#Anything

My Anything is this transient, fluid thing that has worn many different faces over the years as I have tried (and so many times failed) to align my life with the Lord in some kind of radical obedience to His much higher Way. 

My first real encounter with Anything and living life as that prayer was more than 15 years ago when I was a freshman in high school. After close to 8 school changes due to moving, I was finally at a school I would be able to return to the next year and hopefully graduate from. But the Lord blaringly and very clearly showed me that He had a different plan and it would be best for me to follow suit. So from private to public school it was and another transition for me that opened the door to so much good. 

Years later, during my college graduation season, my undergraduate "plans" of attending seminary/graduate school to become a therapist or social worker were hijacked by Anything. Despite the acceptance letters, extensive graduate school visitations, and many reasons to go, there was this big, huge, undeniable call for my husband and I to return to our hometown (never in our plans) and minister to the youth in the community through our home church (also never in our plans; in fact I had been aware of the opening for almost one year and had never applied). What we received in exchange was three beautiful years of sweet ministry that became the foundation of our marriage and family. Today, I can't even imagine it any other way. It was also during those years of ministry that God cultivated our burden for the fatherless and a passion for orphan care that led us to more Anything. 

In effort to learn and relieve the burden that was only growing on our hearts for kids in care, we took foster parenting classes and bought a bigger home with more space for kids. And then Anything whisked us away to totally new surroundings 10 hours from familiarity to a children's home where we could be FULL-tume foster parents rather than fit it into our already full life. So we emptied it. Sold our house and most of our furniture (granted, most of it had been rummage sale fodder to begin with) and closed a chapter in the name of this Anything adventure that became the most beautiful, hard, and full thing we had ever done. In the hardest, darkest times (which there most certainly were; don't ever let it be romanticized), Anything was most important and was literally what kept us moving and alive. There was this bigger-than-ourselves Reason for the difficulty and Source for the compassion and humility that was needed every minute of every day. And we were laser-focused for almost two years and distracted by the fullness of it when Anything came knocking. I was approached concerning an administrative position opening at the children's home to which I quickly and firmly said no. We had not left life as we knew it and moved across the country for an office job and what about my husband? We were in this together. In my simple mind, God certainly had no part in this and they were sadly mistaken. Several weeks later, when the opportunity had been put me before me multiple times, a friend asked me to at least pray about it. I verbally agreed but didn't pray. I knew God had no part in it. And that's when I missed Anything because I wasn't praying it anymore and I had shut out all voices except my own. My husband said I better pray and I said only if he would too and so we did. I ended up having to apply as a result of that prayer even though internal interviews were complete and my interest was very low. And then I got the job. And this peace flooded even though my head was asking why and I was crying about leaving the girls, but His hand was there. And every provision we knew to worry about, and those that we didn't, was taken care of within weeks. House, additional transportation, job for hubby, and answers...because it only took me a few weeks to see what I never could have seen from the outside of the decision...that the position itself seemed to fit me like a glove and felt hand-crafted to my passions and gifts even more than houseparenting had. And I knew I could be an instrument of His peace and reconciliation and was so thankful. 

While in that position we got knee-deep in this pursuit with a former youth and her case worker and the discussion of adoption and my heart was living in the fruition of the possibility when the court moved her out of state with a relative. While that was crumbling and not a second later, we found out we were (surprise!) expecting our next Anything, our daughter. This was was an Anything for us, though I know for many it is THE thing. But we'd been resolved to build our family according to need and only as God built. If a child already needed a family, we wanted to provide that rather than create one on our own. We thought God had been on the same page. Ha. She came screaming into our world as the most beautiful Anything I have experienced yet, and I drank deeply of this Anything with a great maternity leave and now everyday; she is the richest of grace in our lives. God knew we had much to learn and ways to grow that only she can show us. And I am so grateful and thankful that God knew better than me. 

Since then, I have transitioned into a position at the children's home with more leadership where I have been entrusted with guiding our campus through a program model change to a model that is so completely congruent with my relationship with God and others, the centrality of my Christ-centered counseling classes in college, my personal experiences with at-risk youth, and the finding of hope in the dark places of my own life. Um, I would not be leading out in this if I would not have had the exact path that has led me to today, including all my Anythings. And so there is this excitement and synchrony and harmony happening despite the enemy, my personal shortcomings and failings, and I thank God for teaching me this dance of Anything. 

Today, I am learning to find my Anything in the small, mundane moments of every day, asking myself to be careful not to miss them. Because I'm not moving out of town or in the fire of others' pain or selling my possessions or having to adopt "new" (God's/better) dreams, at times I feel distant from Anything. And I know I could easily get comfortable and begin to care more about upgrading my outdoor living space rather than losing myself in the giving of God. So today...it's harder than the bigger sacrifices that were so laced with adventure. Because today, I have to pray Anything every minute and ask for His guidance to not be lost on me. It is such an important place, this one I am in; I've called it my Esther moment of "such a time and place as this," and I could not have gotten here any other way. But now that I am here, I need Him in even bigger ways than I had ever imagined even though they seem smaller. 

And that's something about Anything: it's not so much in the big milestones of adoptions or moves or job changes or babies born but in the quiet surrender of each and every moment of every single day...and laying it all back down after I've Indian-given the heck out of myself and my life. Anything. Right now. Today. Tomorrow. Anything, Lord. What's yours?

*this post was written as an entry in Jennie Allen's summer Bible study of "Anything" - the prayer of surrender of all things to our God*