Fall is, by far, my favorite season! I love everything about it. The smell of smoke hanging in the air from bonfires, bright green grass colored with puddles of red and gold leaves, perfect weather for sweatshirts, boots and coffee. It means a reprieve from the heat of summer, the best days for trail rides and the promise of refreshing to come over the winter months. It is also a time of reflection as we wrap up another season of ministry. Considering what God has done over the last 6 years on this insignificant little piece of Illinois flatland is humbling to say the least. What began as an offering of a few acres and a couple of horses to the Lord has grown into a vibrant community of people working, serving, playing and seeking after Christ together. The Ranch has encountered a variety of challenges alongside significant growth in the last 6 years, but in every moment our deepest desire has been that Christ would be made known through the volunteers, the horses, even the beauty of the property itself.
One of my greatest joys in serving at the Ranch is how aware I have become of the changing seasons and the cyclical patterns found in nature. Spring, summer and fall bring with them a great deal of hard work as our horses, staff and volunteers seek to pour themselves out for the kids and the families who have become a part of Refuge. Winter brings a much needed time of rest and refreshing for everyone. Often by the end of October, as we are wrapping up our season of work, I am beginning to feel overwhelmed, fatigued and even burned out. However, in the midst of that is the knowledge that a season of rest is coming. I know that by the time we are approaching the threshold of Spring I will be looking forward to the new season with great anticipation and excitement.
This year began no differently. We launched the season with much excitement for what the Lord had in store. We felt incredibly blessed to be able to add another staff position and we rejoiced as the number of kids in our mentoring program grew. We celebrated what the Lord is doing at other Ranches across the Midwest at our annual Ranch Fellowship and we prayed with great expectation forbroken lives to collide at this place with His extravagant grace and mercy.
This year, however, in the midst of the typical bustle of the Ranch our personal lives took some twists and turns. Our family has been talking about adoption and foster care for a very long time. Too long, in fact. From the very beginning of our marriage, and for the dozen or so years that followed, we talked and agreed as a family that the Lord was drawing us toward this path. For years we discussed it, we prayed about it, and we wrestledwith timing and the fear of letting go of our comfortable, familiar lives. However, in the summer of 2012 God did some radical things in our family and we found ourselves faced with a challenging question: Were we going to take a step of faith and be obedient to His call or were we going to continue to make a multitude of (very reasonable sounding) excuses and sidestep the path that He had been persistently
laying before us? We chose obedience! (Better late than never?) And so began one of the most incredible, thrilling, terrifying, faith-building roller coaster rides of our life.
As we began the process we struggled with the idea of adding so much to what already felt like very full plates, and wise friends counseled us to consider this carefully. However, we were also excited for the unique resources that would be so readily available to us. We knew that having the Ranch in our backyard would allow our family and kiddos unique access to the wonderful, Christ-filled community that has taken root here. What a tremendous asset! We realized that it was going to be overwhelming at times, but we also trusted with all of our hearts that when we are weak, He is strong.
And so with much joy, anticipation, and trembling, we began the process: classes and interviews and enough paperwork to take out an entire forest. We felt led to open our home to whatever child the Lord would bring us, or perhaps a pair of siblings. We were prepared to either foster children who had a strong hope for being reunited with their birth families or to go further still and throw wide our hearts and lives to the possibility of adoption. What we never anticipated was that He would bring us a group of four amazing, resilient, brave, precocious siblings that would stretch our family in every way possible.
Over night our cozy, little nest of three would grow to seven. Nine of us sharing one roof. In a whirlwind of activity we did our best to ready our home and hearts for what was to come. Bunk beds and mattresses and organizers to try and stretch the capacity of our tiny closets to impossible proportions. Bedding, extra towels and dishes, and much, much, prayer. We were humbled by the outpouring of love and support from our incredible family in Christ. This process has so deepened my understanding of our need for the church during the times we are stretched beyond our own limits. Those first weeks are a blur to me. I remember joy and the thrill of new adventure. I also remember exhaustion and sitting on my bathroom floor—a sobbing, overwhelmed mess—wondering if we were ever going to figure it out or find a new rhythm as a family. Precious friends encouraged me and reminded me that His grace was sufficient. Others prayed and brought us meals. Some just listened to me cry. Every word and gesture was a crucial lifeline. . .a tangible reminder of His mercy and provision.
