The space between “Lord, please send someone else” and the willingness that smiles and says, “Here I am, send me!”

 

Not long after I published Grandma’s Letters from Africa, I was thumbing through the Bible I used during the era my husband and I were applying to Wycliffe Bible Translators.  

 

In that Bible, I found an old yellow sticky-note with questions I’d asked myself about the radical demands of discipleship Jesus spoke of in Matthew 8:22. I’d written, “Do you consider yourself a disciple? What radical demands is God making of you? Are you carrying them out? Are you willing to meet His radical demands?”

 

A few years earlier, I had started praying in a new way. Instead of asking God to help me do His will, I asked Him to make me willing to do His will.

 

There’s a difference.

 

I prayed according to Philippians 2:13, “It is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purposes” (NIV).

 

In other words, God first helps me want to please Him. Although I play a role in becoming willing, I don’t have to work it up all on my own. And then, He helps me to do it!—to carry out His “good purposes.”

 

I’m so glad that verse is in the Bible because countless times I've been unwilling. Like Moses, I’ve wailed, “Oh, Lord, please send someone else” (Exodus 4:13).

 

By the time our Boeing 747 lifted off U.S. soil, I was probably at 9.5 (on a willingness scale of 1 to 10). I was not at a perfect 10—I was scared (willingness does not eliminate fear) and I hated to leave my kids (willingness does not erase a mother’s longing to stay connected to her kids), but I was willing enough to set out.

 

How did that happen? Looking back now, I realize my heart held a tender little spot inside—sort of like a Hostess Cup Cake with a soft, sweet blob inside.

 

Or like hard candy with a gooey glob in the middle.

 

Or like one of those chocolate confections that you bite into, and everything is moving in slow motion, and soft music is playing, and behold! The rich, creamy center oozes out. (Oh, I’m certain that in heaven, chocolate will have no calories!)

 

But wait—I’m getting off the subject. That tender little spot in my heart occupied the space between (a) my unwillingness and (b) the sweet willingness that smiles and says, “Here I am, send me!” (Isaiah 6:8). That soft, gooey little place protected and nurtured my willingness to be made willing.

 

God met me there. With His gentle hands, He took hold of my heart—both the hard part and the tender, gooey part hidden in the middle—and everything started to change.

 

My heart didn’t change in an instant.

It didn’t change in a day, or even a week.

The process took time.

 

To paraphrase Donald Miller, it was as if God, the Master Storyteller, said, “Look, I wrote you into My story and I want you to enjoy your place in it.”

 

To put Beth Moore’s words in God’s mouth, it was as if He said to me, “You have a God-thing called destiny, and I’m inviting you to fulfill it with courage and perseverance.” (Esther)

 

And I’m so glad He did! He knew I’d have missed a thousand mindboggling blessings if I had not been willing to move to Africa.

 

What about you? What radical demands has God made of you in the past? Did you wrestled with God, unwilling at first to do a particular thing for Him, only to find out later that you would have missed blessings you now cherish?

 

Or, maybe today is God making radical demands of you. Are you willing to meet them? Or, maybe today God is still waiting for your answer, waiting for you to say, “Here I am. Send me.” How will you answer?

 

The “flarings of a scared but burning heart”

I’ve been telling you that I seemed to hear God asking me to place Him—not my children and my relationship with them—in first place in my life.

 

I admitted to you that my words couldn’t capture the utter rawness, the unspeakable ravages of dying to oneself in order to die to one’s children, even when we do it because God is asking that of us. (Click here to read “I could say ‘Yes’ to God, or I could say ‘No’”.)

 

“Letting something precious go is . . . unbearable,” writes Chuck Swindoll. “The  parting cannot happen without inward bleeding.” (Good Morning, Lord . . . Can We Talk?)

 

In Chapter 2 of Grandma’s Letters from Africa, I wrote:

 

This month-long process left me emotionally spent but, afterward, I could fill out the application to Wycliffe Bible Translators.

 

I filled it out because I knew that if joining Wycliffe was not God’s plan for us, He had power enough to prevent it.

 

I gave Him every opportunity to show us green lights and send us to Africa or red lights and keep us home.

 

In the meantime, I kept taking the next step, and the next, all the while watching for God’s answer.

