the choices we make

I should be packing.


I should be preparing to drive to Tennessee.  


I should be getting ready to meet almost two hundred new people.  Spend a week in worship and training and equipping.


But I am sitting on my front porch.  On a beautiful Kentucky day.  Having been pruned and cut back and quietly instructed to sit still.


I do not regret my decision.  There's not a day when I wish I had chosen differently.  I know what lies ahead of me is what the Father in Heaven intended.  


But to say I won't miss some of these people... to say that my heart doesn't long for Africa... to say that leaving isn't tempting... would be a lie.


Instead of a year overseas, I am staying here.  In Kentucky.  First, I will rest.  Fill up and restore what has been exhausted and drained.  Then I will pour out again.  Invest.  Whether in one little girl, who will be in third grade in the fall, or in forty children in Lexington's east end.  I will give myself. Here.  


Even as I write those words the wind is blowing.  Someone's windchimes are singing to me.  I know this is where I should be.  


It's just that in the quietness, in the loneliness, in the stillness of rest I am already getting restless.  I know this is just the beginning of a beautiful, healthy, growing season.  


And I don't regret my decision.  


In just a few short days an army of brand new missionaries will step foot into my home.  They'll be dirty and hungry.  A few will be familiar.  A few are old friends.  A few will walk in as strangers.  But because of my decision to not physically join them on this journey, I will be able to give them a place to rest on the way home.  Feed them.  Hug them.  


God knows what He's doing.  


I am in the very middle of whatever that is.  


I am sitting in the pause at the top of the roller coaster.  


The choices we make add up to the direction and course of our lives.  I am here.  Ready for whatever comes next.