Over the coming months the kids began to settle in. Courageous little warriors fighting to find their own rhythm amidst so much change and trauma and loss. The Ranch, or more specifically, the community here, did prove to be a tremendous blessing. Our new kiddos connected immediately with our staff and some of the volunteers and Ranch kids. All of the them were infatuated with the horses, however Sammy, the oldest of the bunch, fell head over heels in love with everything about them, including barn chores, praise the Lord!
Even so, I had begun to question whether or not we could, or should, continue the Ranch ministry. I was utterly overwhelmed with trying to juggle my responsibilities at the Ranch alongside my clumsy efforts to make such a large family run smoothly. More often than not, my house was in shambles, phone messages and emails went unanswered, ranch administrative tasks went undone and we won’t even talk about the panic I felt every time I looked at Mt. Laundry. Stephen too was struggling with all that he had to shoulder in addition to his lovely, over-emotional, basket case of a wife. I did my best to press into the Lord. Some days I succeeded. Other days were failures of epic proportion as I gave myself over to wallowing fits of self-pity. “Surely,” I thought, “the Lord does not want us to continue like this. This is not what He intended.” Perhaps we had simply been called to the Ranch for a season and it was time to move on.
As I trudged forward I often allowed my thoughts to park on my struggles and failures—both with the Ranch and in my difficulty adjusting to our new life, and in doing so I gave the enemy much purchase in the battlefield of my mind. There is nothing Satan likes better than the stronghold of insecurity which can so easily render even believers useless for the Kingdom! I began to seriously doubt, not only my ability to handle Ranch responsibilities, but the effectiveness of Refuge as a whole in sharing the hope of Christ. Were we even accomplishing anything for the Kingdom?
However, even as I wrestled with all of this, desperate for reprieve, longing for life to be easy again, my heart continued to return to the same resting place: I could live with busy. I was willing to deal with overwhelmed. I was desperate to lay my life down for the sake of anything Christ was calling me to. But I had no desire to spin my wheels or run myself ragged for anything less than that. Even amidst all of the noise and chaos, I knew the only question that mattered was whether or not He was asking us to be faithful in the context of the Ranch. The fruit was not my responsibility. That belongs to Him alone.
With newly surrendered hearts and unclenched hands, Stephen and I began to seek God’s will. We prayed earnestly, genuinely willing to give up this ministry which we had both grown to love, or equally willing to dig in and spend ourselves if this was where He wanted us. I sought counsel from Godly friends and delved into the Word, allowing my heart and all of my painful insecurities to be laid bare before the only One who is enough to fill that ugly, cavernous void. Slowly but surely, my world began to come back into focus through the corrective lens of Scripture. Inch by inch, clarity and peace reclaimed the places I had surrendered to doubt and insecurity.
There are still days I find myself locked in the bathroom, mopping tears and wondering what on earth I have gotten myself into, though they are much fewer and farther between. But in those moments the Spirit whispers precisely that: This is no earthly thing. We do not battle flesh and blood. We are not fighting for earthly kingdoms, but for the things of eternity. This life is worth spending if one child or family will find Life! For this, I am all in. Every bit of me surrendered so that I may gain Christ! “For whoever clings to his life shall lose it, and whoever loses His life shall save it.” (Luke 17:33) There is nothing worth clinging to except Christ Himself.
As is so often true in the upside down economy of the Kingdom, defeat, sorrow and loss surrendered to Christ become overwhelming victory, joy and eternal gain that cannot be destroyed by moths or rust. It is in this context that we are wrapping up a sixth season at the Ranch. Where I usually find myself exhausted and burned out, I am filled even now with joyful anticipation for what is to come! We are ridiculously excited to announce a partnership with Lake Springfield Christian Assembly for the 2014 camp season. Refuge was invited and accepted the privilege of serving as camp missionary next year. As a staff and leadership, we are already dreaming about specific ways that we can more intentionally share the gospel and invest in the spiritual growth of the kids who participate at the Ranch. And personally, we are finally beginning to find that rhythm as a family. Not that we have arrived! Not even close. But more than ever, the cry of my heart is this:
“I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of His resurrection and participation in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death,and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.
Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”
Philippians 3:10-12
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