Letting go

One of the things Bart and I have been talking about lately has been expanding our family.  It hasn't been an easy topic for me.  I think in many ways I've always wanted the American dream.  Part of that means that I would have my kids ordered in a certain way and we would stay in one place.  Our kids would grow up in the home we live in for 40 years.  Our kids would live close.  We would see them often.  We would have consistency in being together and we would be happy.

But that's a lie.  Just because our family could be all together, or stay relatively close together and see each other often, doesn't mean that we're happy.  Or whole.  Or anything really.  I want my kids to grow up and be independent.  I want them to live their own lives.  I don't want them to settle for any expectations I have of them.  But I also want them to dream and live way beyond my expectations.  It's not my life, but theirs.

One thing I do want for them is for them to walk with Jesus.  And I don't want to get in the way of that.  I want to live my life in a way that allows them to see that giving up the American dream is worth it for me.  Right now what that means is living in Venezuela.  It may mean something else when we go back to the States.  It may mean never living somewhere for longer than 5 or 10 years.  It may mean living overseas and not getting to see my kids when they're grown up and in college and making adult decisions.  It could even mean not getting to see my grandkids very often.  It may mean a lot of things.

What I do want our lives to mean is that I gave all for Jesus.  I can honestly say that there are times that I don't know what that means.  But I don't want to put expectations on my family and what I think my family should look like right now.  So what if we can't adopt for another 10 years?  So what if our kids are 12 years apart in age?  I want to let go of some of my dreams.  They may just be holding me back from happiness in Christ.  Thank you, Jesus, that you can fulfill, that you can dream big, that you can bring life.  I pray that you would be the One who sustains when my hopes, dreams, desires get in the way of walking with You.