Stories of Yes #54 - I didn't sign up for this

 

 

I grew up in a Christian home. I was baptized in Jr. High after many wonderful summers of Church camp. Maybe my end mindset had changed, but that didn’t change all my actions on a daily basis. Actually, I became quite wild in high school and ended up having my beautiful daughter at the young age of twenty, ending my college career and my childhood. Don’t get me wrong, I have no regrets ending those things for my beautiful girl. I truly believe because of her, I am alive and where I am today.

.

But I didn’t sign up for this.

.

Or at least I didn’t know that when I truly fully gave my life over - that it meant my heart would completely shatter for what breaks His. Especially shattered after every orphaned face I saw. And that's when I said yes to loving children, not just once - but multiple times - that were not born from my own blood, and that I would love unconditionally - as if they did.

.

I did not sign up for this though.

.

You see, when I gave my life over fully, which some days, (actually MANY days), I still struggle with, I didn’t sign up for the "easy." I didn’t sign up for everything to go MY way - I signed up for His. I signed up for what He needed me to do, FOR WHO He needed me to do for. I didn’t know that I signed up for the hard, for the unimaginable or incomprehensible. For the life that doesn’t make sense to the average person and is many times mocked for that kind of radical mindset.

.

But I also didn’t sign up for this.

.

For this life that has come so inconceivably easy. So easy to love, to navigate, to work as a team - I didn’t sign up for it. But I am so grateful I said yes to it. Our days are not always easy, I won’t pretend that they are, but they are worth it, every second. And if there are 2.4 BILLION Christians in this world, I pray that they start letting God break through their hearts, because you will learn, and LOVE, the life that you didn’t sign up for.

.

And then maybe the Church could start making a dent in our worldwide orphan crisis." - Jocelyn Piper