. It’s easy, sometimes, to lose sight of why I’m even here.

But then—through the noise and the chaos, I see it. I see it in the big trusting eyes turned toward me like I can somehow "fix it", the smiles or concern on the faces in the little circle around me, and in a child’s face when I call them by name and they realize: they matter to someone. I hear it in the chatter of little voices who can’t wait to tell me about the silver teeth they’re getting next week, or their dog that took on a Rottweiler and won, or something that happened at school. I feel it in the arms wrapped around my waist, the little hand holding on to mine and the constant need to be near me, touching me. And it’s there in the older kids who come looking for me to give me a hug and say hello, almost like they’re just checking to make sure I still care about them, too. It's in every high-five, every hello, every hug, every hard-earned ounce of respect.

I see it. I hear it. I feel it. Why am I here? It’s simple, really: love. Because I love them because Jesus loves me, and He loves them, even more than I do; which is a lot!

So week after week I come back to the chaos. I answer the questions, I break up the fights, I listen to the stories, I hug them like crazy, I take them to the bathroom, I point out Marci at least a hundred times, I pick up trash, I deal with the issues, I point them to Jesus and every now and then I even get to teach a Bible lesson. ;) 

And in the moments of frustration when I wonder why I’m here, Jesus always finds a way to remind me: it’s love.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Sex & "the good Christian single"

 Yep. Buckle up, we're going there. This post might get a little uncomfortable, but it's a topic that can't exactly be ignored! And, as I said at the beginning of this little "series" earlier this year, "my goal is to be uncomfortably honest, vulnerable, real, raw." Besides, the world is talking about sex all the time , and if we as Jesus-followers don't talk about it from a Jesus-perspective, the world is going to shape the views and opinions of sex for an entire generation. Or two. Or more.  Let's start with some basic statements just for the sake of clarity: 1. Sex is God's idea, and it is good.  All through the Bible, from Adam & Eve being "naked & unashamed" in the garden of Eden (Genesis 2), to the graphic love poetry of Song of Solomon, to Paul exhorting husbands and wives to freely share their bodies with one another in 1 Corinthians 7, the Bible paints a picture of sex within marriage being good, beautiful, encourag

Six Flags!

Some would no doubt consider it a strange "Sabbath kick-off", but for me a trip to Six Flags Over Texas (in Arlington) was just the ticket! Between my love of roller coasters, the nostalgia this place holds, and the healthy benefits of fresh air and sunshine, it was fantastic. Oh, and the company was pretty great, too. The only thing that could have made it better would have been to have my "OG Six Flags fam" along--aka, my family and the Vests, of course! Six Flags has always been about facing and overcoming fear for me. I was a very fearful/timid child, and as an adult looking back I think one of the best things my parents did for my little anxious self was take me to ride roller coasters!! (I would insert the "tears of joy" emoji here if I could!) I was coaxed and cajoled on to rides I was hesitant about, but never forced to ride anything--though I waited in every line with them and I was not allowed to complain. Every year, there were rides where

oh, look! it's a blog!

I really thought I was going to do better at blogging this month. Ha! I have a post in my drafts section that I started two weeks ago, but there it sits. It's going to require more time and thought to finish than I have at this moment, so it will have to wait. However, it IS going to get finished and posted at some point! :) Today, for most of the day it's just Jonathan and I here at home. Weird, huh? Daddy, Micah, and Josiah are at a men's retreat/camp-out with the church, and Momma had to work today. So, Jonathan and I are hanging out (read: cleaning house and putting the new sheets on the beds and icing cupcakes :) ). This evening, there is a "praise for pro-life" thing at a church here in Springtown that we're planning to go to. It's a fundraiser for a pregnancy center. (October 24, 6 pm, Outreach of Love church on Hwy 199 in Springtown, admission is a baby bottle full of change...just in case anyone wanted to know!) Tomorrow after church, we're ha