where you lay your head...


sometimes i look at where i am today, and i wonder how i got here.  a series of choices, decisions made.  some were inspired, some were desperate, all were made with well intentions. 

is this where i want to be?  a wife and mother. yes.  a back to college working mother. kind of.  working a fulltime job in an office without a view. no.  in omaha, ne. no.  poor and barely making ends meet. obviously no.  living in the suburbs. somedays.  is it what i envisioned life to be?  maybe.  i have envisioned life a million ways, and this i suppose was one of them.  however, in the dream i am driving a cadillac, and don't have to work.  in the dream things are easier. 

but life isn't a dream.  it's real.  real life is messy and hard and confusing.  in dreams everything is easy and make sense. 

i have dreamed of living in romania, serving just like i did all those years ago.  when i think about it, i die a little inside, i know i must have missed my call.

i have dreamed of living in the big city, paris or new york.  i am a bustling business woman, svelte and on edge, giving it all to have it all.  when i think about it, i wonder if that could really be me.

i have dreamed of being an artist, single, starving, a little sad.  i think about this, and remember i have no artistic ability, and know this can only remain a dream.

a writer taking weeks away from regular life to travel to maui where i can flit out novels and essays and articles and poetry at an incredibly rapid rate... my ability takes full force in the perfect tropical air.

a singer, a hair stylist, an interior designer, a teacher, a servant, a missionary.  single and looking, single and not looking, married unhappily, married full of passion.  childless, a dozen children.  a have dreamed my life a million different ways. 

but this is where i am.  here.  in omaha.  a working fulltime, mother, wife, and student.  trying to decide where i belong... and while i decide, i am happy this is where i lay my head.  this is the life i chose.  this is where God has brought me now.

and so, i love my life where i am.  in the suburbs of omaha, ne.  as a working mother and wife and student, wondering how others in my place can keep it all together. 

God did not call me to Romania, or anywhere else overseas.  He did not want me in paris or new york city.  He did not want me anywhere but where I am now.  He did not make me a writer, or an artist, or a business woman.  He made me who I am.  He did not desire me to be serving oversees, or in the inner city.  He desires me to serve right where i lay my head.  He asks me to serve my husband.  He desires me to love my son.  He tells me to love my neighbors.  He rejoices when i do His will. 

when He asks us to go into all the nations he did not just mean to go.  sometimes going into all nations, is staying exactly where we are.  if everyone was going, who would stay.  if everyone left the country to serve the lost and poor and Jesus needing in other countries, who would serve the same here?  if everyone left the suburbs to serve the lost and poor and Jesus needing in the inner city, who would serve the same here?  There are lost and hurting and poor and Jesus needing people everywhere.  in your city, in your neighborhood, in your own home.  being a missionary is not just reserved to those overseas, or in the city, or those raising support to do fulltime.  Jesus asks me to love and serve.  and i can do that right were I am. 

i am a wife, and a mother, and a worker, and a student.  i am also an ambassador for Jesus Christ.  i am a missionary right where i am, in the suburbs of omaha.  i can love, i can serve.  i am called to do so. 

and no matter how i dreamed life, no matter where i could be... that would not change.  i would still be called to love and to serve.  the loving and the serving would just take on a different scope.  it doesn't matter that my life is messy, and hard, and confusing. that is life, if i had the dream, it wouldn't be the dream... it would also be messy, and hard, and confusing.

here, i can love and serve my husband.  i fail at this everyday.  i can bring up my son in the promises of the word.  i can serve and love my neighbors.  i can anticipate needs, and try to meet them.  i can be the smile and encouragement someone needs.  i can be Jesus, right where i am.

this series of choices and decisions made, brought me right here, right now, for a reason.  for such a time as this. 

i am happy where i am.  i love where i am.  no matter how different from the dream it might be.  because this real life gave me matthew, it have me asher, it gives me love and peace and accomplishment.  and i am going to try to be that missionary... right here where i lay my head.               

Comments

  1. ps... new crock pot recipe cooking at home right now. i'll let you know if it's any good.

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  2. I too have dreamed of life a thousand different ways. I was watching "Millionaire Matchmaker" yesterday and one of the dating prospects said, "I believe what you are meant for will find you" or something smart and deep along those lines.

    I love that. Those other thousands of lives we dreamed in our heads were never meant to be us. Maybe just books we write later on.

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