In less than a week, I get to go to Ethiopia and be with Jesus and precious people He loves.
I feel so excited, and also a little sad because I will miss my family. As friends prayed over me today and mentioned my husband and children’s names individually before the Lord, I was struck, again, by the beauty of my LIFE that I get to live here with them.
As I have said in recent posts, family life is hard. Sometimes I’m grieving, sometimes I’m confused. I am not saying it is smooth or easy. But it is beautiful.
About four years ago, I got my first tattoo and it was a step of faith – not the tattoo, but what it said and meant. It says “life is beautiful”. It was a time in my life where my daily existence didn’t feel beautiful, but I was proclaiming what GOD said about it! A year later, I went back and added three more lines to the tattoo, each saying “life is beautiful” in the three other languages that have greatly blessed and affected my life: Bambara (Mali), Amharic (Ethiopia-adopting Yemi), & Haitian Kreyol (Haiti-adopting Eva & Zoe).
Although I will keep it covered in Ethiopia most likely, the Amharic line goes with me next week as I live and abide in this truth: Ethiopian lives are beautiful. Each are created in the image of God. The ones living in the garbage dump in Kore, the ones working at the daycare, preschool, and kindergarten, the ones begging on a street corner. I am already overwhelmed (with heavy gratitude and awe) to foresee how many eyes and faces and hands and souls I will come in contact with, and I have ONE prayer…
That through the power of the Holy Spirit, my eyes and smile will convey that I value them, that Jesus loves them, that Creator God is for them not against them, that they are seen and known by Him, and that this Holy Spirit interaction will indeed enact desire for GRACE BY FAITH in Jesus.
Other than my last time in Ethiopia, I can’t think of a place I have gone that I could not speak at least a preschool version of the language. In Amharic, I’ve got nothing! How awesome to know that my lack and inability will be so deep and wide, making lots of room for Him to speak in the spirit realm.
As was confirmed with my sweet friends this morning, it is my lack and inability that truly is the “new wineskins” that Jesus needed me to prepare for Him to fill with new wine. Maybe the old wineskins were my laws and my self-righteousness, my abilities and commitment level and strengths. Now, both in this Ethiopian trip and in my new desire for the counseling and prayer ministry, I only have this to offer: Me (weaknesses & all) plus the grace and presence of Jesus. And how clear it is in this moment that my beautiful life was not meant to be anything but that.
