Part 1: Hi God. It's me, Kim. I think you meant to ask someone else.
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When I was a little girl, I used to tell my great aunt Lois, “I want at least 20 kids!” She personally never had children, so she’d chuckle and say something like “Oh Kim, I think that sounds wonderful.”
I know if she had even one child, her response would have elicited gnashing of teeth, pleading, shouting, convincing. I’m fairly certain it would have caused her to blast out her first cuss word in her lifetime. Can you even?! Remember she never had children so that should clear up your bewilderment over that statement.
It was when our 3rd was about a minute old that I turned and looked at Ben and told him I wasn’t done yet. I’m pretty sure he thought I meant I wasn’t done with the drugs yet based on the look of terror in his eyes. That started a 2 year journey of me saying how I felt our family wasn’t complete and him saying he wasn’t sure he liked the three that we already had.
A war between contentment and longing intensified in me.
Lois passed away in March, just a few weeks shy of her 93rd birthday. She lived a life faithfully following Jesus, at times with a bold courage that even took her to a war zone as an army nurse in World War II. But the Lois that I knew growing up was one that enjoyed living in the comfort of what was to come next, a safety zone. I regret never asking her what happened. What made the switch from living in that boldness of putting her life on the line for something she believed in to living in the safe. Was it God? Was it fear? Was it obedience or was it just easier? I don’t know. But I do know in writing her eulogy and thinking about how she lived her life, a fire lit up in me.
An outcry to God arose from my heart:
LET ME LIVE BOLDLY. PRAY BOLDLY. Don’t let my life be comfortable but instead let me sit on the edge of the unknown so that all I know is how to trust in you.
About a year ago, I started having restless sleeps at night. I’d frequently wake up in the middle of the night with no clue why I was awake. Although I didn’t know the reason I was wide-eyed at 3 am, I suspected that God was trying to show me something. But I couldn’t hear it. Or did I not WANT to hear it? If it didn’t involve how He was going to make my hopes come true or how He was going to change Ben’s heart, then I wanted no part in it.
So I prayed, begging him to show me what this restlessness was. A group of dear friends spent time studying God’s word with me about grace and God’s unrevealed story for our lives. Then one quiet night at 3 am on April 12, my heart was ready to listen and it was a pivotal moment that changed everything. It was so blazingly clear once I handed my agenda over that it felt insane I never before saw it. “OK God. I’ll do it.” Just like that. I submitted. And a peace that surpasses all understanding filled up my heart and that room, and I knew I had been fighting what He was so persistently trying to tell me.
I thought that was the end of the conversation! Sometimes I'm dumbfounded by my own ignorance of God's persistence.
With HUGE amounts of fear and hesitation, I picked up the phone first thing the next morning and called a local Christian community organization called Lydia Home that God had placed on my heart. They have a program called Safe Families, which is this extraordinary outreach program for families, predominately single moms who have no support system. They get overwhelmed, lose their jobs, lose their homes, lose their way like we ALL do, but the one thing they don’t want to do is forever lose their children.
So Safe Families provides exactly that…a safe family, safe home for her children during a period of time while mom gets back on her feet so she can then be the safe family to her own children.
We jumped all the hoops, filled out the application and referrals, went through the training, the fingerprinting, the home visits, the interviews and then we got the email while on vacation that we were approved and ready for our first placement. And the needs for care started rolling in, one right after another. Suddenly I realized that those words I spoke as a young girl might come true, but in a much different way than my 5 year old brain could have comprehended about God's mightiness.
And that’s when it happened. It washed over me with such power that it stopped my momentum.
FEAR. DOUBT. LIES.
I started pleading with God, trying to convince Him that I wasn’t actually cut out for this. I mean God, have you seen the mediocre job I’m doing with the three you’ve already given me?! Do you have plans for someone to donate a bigger house to us to accommodate another child? Are you planning to make 48 hour days so I can still get it all done? Are you out of your mind?
With every ounce of patience, I could hear Jesus say “Kimberly, be still and listen. Follow me. You don’t want to miss this! You have NO idea what I’m about to show you.”
You guys…He was right.
Let this forever be the unapologetic outcry of my heart...
"Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders
Let me walk upon the waters
Wherever You would call me
Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander
And my faith will be made stronger
In the presence of my Savior"
Oceans by Hillsong
What deep waters is God calling you to? What's keeping you from following Him?
Part 2 in the works to be published here soon...