A God-Sized Story

How long is your to do list? I can’t tell you how many diapers I have changed today, or dishes cleaned, or snacks and meals prepared. My life is full of to dos and monotony to some extent. It’s not that glamorous. Many days I feel like they all blur together and I feel a sense of purposelessness. I love being a stay at home mom to my four treasures, yet somewhere in my being, God is still calling me sweetly deeper in my purpose here.

God has ignited my heart to encourage women and families to live on mission. I do believe we can be on mission while we change diapers, clock in and out of work, cook dinner.

What if this was the generation of families that rose up and said “Yes” to God when he called us to serve the least of these?

It shakes me, all those times he said to care for the orphan, feed the hungry, and care for the sick. I was shocked as I read through Jesus’ life how many times he healed diseased people. Why? He knew they were just going to die again. But he also knew as we temporarily physically heal we can point to a permanent spiritual healing.

What if we were a generation of women and families and marriages who stopped talking about our faith and started living like Jesus? What if we didn’t tell our kids about serving the broken but we did it together? This is one way we can live missionally. We don’t have to be missionaries overseas to answer God’s call to serve the hungry, the sick, the broken.

I was re-reading the parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14-30) the other day and was so struck by the behavior of the servant he called wicked. The servant gave back to the master what he was given. What was the big deal? It was that he had hidden his gifts away in a field. He hadn’t invested what God had given him for the kingdom. He had wasted what he was entrusted.

We as women in America have been given resources, influence, time, talents, and treasure. But if we just hide it away and settle for the mundane, which I am so tempted to do, we waste what God has given us. We hinder God’s work to the least of these and those that don’t know him.

God has challenged us as a family to get involved in a ministry, kids and all.A ministry we can give to with our money, serve with our gifts, pray for, and go see how God worked as a family. For us, that is Care For AIDS.
Care for AIDS partners with local Kenyan churches to operate life transforming centers that serve the physical, spiritual, economic, and social needs of men and women living with HIV/AIDS. This ministry is serving the diseased, preaching the gospel to the lepers of today’s society, preventing over 100,000 children from being orphaned, restoring marriages, strengthening families. Our family was all in, committed, we took our kids to see it first hand, but could there be more?

God gave us a crazy idea. An idea I felt most comfortable to keep to myself and tackle quietly as a family. But as we began, I felt convicted. I am a part of a body. What if God wanted to bring others along to be a part of something bigger than the mundane we so easily get trapped in? What if God wanted to mobilize other families to expose their children to life as the least of these? What if someone else could use their gifts to serve the kingdom in this way? So we are letting it out. We are reaching out to other parts of the body and inviting you to move, to act. We are launching a new center with Care for AIDS in Kenya. This is a huge God-sized dream! I know he will bring the people around it he wants involved and I pray it is you. As we re-examine the servants in the parable from earlier, they took a risk, they sacrificed not knowing what would happen with what they invested for their master, and God multiplied it, they shared in their master’s happiness as they stepped out and took a risk for the Kingdom.

If you would like to get on board you can read the full story and see practical easy family oriented ways to get involved here and HERE at my blog, you can also be a part of launching the center at this site.

Then I pray one day that some of you may go and visit the center you helped plant. I pray you take your kids and say “Look, this is it, this is what God can do when we say yes and give, he gives more, he opens the floodgates, he changes families and saves lives half way around the world because he moved us to say yes”. I pray you see the life change that happened from getting on mission as a family, exposing your kids to what can happen when we risk with God our ‘anything’, our gifts, and our hearts. Think of the ripple effect with this one center, 90 families, 90 marriages saved, 180 adults presented with Jesus, most likely 180-360 orphans prevented, every nine months, because one center began.

We cannot wait to see what happens, what God does in your hearts, your stories, your families, and your kid’s hearts. I’ve already heard stories, gotten emails and texts of already God moments and miracles; this is going to be amazing.