Je t'aime

I treat this blog as a scrapbook of our family.  I say that I'll print it out so that my kids can sit around and look at it but we will see if that happens.  This is my way of tangibly counting my blessings and documenting it for my children.  Things I want to remember...moments I want them to remember...stories of us...blessings.  I'm not usually too introspective but today my heart is a bit heavy and there are some things I want my kids to know.  

In what seems like a looooong time ago I was blessed with this amazing opportunity to take a little trip to Paris, France.  And, by trip I mean move there.  Even as I type this, it doesn't seem real.  I lived in Paris for two years.  I learned about and loved the people and the culture and God tied my heart specifically to the immigrant population who called the  Île de France home.  As I type, it has been five years since I returned to the States and I'm not sure I have fully processed my time in Paris.  The people with whom my path crossed during those two years will forever be some of my favorite.  The challenges I faced while there were hard.  My God, he was faithful.  Just as he always has been and always will be. He was faithful to provide friends, to protect, to soften my  heart, to teach and guide.  It was a beautiful time.  So beautiful that, again, it does not seem like it really happened.  Je t'aime Paris.  I loved my time there.  And, I love the people I met while I was there.

There was one specific aspect of my time there that is still a part of my life now, thanks entirely to facebook.  You see, I was the "volunteer coordinator" for our team which means that I got to hang out with the really fun and awesome people who lived in the US but wanted to see what God was doing in France so they came on these week-ish long trips to help us with projects and pray.  I planned these trips and worked with these teams as the helped us in the community.  I'm not sure that they knew how much God used them in my life.  They were blessings.  They were light.  And, now we have a continued connection. Hopefully God will allow my memories to remain fresh so that I can tell you about all of them.  

There is one woman on my heart today.  She is the reason that lately it has been sooo hard for me to put my baby girl down to sleep at nap and bed times.  I just want to keep rocking and rocking and rocking.  You snuggle in and suck your thumb and are so relaxed on my chest.  You occasionally pop your head up to flash me a big smile or talk to the baby girl in the mirror.  ;)  And, I just can't lay you down.  I just want to hold you forever.  Back to the lady from the team.  Her name is Tommye-she worked for one of our partner churches and she made multiple trips.  She was full of joy and grace and faith.  She loved her two adult daughters.  I specifically remember her telling me about her daughter, Amy and how they had been in a lifelong battle against the ugly disease of cystic fibrosis.  I listened in awe as she told of a double lung transplant and how big and good they both believed God to be.  After all that, she grew up to be a nicu nurse.  Fast forward to the last couple of years.  Amy needed and received another double lung transplant and for the last year has been fighting one hardship after another.  I watched, via facebook, these two fight and love and worship like nothing I have ever seen.  Every time I read a post from Tommye I found myself so encouraged by her understanding of God's great, tight grip on her and her baby girl that I was inspired to press and press and press on to know that great God.  Last night, the post that so many had prayed against was there on the screen.  "Amy went to heaven."  One minute she was worshiping her God frail and weak in a hospital bed and the next she was worshiping him whole and healed before his throne.  Hallelujah!  He came to save and he has saved.  Thank you, God, for the voices of the faithful...the saints whom you love and who bring much fame to your name!

My heart is so broken for this Mama who woke up this morning without her baby girl.  I am so challenged to worship God the way she did and does and to love my kids with a passion that points them and all who see to this Jesus who was raised from the dead, to this eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, to the things unseen yet eternal.  Sometimes the pain and the darkness that I see all around me seems so thick.  But, just like with my volunteer teams, God causes his light to burst through.  Jesus overcame death and sin so that we can take heart when that darkness seems too much.  That darkness cannot hide the light.  Still we can pray:

Jesus, come quickly!