Dear Younger Us…..

Look at us. Such naive Babies….

completely thinking we were complete. How much we thought we knew our future.

….I am so thankful that God saved us from this “normal safe life” that’s pictured in this photo. ….that sweet smaller Family has absolutely no idea what’s coming…..

Thinking this is all there is

…they have no idea how God will wreck them and invite them OFF the boat….blow their minds and show them more of Himself in the hard and lovely and demonstrate such extravagant miracles for stepping out where “blind trust-falling backwards” on His arms is the only possible way to go forward.
I wish I could go whisper in their ears all the “more” He has in store.
How He will reveal a bigger plan much higher than theirs….
How He will blow their souls and hearts wide open (by His grace alone) and change their future paths because he wrecked their hearts so deeply for precious babies who were across the world WITHOUT a forever Family …

.
How He would open their eyes to all the ridiculous abundance He had given them and call them to offer it back to the Giver….
How He would reveal all the extra room in their home, at the dinner table and abundant love in their hearts that could be shared with others….
How He would start growing the seeds of all their future babies in their hearts that He would eventually ask them to run to.
How He would plan to bless them to overflowing…by trusting Him.
How He would begin to reveal the “more” He was about to give by taking a different way….a Broken way that asks them to Dare to get hurt…. And dare to Hope for the hopeless.
How He would draw them so close to His heart like never before. …even through the pain.
I am so humbled and grateful Jesus saved us from playing it safe and normal and I know He’s not done Showing his glory as we allow God to keep leading us…..even in our own brokenness…even in our pain…even in our emptiness.

We will offer it back to Him at the alter. That’s our gift to Him.
He doesn’t require wholeness and perfection to follow His path …. just to bring our open hearts, Our willing hands, our trusting feet and our empty nets.
I would gently tell that little family above that He has a different kind of abundance awaiting for those who allow their hearts to stay open to love and to stay broken.
But they will soon discover all the MORE!
Look at all we would have missed taking the road of self-protection.
Gosh! That’s straight up undeserved GRACE right there! 
We could have missed these precious treasures by staying safe and afraid of brokeness. We don’t ever want to miss His “more.”….

Jesus,

never stop breaking our hearts for what breaks yours. Wreck us. Stir us and make us restless to follow hard after your heart. By your grace, help us never to settle for anything less than your plans for us…Even when they break our hearts.

Your path is the only one we trust and desire and leads to true treasures in heaven.
Loss is great great gain in your upside down Kingdom.
Lead us and wreck us by the example of extravagant love you demonstrated for us on the cross …. Breaking your heart for us, adopting us into your forever family…an eternal inheritance that nothing and no one can ever take from us, not even death!!
All you were about to teach us blows my mind!
….You would, in your grace, teach that precious unknowing family (of 6) that Love is always worth the risk.
That love is worth fighting on the front lines.
That love leaves the 99 to rescue the ONE.
That the cost of great love is great pain….but a gain that’s inconceivable!
You would teach those babies above that you do not promise comfort or easy or a safe life without difficulty…
But You promise more!
You promise that the “way of the Cross” is the only fulfilling way….and that You would never leave or forsake us.
You would ask them to suffer and then you  would continue to show yourself Faithful in a way they could have never understood without the heartbreak that will come.
You would draw closer to your heart of sorrow than ever imagined.

You would use their greatest heartbreak of their lives to show an even greater calling for the kingdom. 

And, Now more than ever, we are Living for eternity.
We are passing through this earthly life and investing in only the beauty that can last forever and that which can be taken with us and restored to us one day in heaven.

 “But there’s far more to life for us.

We’re citizens of high heaven!”

(Phil 3:20 msg)