(Pictured: us, in the early days.) Nate and I established a shining vision for family at 30 — with zero kids. Our first four came to us from hard places, not the safety of my womb. And then, one year brought a reckoning: we can press on with our vision and lose our people … or let it die, and ask Him for His.
It all seems so binary as I write. The vision we established for our family and our lives didn’t feel wrong, nor did it feel separate from God. I still advise twenty-somethings to read the books and take the parenting classes and find families with whom to sit in their kitchen and glean.
But, life and years are revealing to me that God modifies and enhances in a manner that we humans often resist.
Sometimes He gives us things, then asks us to put them to rest. Sometimes He asks us to let go of the things He once asked us to take up.
“For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” Matthew 16:25
Sometimes He even asks us to let our vision die.
No matter how long you have carried it, no matter how strongly it was imparted to you, no matter how convinced you are that it’s right, sometimes God whispers: lose this part of your life … and wait for me to resurrect it.
Death precedes life, over and over again for us in God. Surrender is showing itself as the currency for my 40s. Not my life … not my plans … not my vision … but Yours, God.
