Restless

If you have known me for any reasonable amount of time, you probably know that I have always seen myself working overseas in some mission-oriented way.  I don't usually write about this sort of thing here in this space, but feeling the call and having the desire to go work overseas has been heavy on my heart lately, and I want to remember it and how I wrestled with it during these young days as a mama and wife to a studly doctor-in-training.

"Sometimes [obedience to God's calling] looks like dreams buried and dormant while frost blisters the ground. It looks like seasons of upheaval and tilling and the ground on which you hoped to stand is rocked and shaken and you can only kneel, only bow lower. It looks like yearning to break through to light and always pushing further into it. It looks like tender limbs reaching toward majesty and the weight of glory shining on. It looks like so much unquenchable thirst. It looks like pruning and sheared loss." -Alia Joy

I ran across a blog post at aliajoy.com (read the full post here) that really resonates with my heart and seems to describe the restlessness I feel in my spirit.  Go read it, it is beautifully written and exactly the reminder I needed that being obedient to the Lord's calling isn't based only on whether you say yes or no to the call to go to the ends of the earth...  It also means remaining obedient to other Gospel-work during the seasons that you feel suffocated by middle class life in America, when you have trouble seeing the Gospel at work in your own community and workplace, when you want nothing more than to sell all you own and fly away to be a part of bringing the Gospel and healing and grace to the nations.

A few of you know that we have an opportunity to go to Zambia next May through Stuart's residency program at UNC.  And some of you know that we are so hoping to be able to go as a family and experience a month of life overseas as a family - babies and all.  Some of you are very fearful about that opportunity, and for others of you, the idea rocks your socks off with excitement for us.  My hope is that no matter your thoughts, that you would be praying for us to walk obediently to the life which we have been called to - motherhood, medicine, Gospel-work... and the possibility that those things would take us overseas.  Short term.  Long term.  We don't know, but we feel the heart tugs and know that God's timing and provision and callings are perfect.