Because I didn't have enough to do...

Because I didn't have enough to do, today is the first day of a new adventure.  Today is my first official day as Director of LifeHouse Kids, the daycare at our church.  No, I am not quitting Addy's Hope.  Just adding a couple of work weeks to my day and a few hours to the days I already work.  Once again, God shows how He works a thread through my life preparing circumstances and situations so that things I don't even know are on the horizon can work according to His plan!  I love that about Him!  Makes me trust Him all the more when He tells me to take a leap of faith!

We have a small church.  But we have this really great facility that is a daycare.  We live in a town that is in an oil boom and is in a population explosion....like no where to live, people living in tents type of explosion!  Most daycares have a year waiting list of they are the sought out places.  We are licensed to care for 146 children and have around 55 enrolled.  I just share that to show that there are some things that I think can be done to bring up our standard and bring in some more kids...we should not have openings with the need that is out there.

Each time I would visit with John or one of the leaders about the daycare, I would get this weird excitement about the potential for it...not just as a daycare, but as a ministry!  Where else do you have 55 little souls coming to your door who may or may not have any exposure to Jesus except when they are with you?  Where else do you have two parents at least, many times more with divorces, etc, that you get to interact with to shine light in darkness?  Then there are the precious ladies who work to take care of the children.  What an opportunity to pour into lives of women to encourage them in their calling in life and to teach them about their identity in Christ if they don't already know Him!

If you had ever told me I would run a daycare, I would have told you that you were nuts!  Once again, God has placed a desire in my heart that He had to put there because it was never on my radar, for sure! But I am super excited about this opportunity. I don't know how long it will last.  It may be months, it may be years.  But I know it is God, and that's all I needed to know to jump on board!

In wrestling through whether to take the job, and I do mean wrestle, my main issue was all that I already have on my plate!  I would totally talk myself out of it, but didn't really have peace.  But yet taking the job didn't make sense.  At least not when I looked at circumstances.  I mean where were the hours going to come to do the job?  Where was the energy going to come to complete the tasks?  I feared that I would go back to the fog of the last season of life where I rarely felt joy, was constantly tired and just had a goal to make it to night so I could sleep and get up to try it all again.  I don't ever want to return to that place!  I truly feared putting myself in a position of demands that would lead to that type of life again. Well, we all know fear is not of God!  So I would go back to my quiet place, get in the Word and ask God for a clear answer! Truly the only real "pro" on a pro/con list was the income it would bring in. The agency is still a ministry.  The salary I draw is less than what I would make if I quit and went to work for just about any fast food restaurant   For those who are not local, we are in a bubble around here when compared to the rest of the nation's economy...just about everywhere is hiring and paying up to $14 as places like McDonald's just to get warm bodies who can do the job at a minimum.  Our growing family continues to have financial demands that were not being met.  We have been praying for relief from some specific financial issues.  I kept asking John if I was like the man stuck on the roof in the flood who kept telling the boats that passed that he didn't need a ride because God was going to save him.  I didn't want to drown waiting on a miracle while the practical answers went right past me!  Yet, I know God can work miracles too.

I had resolved that there was no way I should take the job...then I overheard a lady touring the learning center where Madison and Journey go three days a week.  She was telling the director that her kids go to LifeHouse and let's just say she didn't have nice things to say!  As I listened, I was grieved.  Not just because I knew the potential for the learning center is huge, but because the name of my church is attached to that!  We have an amazing pastor and congregation.  We are small, but growing. Very few people even know we existed.  It is like no place I have ever been a part...and I don't want the first thing people hear about my church to be what this lady was saying....because even though it was about the daycare, the image people have of the daycare is the image they will have of our church.  You can't separate the two in public opinion!

So back to my quiet space...more wrestling.  When wresting through things like this, I have come to the place that I will not act until I have a clear Word from God.  Either a yes, a no, a wait, or a "I don't mind which way you go, just pick one and then jump in with all your heart doing it with excellence!"  If God had given me the latter as a choice in this one, I would probably not have taken the job just because of the demands, but He didn't!  Instead He used a quote in a book I am reading to convict and confirm what He had already spoken in my quiet time with Him that morning.

I am reading Outrageous Courage by Kris Vallatton.  It is an amazing and inspiring book.  It is about a girl who had radical obedience and steps out in faith to do crazy things in the mission field!  There is a chapter with the title "Learning to Run" and was where I was reading during my wrestling match with God one day over the job.  Here is part of what this chapter said:
"Even as God heals us, however, it is vital to understand that He is not turning orphans simply into functional citizens, but into royal sons who look like Jesus.  To use Paul's metaphor, in order to run the race of the Christian life, we must not simply be healed of our broken legs-we also must train them to run with speed and endurance.  And everyone knows that in order to build speed and endurance, you must consistently push past convenience and comfort.  Similarly, as we learn to run as sons and daughters, God will lead us to face challenges that are difficult not so much because of wounds in our past, but because they press us to our limits of faith, emotional and physical strength, social skills, knowledge and love.  One of the primary goals of this training is to help us align our desires and expectations with God's desires and expectations for us and let Him define our successes, failures and assignments.  It is only by embracing the Father's goals and expectations that we run the race to win, for He designed the racecourse in the fist place."

That hit me right between the eyes!  The whole reason I didn't want to take the job was because I had found a place of comfort again!  I had found that place where life just rocked along.  Which means I had found a place where I could probably do life without daily reliance on God.  And isn't this what we in America see as a goal...a place of comfort and "rockin' along"?  He was asking me to take on something that will demand once again that I rely on Him to set my schedule and give me the strength and endurance to make it through my days.  But what He kept showing me was, He wants me to enter this period so that I can take what I learned in the last season like this and apply it!  That way I can walk through this season with a little more grace and joy!

So today I embark on yet another journey with the One who I owe my life!  A journey that He knew was around the bend when He opened the door for us to put Addy's Hope offices in the church building.  So I can literally be at both jobs at once and continue my work with Addy's Hope while overseeing the operations at the daycare.  I don't know what it still amazes m when God works out these little details like that!  And hopefully on the other side, I will see that I did in fact complete this race with a little more grace and joy than the last season of stretching I went through!