 

In the end, He gave us only green lights:

 

Wycliffe found no problems with our applications.

 

Next, we passed our phone interviews.

 

And we spent a month at a Wycliffe facility in the lovely mountains and forests of Idyllwild, California: training, testing, and interviewing—and we passed all those requirements, too.

 

I had my answer.

 

In giving me that answer, God responded to my earlier protestations about not wanting to dismantle our home or leave my family or move away from beautiful Port Angeles, Washington. He addressed my worries about giving up a steady income and health insurance.

 

I could almost hear God whisper, “It’s okay to dismantle your home. Give family heirlooms to your children or put them in storage, and throw out the junk.

 

“You worry about your parents, but your brothers and I will care for them.

 

“You feel bad about leaving your friends, but true friendships will endure, and I will introduce you to new friends in Africa.

 

“You don’t want to leave the beauty of Port Angeles, but wait until you see Africa’s splendor.

 

“Let go of your tight grip on your paycheck and health insurance. Find a better security in Me.”

 

Then God seemed to say, “Now, about your children—don’t you know I love them even more than you do? You can trust Me with them.”

 

Knowing God’s answer didn’t take away the pain, but my heart melted when He asked me to believe He loved my Matt and my Karen even more than I did.

 

It was a “Stop—take off your sandals” moment.

A burning bush moment.

A standing-on-holy-ground moment. 

(Exodus 3:1-5)

 

Jenilee Goodwin writes, “When God speaks, he is inviting you into his story. He’s about to do something in you, in your family, in your work, in your country, in your life. He is looking for those who are listening, those who are saying, ‘Here I am.’

 

Jennilee continues: “His eyes are seeking those who are willing to hear what He’s saying and participate in the greater story.”

 

“I wondered if this was how beginnings were made,” writes Sue Monk Kid, “—in the momentary flarings of a scared but burning heart.” (When the Heart Waits)

 

I could do only two things:

Trust God to manage my kids’ consequences

because of our move to Africa,

and then turn and take an extreme,

and blind, leap of faith. 

(from Chapter 2, Grandma’s Letters from Africa)

 

 

I could say “Yes” to God, or I could say “No”

A couple of years before we moved to Africa, my husband, Dave, asked me each day, “Have you filled it out yet?”

“It” was my application for Wycliffe Bible Translators. I knew Dave wanted a different job. Maybe his current one lacked purpose. Or perhaps he suffered from a mid-life crisis. All his life, he has yearned to avoid mediocrity, to break out of the status quo. Probably all those factors led to his urgent need to serve God in Wycliffe. 

For some reason, though, I couldn’t fill out the application. I tried several times. I placed my pen on the application, but I couldn’t fill in the blanks. (from Chapter 2, Grandma’s Letters from Africa) 

I determined to set aside time, to attune my ears and heart to God’s, to be alert to His voice. 

Such a process can take weeks, months, maybe years. 

When I did, eventually I seemed to hear God asking me to place Him—not my children and my relationship with them—in first place in my life. 

I stood at a scary, heartbreaking crossroads. 

I could say “Yes” to God. Or I could say “No.” 

Jenilee Goodwin writes that when we sense God speaking to us, “We have to choose yes or no, go or stay, believe or walk away. Hearing God’s voice requires an answer, an action. So often, it’s easier not to ask. If we don’t know what God is asking of us or inviting us to do, we don’t have to choose obedience or answer the call.” 

Oswald Chambers wrote of those times “when our path seems treacherous and uncharted.” Wow. He nailed it—I stood on a treacherous, uncharted path. 

Such times, Chambers said, such paths, are “God’s way of molding us, of capturing our attention so that we focus on Him and not on ourselves. . . . [They are] His means for us to know Him.” (Christian Disciplines) 

And if we are to come anywhere near carrying out the first and greatest commandment—loving God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength (Mark 12:31, Deuteronomy 6:4)—we start by increasingly knowing Him. 

I could have said “No,” I wanted to say “No,” but I said “Yes.” I stepped forward. 

As I told you last week, one by one, I placed my kids on an altar, of sorts, that I had pictured in my mind. I began with my precious Karen. I had to let go, offer her up to God, walk away, and grieve—grieve—for days. 

