“Commit your way to the Lord, trust also in Him, and he shall bring it to pass.”
There is an underlined note in the center margin of my Bible. In this particular verse, the word for commit could be more literally translated “roll off onto.”
Not the careful terms of a well thought out surrender. Not the giving of a gift or the turning over of a tidy folder.
Absolute, foolish, trust.
“Roll off onto the Lord.”
Flop out like the eleven year old does when he is having a jealous day, his torso sprawled across my lap, our hands tucked in tightly to his chest, so that there is no chance of having to share.
Like the three year old who bounces her feet in the elastic fabric of my skirt, more than pleased to just sit and watch the adults move suitcases.
The way that you sink into your bed after a long day.
Roll off onto the Lord.
When life is a rhythm of writing and researching and doing laundry. When we are a hundred different directions at once, and, really, each day becomes a rhythm of its own.
Absolute, foolish trust.
Some days the kids at program make crafts with glitter and glue while three of us sit at the house and work on getting registration ready for school.
Some weeks it rains so often that everyone runs out of clean clothes, and some weeks the well is broken so there is no water. And, some days, a visiting team arranges to get the neighbor's generator from the pawn shop, so that we can purchase water from his well instead.
Some days are a whirlwind of teams or of people in the house frustrated over this thing or that, and some days are birthday parties and lingering over the Jesus Storybook Bible after advent time.
Some days are dance parties in the dining room and soccer in the courtyard, and some days are sitting with my computer or the quiet of the internet cafe. Because, with 30+ people under this roof, things are rarely quiet.
Some days American visitors craft thirty different activities to help kids practice counting to ten, or a man from Boise teaches the girls how to ride a bike, a line of little people waiting for these circles around the courtyard.
Some days the piles grow wild and chaotic, and some days they are cleaned.
Some days we have impromptu trainings on TBRI and some days there is team that wants to talk theology and neurology in the back of a tap tap. And, when the conversation somehow winds from PANDAS to the Perseverance of the Saints...of course. Of course, it did.
Most days we eat rice or avocados, oatmeal, beans, green vegetables and the younger kids cheer when the power comes back on. The older ones go to school, and the middle set ride out to program to hear Bible stories and play games with their favorite teachers.
There are a few weeks without teams or school holidays, and life settles down a little, slows down enough for us to feel the press of time. Because, these weeks are the last time that we have before holiday travel, before January, before school.
It is enough, but it feels close. Feels like absolute, foolish trust.
Commit your way to the LORD.
Spread out laminated cards on a classroom bench or under the shade tree and gather data on the kids as they register. Sit for long conversations about cross cultural ministry, about rhythm, about rest. Pile into a rented van for a road trip to get puppies and change clothes in a random stranger's house after the six year old gets carsick all down your front and into your lap.
Hold things in an open handed grasp. Wait in the tension of Advent. Already, not yet. Kingdom come, better world coming. Beauty in brokenness.
Commit your way to the LORD.
