Grounded in Gainesville...

Don Moen – Be It Unto Me
 Don Moen – Be It Unto Me
 Maranatha! Music – Shout to the Lord
 Casting Crowns – Thrive

God has definitely got an ironic sense of humor. I've spent the past eight months of this precious time off from work, this time to figure out His purpose and plan for my life, and all the while, I have been sure that He would finally release me to do what I have wanted to do since I was in seventh grade: to be a missionary for Him. Instead, He has grounded me. In Gainesville, Georgia...a place I would never have chosen on my own.

 I thought it was a no-brainer. After all, don't most people ask NOT to be sent to foreign countries? Don't most people want to stay here, to serve Him here in the safety and comfort of our own United States? I thought my willingness to go would be welcome to Him, a definite YES for my call to serve Him overseas. While I still believe that I am called to missions, it may only be for short-term trips for the next three years, because, tonight, I found myself surrendering that long-ago dream and saying Yes to another call, one that stunned me when I realized He was giving it to me: the call to stay put, to be a mother to my daughter, and to let her finish out her high school years here in North Georgia.

He has called me to this place for this time, in order to give my girl the stability she so wants, needs and deserves.

I have to be honest. This cuts me to the core. I am stunned. I have never wanted to be in an ordinary life, in a routine world, to embrace the mundane. And, for me, living here is doing just that. I am not hugging dirty-faced orphans, teaching the Bible in Spanish, or writing missionary letters home to my loved ones in the States.

No. Instead, I am apparently being called to live on an ordinary street, in an ordinary city, with a Publix in walking distance and ATMs on every corner. I am being called to a place where churches dot every corner, and there is an over-abundance of preachers in proportion to the people who live here. Why, Lord? Why is this the call You have chosen for me? I cannot wrap my mind around this.

 I am still reeling. I was reeling as I snapped leashes on the dogs, grabbed a thin jacket and told Caroline I needed to walk. She stops me at the door. "Mama, remember," she reminds me gently, "you said you would do whatever He asked you to do." I nod, trying hard not to cry in front of this child I love more than my own life. I don't say what I am thinking: I did say that. I just didn't expect Him to ask me to stay in Gainesville.

 I walked back and forth in the park, tears streaming down my face, my heart in shock, while Beau and Sassafras pulled on their leashes, chasing squirrels and each other in the crunchy leaves.

This is not what I had in mind for my life.

I remember so many testimonies from the little Southern Baptist churches we went to...and many times people would say, "I told the good Lord I would go anywhere and do anything for Him, but please, please, Lord, don't send me off to Africa!" When I heard these stories, even as a young child, I was always silently pleading with God to "send me! I'll go!" From the age of 12, I had a burning desire to go be a missionary, not necessarily to Africa, but to where my heart called me, to Mexico or to Costa Rica or to Guatemala or to Brazil or Peru. I wanted to go so much, I have thousands of journal entries with the same two words heading up paragraph after paragraph: SEND ME! 

I called my sister Lynda. "Can you believe this?" I asked, still incredulous. "I offer to go anywhere, anywhere He wants me, and He tells me to stay? In Gainesville?" My sister was silent at first, letting me vent. Then she reminded me that I can still go on short-term trips. I know that. I am going to do that. That is a bit of consolation for me, but I have never wanted to do short-term trips. I have always felt that His call to me was for long-term missions. I wanted to go, and I wanted to stay wherever He sent me, and I wanted my whole life to be about missions. I knew, because of my one short-term trip to the Philippines, that my heart would not want to leave once I got there. I would want to be on the mission field full time. I still want that. Lynda also reminds me that this is not necessarily a permanent grounding. "You can go wherever you want when Caro graduates," she says, and I nod, grateful at least that she is not still in kindergarten. It's only three years, after all. Then Lynda shares her story about being called, and I find some comfort in it.

"When Dan and I were in a church one time, the one thing we said was that we didn't want to work with kids or teens," she remembered. "And, after about a month, that is the THING that they asked us to do. They called Dan to be the youth pastor and for me to work with the kids." She shares how frustrated she was, just like I am tonight, and that she was shocked. Why would they be called to do the only thing they did not want to do? As it turns out, God was smarter than them. They ended up with a thriving youth ministry, and they learned things from the kids as well as the kids learning from them. "So," she winded up her story, "sometimes God asks us to do things we aren't prepared to do, but He always gives us everything we need to get the job done."

It is now almost nine p.m. I am coming to grips with this new, unfamiliar call. I came home from the walk, settled the dogs and cats down, and fixed chili and grilled cheese sandwiches for our supper. I called my daughter in to eat with me. We sat at the little dining room table together, my heart still bruised from my broken dreams, and something healing did start to happen. It's not totally done yet, but healing is happening. I looked over at this thin, beautiful, dark-eyed girl of mine, this daughter that I got pregnant with right as I was about to turn forty, and I am overwhelmed with the love I feel for her. I see, suddenly, that she is still finding herself, still navigating some pretty rough waters of her own. She is caught still in that no-man's-land between being a teenager and growing into womanhood. She will be gone so soon from me...three brief years from now, she won't need me to stay anywhere for her. She will be packing bags of her own, moving to New York for NYU, HER cherished dream, and she will be waving good-bye to me...

I work to keep from crying. I see that this call, though not what I would have chosen, is a good Call. I will be a missionary still, but I will be serving one baby: my own. I will get up every morning and give her breakfast. I will pray with her before big tests, when she is afraid, and when she has big decisions to make. I will pray for her, be a stand for her with my Lord. I will take her to church. I will teach her about the Bible. I will love her and make her safe and give her refuge. I will be the one who leads this child, this precious irreplaceable child, to the Lord I love and serve with my whole heart.

And, suddenly, she reaches over and touches my face. "Thank you, Mama," she says impulsively, and neither of us needs to ask for what. We know, and we both smile.

This is a great calling, and this is MY great commission.