I repeated the process with son Matt. 

My mourning was palpable. 

This month-long process left me emotionally spent, numb, my heart torn to shreds. 

Words can’t capture the utter rawness, the unspeakable ravages of dying to oneself in order to die to one’s children, even when we do it because God is asking that of us. 

Only after that excruciating process could I fill out the Wycliffe Bible Translators application. 

And after that, and after I dropped it in the mailbox, once again I determined to set aside time, to attune my ears and heart to God’s, to be alert to His voice. 

What would He say? Would He say He wanted us to serve with Wycliffe? 

Even if His answer was “yes,” I could say “no.” I could turn my back and walk away.

 

Utter rawness, unspeakable ravages: Would I learn to dance with a limp?

“Grief bleeds through the pages of our lives, marking the pages and stories that follow,” says Jonathan Trotter. “Failing to acknowledge these chapters is to censor. To edit out. To delete plot twists and main characters. To murder history. So we leave the pages as they are, splotched and imperfect. . . .” 

So I won’t censor here. I won’t edit out. Instead, I’ll blurt it out: It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do: to let go of my son, Matt, and my daughter, Karen—those precious, beloved children God had given to me—to turn my back on them and, instead, go where God’s finger pointed. 

As I told you before, “Sometimes people and things can become too important to us,” writes Chuck Swindoll. “We grip them with closed fists and white knuckles, and God has to pry open our fingers to loosen our hold.” (Abraham, The Friend of God) 

Beth Moore’s words capture what I faced. She asked herself, “What if this is a critical moment?  What if this very thing, this very decision, is the most important piece of the purpose comprising my purpose?” 

I sensed God asking me to do something similar to what He had asked Abraham—to place his child on an altar as a sacrifice to Him. God’s request would reveal to Him, and perhaps just as important, it would reveal to Abraham, whether God was Number One in his life. 

God seemed to stand there and ask if I would give highest priority to Him and His plans for me rather than to my plans to live near my children and enjoy them. 

Again, dear Beth Moore put into words what I could not have. She writes, “At some of the hardest times of my life, I have been able to make the more difficult choice out of pure blind-eyed, bent-kneed acceptance that it was somehow part of a greater plan.” (Beth Moore, Esther) 

I knew what I had to do. 

One by one, I placed my kids on an altar I had pictured in my mind. I began with my precious Karen. I had to let go, offer her up to God, walk away, and grieve—grieve—for days. 

I repeated the process with son Matt. 

My mourning was palpable. 

This month-long process left me emotionally spent, numb, my heart torn to shreds. How can I put it into words? I can’t. Words can’t capture the utter rawness, the unspeakable ravages of dying to oneself in order to die to one’s children, even when we do it because God is asking that of us. 

What does a person do next? Where does a person go next? What does a person think next? 

Anne Lamott wrote about grief. “Your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly—that still hurts when the weather gets cold. . . .” 

I felt like Habakkuk, who cried out to the Lord, “How long, O Lord? I shout to you in vain; You don’t answer” (Habakkuk 1:2). I hollered at Him: “So, I’ll never get over this pain? This broken heart of mine will never heal completely? The rest of my life will feel like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly and still hurts when the weather gets cold? Is that what I have to look forward to? Is that what You want for me?” 

All I could do was stand hopelessly broken and exhausted and stare at God, shaking my fists, demanding His answer. When Habakkuk cried out, God answered “Look, watch—and be utterly amazed. For I am going to do something that you wouldn’t believe even if someone told you about it.” 

Habakkuk said, in effect, “God says He’s going to answer. So, okay, then, I’ll stand here, alert, waiting, watching for His answer. I’ll wait attentively, vigilantly, to hear what God has to say.”  (Habakkuk 2:1) 

That’s all I could do. Watch and wait. Watch and wait. To be still and watch and wait for God’s answer, for His clarification. Watch and wait for Him to help me take a breath, and then one more breath, His help to place one foot in front of the other, baby step by baby step.

But there was one more thing Anne Lamott observed about grief. 

Yes, that broken leg would not heal completely, but:

“You’ll learn to dance with the limp.” 

I would watch and wait, watch and wait. 

When He finally spoke, would God tell me 

that I’d learn to dance with the limp?