I had a very wise mentor remind me a couple months ago that God gives us “grace upon grace”. She was expressing this as something the Lord had been reminding her of at the time, but also as an encouragement to me. At the time of this conversation I was entering the first trimester with baby no. 4 while also tackling being a first time homeschooling mom living overseas. As a seasoned homeschool mom herself she was speaking from experience that there is certainly a learning curve to the homeschool life just as there is with anything. Given our life circumstances she was offering it as an extra encouragement to rest in God’s grace, especially when things didn’t go exactly as I planned or hoped with homeschool. A big part of this seems to be weighing out my expectations for myself as a teacher, for my kids as students, as well as what we can reasonably accomplish each day with a 1st grader, preschooler and a 1 year old.
“Expectation” is a theme that just keeps popping up as I can find myself trying to “measure up” to expectations in other areas as well such as who I should be as a missionary. Whether it’s from assuming our supporters have certain expectations of me or comparing myself to the other missionaries whose newsletters show up in my inbox it can be a vicious game and one that does not take into account God’s grace or sufficiency in my life. In each area of life I am guilty of playing this game – mother, wife, teacher, homemaker, language learner etc. etc. etc.
Suffice it to say that I need to be regularly (like daily? or hourly? or minutely?) resting in the Lord, who He is and who I am in light of who He says I am. I am a chosen, adopted child of God whose sins have been forgiven. I’ve been given new life and a new identity. My worth is not measured by how well I’m meeting expectations or by what I can contribute (a truth I often forget –> I’ve contributed nothing, Jesus contributed everything). In this God has been reminding me to abide in Him, to rest in Him, to find peace in Him. And in this I’m also being reminded that I can’t do everything, but I can be faithful in the areas God has called me to for each season of life.
So what does this season of life look like? It’s a season of finishing well and preparing for change. As I type this we are coming to the end of our first term here in Senegal. We have been away from the States for 3 years. We have made two international moves, had a baby in Africa, started homeschooling, learned (*are learning) a new language (we’ve discovered this is a process), made so many connections with Senegalese people as well as our expat community here, discovered how long and slow cultural acquisition is, grown lots in our marriage and parenting, learned more about who God is by seeing Him through the lens of other cultures and also seen our faith get deepened tremendously through trials and triumphs, homesickness and creating a home, high highs and low lows. We’ve barely scratched the surface on what it means to do ministry and life cross-culturally and we are so grateful we get to walk this, at times heart wrenching and exhausting while simultaneously beautiful, life.
We are excited for our upcoming time in the States to be close to family, to share about the past three years with those who have invested so much for us to be here, to have our baby, to rest well, to get further equipped for the work ahead, to show our kids the city and state we grew up in and love and so on. We are also already so excited for our return to Senegal at the end of the year! What will our second term hold? Each season in it’s time.
For these final three months before our first home assignment I am seeking the Lord for what He has and am resting in His goodness each day. May I walk faithfully the path He has – all glory be to Christ my King.
– Selina