Our Adventure to the Mission Field: Part 2

      Luke.... Well I'm do my best to keep this to the facts. Luke was 5.5 months when he came to us. God used this part of our journey to prepare us for things we have faced and will continue to face in the future. The first several weeks with Luke was intense. He cried a lot and then cried some more. One time Kent was able to hear him one city block away, with our windows closed. Three weeks into it, I told Bobbie I was going to give him back. She said that if I did I would be sorry, so we pressed on.


Luke about a month before he went home.



 
       Slowly Luke adjusted to our family. It took awhile. I read that part of my prayer journal a lot. It helps me to remember how God changed my heart slowly. In November of 2012, I was still ready for Luke to return home. However, by the end of December my heart had done a 180 and I was ready to keep him forever. Luke has such personality. My children loved him. Kent considered him our own. He was a part of our family.

     So way was Luke so crucial to our journey?
Well through it we learn:

• Ministry is messy.
• God's grace is bigger than we could even imagined.
• Just because something is hard doesn't mean it's bad.
• Things don't always turn out the way we hope.
• Life is never about me.
• Persevere, Persevere, Persevere
• Lean hard into our Creator.
• Our hard times show us who really cares about us.
• Prayer works.
• When we think something in our life is really about "A" God shows us that it's really about "B"
• Once the storm is over it never really seems as bad as what it felt like at the time.

I'm so thankful for the time we had with Luke. Our Heavenly Father was present and active at that time of our lives. Even though it was sometimes hard to see his hand while we were in the storm, it's easy to see now that he was ever present.

I'm not completely over losing Luke and neither is Kent and Grady. We still hope that he would return to us. But God reminded me the other day, again for the hundredth time, that it's really not about me. Luke is safe at home. His parents are taking good care of him. Daily, I remind myself that it's time to move on. Time to press forward, to what God has for us next. We pray for Luke and his salvation. God is taking care of him, and I have to rest in that.