on the Saturday in between. . .

I’ve spent a lot of the last 3 months in tears. Quiet tears, angry tears, confused tears, tears of sorrow, and some tears of joy. . .for a woman who likes to think she can generally hold things together, it has been disconcerting.

On the outside, nothing has changed. The Facebook pictures still show big smiles. The sunsets are still spectacular. The girls are still thriving. We have purpose in our day to day and gratitude for the stunning love that buoys us and surrounds us.

But I got a message from a friend yesterday saying we had been persistently and unusually on her heart to pray the last few days, and my heart flooded with relief.

He sees. He knows.

I have felt a bit too numb to reach out, too weak and vulnerable to ask for help. And so He raises up an army of prayer warriors in our stead.

We have been in Kenya for 18 months. It is home now, and I cannot imagine a better place for our family.

But the constant need weighs on me. Another death. Another widow of circumstance. Another broken body. Another broken family. The lack of  sleep wears on me. The desire to protect my friends and colleagues more than myself drives me to work harder, to spend more hours at the hospital than I should.

As we build friendships and put down roots, the stakes are higher. The dilemmas seem more personal. The crises have more earth shattering potential.

The back-up plan that people expect us to have living here has become more nebulous. We never really had one, but as we love and grow here, it is unimaginable. We don’t have a back up plan for this very real life. We live it. We climb the mountain. We tread through the muck. We see the vistas and rejoice in the purpose. And we feel the cost.

As Andrew Peterson says, we go “dancing in the minefields and sailing in the storm. . .and this is harder than we dreamed, but I believe that’s what the promise is for. . .”

In the pain, the unlikely scenarios born from exhaustion and being pushed to the limits, I see the result – that I will be more dependent on the One who works in my weakness. Again. After yet another attempt to do things with my own strength, I will admit the impossibility of it all.

And again I will collapse into the arms of One who loves me more than anything. Who loved me to the point of death. The One whose moment of ultimate weakness secured redemption for all of us.

This day I place in your hand a pot of holy oil.

Let every circumstance that arises, every word that pains you, every interruption that would make you impatient,every revelation of your weakness be anointed with it.

The sting will go as you learn to see Me in all things. For I would have you learn that when temptations assail you, that when the enemy comes like a flood, that this thing is from Me, that your weakness needs My might and your safety lies in letting me fight for you.

-Laura Barter Snow.