Following God feels different at night...

Some time after you've decided to recklessly abandon reason and follow what you know God is saying and before it is completely implemented, you will wake up in the middle of the night and wonder if it's a good idea AT ALL. 

That's happened to me. It's happened a lot, thanks to baby pushing on my bladder and forcing me awake every hour or two for the past few months. It seems that it's in the twilight hours that the mind lets loose. All the doubts come flooding in. All the questions. Thoughts of "it's not too late to just tell God that actually we'd rather choose the easier road and stay." We can still back out, right? It wouldn't be the end of the world if we sacrificed a bit of what God is offering for more of what already feels safe? Would it? 

Last night, as I walked into the bathroom that attaches to our bedroom, it hit me how nice it is to have our own bathroom, right there. I walked out and saw how close it is to the kids' rooms and thought how nice it is that the kids feel secure enough in this house to take themselves to the bathroom in the middle of the night without waking us up anymore (or at least the oldest is). I walked through the kitchen and grabbed myself a cold drink of water from the fridge and thought how nice it is that it's just right there, my own kitchen. And then past Maddie's room, the one she doesn't have to share...nobody has to share because we have enough for each kid to have their own room - for another week anyway - and thought about how nice it is that we have space to spread out. And then it hit me that we're giving this up. Not only are we giving up the beauty of this home and acreage, but the comfort and convenience of all these "little" things. We will be living somewhere that will likely have more shared space. More communal spaces and fewer that belong to just our family. It will be an adjustment. And, for an introvert like me, one of the biggest sacrifices that I hadn't even considered as we started moving in this direction. 

What will life be like in 6 months? Where will we be living? What will the adjustment be like, as parents...for the kids? Will we be exhausted all the time or will there be space to breathe and spread out? In some ways it's such a small thing...but as I lay awake in the night, it tends to feel pretty huge. 

A lot of things feel huger in the night. Is it the blackness of night? The letting down of defenses that comes in the night? I don't know but it certainly is real. The thing that reassured me last night, though, was remembering how I've felt like this before. This isn't the first time I've/we've headed into the unknown because I've/we've sensed it's God leading me/us there. And as worried as I sometimes get, or as much as I sometimes dread certain parts of it, I find that things are rarely, if ever, as bad as I worry that they might be. Upon arrival, I am often quickly filled with relief because what I was worried about has been completely taken care of. 

As I turned my worries of the future to prayer, I could feel my body and mind relax and I drifted back off to sleep. The morning light always brings fresh clarity, I find. Things never seem like as big a deal in daylight. (I guess that's a big reason why I choose to walk in the Light. Because even when I'm awake in the physical darkness of the night, and worrying and fretting and groaning, I can experience that reassuring light of God if I just remember to turn my eyes to Him. Cliche. Sorry. But true.)

So the next time you see someone who just looks "so brave" for following Christ or who is doing something you feel like you could never do...know that they wake up in the night and wonder what on earth they're doing too. Or they struggle with it through the days as well. I've certainly had days when I've not loved this plan too! We're all in the same boat. God invites us all to different things, I'm not saying everyone needs to do what we are doing or what they are doing over there or over there. It is sometimes unknown and scary, even in daylight. But God does give you what you need for what he's inviting you to. He walks ahead of us and doesn't ask us to go blindly. That's reassuring isn't it? Even at 3am? I think so. 

*update* Emotions have been going crazy today, thanks to pregnancy hormones, not to mention the actual advertising of our acreage for sale began today, and so it is all seeming so much more real and exhausting. But there is also a tinge of excitement through it all. It's a weird mixture of feelings. Despite feeling like it would be nice to know what our long-term plans are, it's actually kinda nice right now to not know what we will be doing beyond spring/summer 2018. Because right now, the thought of being in ministry in Mexico long-term is just way too overwhelming to think much about. It's much easier to go knowing that we will be back fairly soon. And at that point we will discern at what's next. I am going to say with confidence, though, that at that point, we will have what we need to make the right decision. We will have the confidence and reassurance to stay if that's what we're feeling and we will have the confidence and reassurance to return to Canada if that's the direction we're sensing. Does any of that make sense? I feel like pregnancy brain is really catching up to me these days. Haha. I can't keep anything straight!