Letting Go, Trusting God ... wash, rinse, repeat

Our oldest daughter Hannah felt a pull on her heart from God at the young age of 14 to bring awareness to the horrors of the sex-trafficking industry.  Because of our connections to Asia her heart has been especially tender for the young victims in Thailand, Cambodia, Indonesia, India to name just a few.  She and her brother Wyatt started a fund-raising "business" (New Creations 517)selling hand-made products and gave EVERY penny from the sales to various organizations around Asia that are working on the front-lines to combat this form of modern-day slavery.  Over the years Hannah has educated herself and whenever she is given a listening ear will educate others.

One organization to which our family is closely connected is Thrive Rescue, located in Thailand. This past spring we had the blessing of visiting Thrive and staying in the dorms of The Justice School.  We were treated to a tour of their rescue homes and got to meet some of the precious princes and princesses they have helped to pull out of the Hell on Earth in which they had been enslaved.  As a family this was an amazing opportunity.  However, for Hannah and Wyatt it was a huge step in their journeys.

For Wyatt, who is still unsure the direction God is pointing him, it was a chance to see the breadth of God's work out there.  Wyatt spent an evening (into the wee hours) working with a young man who was helping to build a salon for Thrive and Shear Love (an occupational training arm).  Wyatt sweated side by side with this amazing man who has devoted his life to serving with his carpentry skills where-ever God may take him around the world.  Wyatt was able to think more broadly about where and how God might use his skill set.

For Hannah, well, her experience may have been the result of a lax in my parental judgement but I like to see it as the Holy Spirit blinding me to logic and sense in a moment when I needed to to say 'yes' to something that should probably have been NO WAY!

Hannah spent that same night with the founder and director of Shear Love and a few other curious young women out in the streets of Pattaya Thailand.  For those of you who aren't familiar with Pattaya...it has beaches, it has street shopping, it has amazing food.  Yes.  But what many come from far and wide for is a different "commodity".  Hannah got a first hand, front row seat kind of view into the brothels, bars and sex business of this infamous city.  This evening solidified in her what she already knew God was calling her to.  It was this night out listening to stories of barely dressed, overly painted young girls, girls close to her same age -- girls who never got to be Girls -- that cemented in her heart a resolve to dedicate her Life to changing Others'.

Fast forward several months and Hannah is now a prospective student for the 2017 Justice School class in Thailand.  She hopes to raise the almost $6000 she needs in time and is trusting God for every penny.

And so this brings me to the title of this post...Hannah has been my Little Girl for 18 years and though I have known for most of those years that I will need to Let go, it has only been recently that this thought has brought me pain.  In this pain I can know with my heart that I need to Trust God, but getting my heart to obey is a daily, sometimes minute by minute challenge.  Its a cycle like the one we see written in the directions on our shampoo bottles.  Let Go...Trust God...Repeat!

And a year later...

...And a year later I have learned that I really am not a good blogger.  I find that Life for me can get way too busy and filled to take the time to write.  Although I am an avid journal writer I don't take enough time to sit and really reflect on Life

Life here in Quito still feels unsettled and this is very disappointing for us as a family.  It probably does not help that we have already moved-in three times to different places within this city in such a short time.  It probably doesn't help that the kids' school has been unstable and sitting on the edge of "will we still exist tomorrow" for months.  It probably doesn't help that we have not found "community" -- not a church family, not a group of friends.  It probably doesn't help that Life seems to go on for everyone around us yet no one really seems to care whether we are here or not.  It probably doesn't help...that I am focusing on each of these circumstances rather than the Greater things that matter to Eternity.

What are the Greater things?  On what should I focus?

When I change my thought habits and choose to see that Circumstances are nothing more than temporary conditions I find myself freed of the burden of trying to change things.  I find my vision is cleared to see so much more around me.  I find my mind filled with Dreams and my heart filled with Hope...again.  I find myself At Home.

So what does this mean for me as we head into another school year and the second half of our second year?  It means I will try again.  I will try to embrace this place in which God has us for a Season.  I will serve the kids' school with self-sacrifice where God calls me to serve and not feel guilty when I say no.  I will choose to see each person who crosses my path as a potential part of my Community from whom I can learn and to whom I could give.  It means lifting up my husband through his struggles and encouraging him to keep on keeping on.

And so, a year later from my last post, one thing that does not surprise me is that once again God is teaching me, growing me and holding me.

New Creations - Flashback