WORN OUT. I sprawl it in capital letters as the introduction to tonight's journal entry. Maybe it's a desperate prayer or just an open admitting of my current 'condition'. I'm sitting cross-legged in a dimly lit hallway, begging our children to hush and go-to-sleep. Today, I'm just worn out and worn down. My neck, it aches without rest. My head, it pounds. Children argue over every little thing. We wake up to a broken-down car, again... our crummy old car. My eyes roll as I listen to the wind crashing through our yard. What was that? A garbage can? I don't have the energy to check. These thin walls feel so thick today. Can you relate, Mom?

Contentment, gratitude... the whole feeling 'peaceful' in the very moment - I fail at it all today. I yell after writing a post about not yelling. Yes, that's me. I whine. I lose my passion. I sit on the floor pouting and gazing up. "We don't know our direction God," I sprawl it in my beaten-up notebook. "What is the plan?" I'm like a child pressuring her Father for an answer. "Where are we going? What is our call? Uganda? Staying here? We are so clueless God. I feel like I'm spinning circles..."

I sit a long time thinking about all the unknowns in our life. Especially right now. I grimace at what a mess I feel. Several silent minutes pass. Finally, I breath deeply and hear whispers of truth. Isn't the "I don't know" just a great big space to fill with faith? Yes, faith can fill and then overflow. If we want it to. Tonight, it's a forced night. Some nights, it flows easy, others - I force it down because I know what's good for me. And Christ is always good for me.

I hear His whispers - purpose is lived out in the daily steps. We are formed and continuously refined in the seemingly monotonous. My weakness makes way for the Mighty One.

But can any earthly wonder, in Christ, be boring? Really? I wince at today's shallow heart - my lack of sight. Forgiveness, Lord... for an untrust. And an unwillingness to see the holiness of today. An immaturity that wishes away the journey. That worries away the weeks waiting for what's next.

I am a true mess and I know it and I easily can admit it. It's God who keeps me together, who breathes life into my being, who pieces all the fragments of me together and makes something out of nothing. Out of nowhere I hear it...

Live for tomorrow, and miss today.

Friends, the future will likely come. I mean, it may not, but it likely will. God has a plan, and it is amazing and incredible and so much more than anything we can imagine. He doesn't need us to worry about it. He's got it covered. The future, it will come.

Today, however, will never come again.

A mess, we are, but He meets us here. Right here, today, this hour. Even cross-legged in a shadowed hallway. He is in the wind and He is in the stillness. He is in the arguments and He is in the planning. He is in Uganda, He is right here in my small town in Ontario, and He is right there wherever you sit in your corner of this beautiful earth. And He wants to meet us 'here', wherever that might be.

Chaos threatens and we do have an enemy - but Jesus conquers all and in Him, there is victory, joy, peace... unexplainable, amazing peace. Peace, even when the storm howls outside your walls. Hold on to the faith that covers all messes and unwraps all the unknowns of this earth. There is a plan and it is all in His mighty hands. And, Mama... so are you, so are you.

xoxo

Cassandra