No Regrets

There was no way she could have known. In fact, no one knew. It was my own personal battle. Flesh vs. the spirit, and the flesh was beginning to win. She couldn’t have known. But I know my Father did.

She sent me this text: “Woke up today and just wanted to thank you! One of the things you’ve taught me is to take purity seriously… Listen, you didn’t just teach me, you’ve lived in purity… I’ve seen you choose to honor God over your feelings. You’re human and I know there are days you wanna be with a man but you’ve clung to the truth. Maybe you thought you were doing it for you but you were also doing it for me, too. It’s not easy to be different, but it’s doable. Trust me, you are doing just what God sent you to do. Love you!”

Without knowing, this daughter of mine sent this to me while I was in the midst of an internal battle and seasons of intense temptation. Sometimes God speaks to us so loudly you can’t miss it. This was one of those moments. As if He had a megaphone, He reminded me of my why. And like the Bible says, “No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.” -1 Cor 10:13

There was a moment when I felt so bombarded by desire, it was in my dreams and day dreams. It felt like there was no other way to make it go away than to just give in. “I’m only feeling this way because it’s all this built up tension and desire, so if I just do this one thing, then the temptation will go away and I’ll be satisfied.” I was so close to believing that lie that it shook me.

One day during the midst of this internal battle, we had decided to do a fast and prayer night as a family. But I was offsite. So I wanted to join them my own way from afar. I opened to Isaiah randomly and found a Scripture on true sacrifice that the Lord desires. I asked the Lord, “What do you want me to give up?” A name came immediately. The name of this guy I’d been fantasizing about. The one I was becoming dangerously close to doing something that I knew I’d regret later. “Lord, not him. Ask me something else.” But He didn’t. I’ve learned the hard way not to argue with God when I’m the one who asked Him the question to begin with. But I argued anyway. I bargained. How about this as long as there’s no that. But the truth was we both knew where this was going to lead to that. Then the message from my daughter popped into my head. God used it to remind me that my battles aren’t just for me but for my girls, too.  I eventually gave in. Not with a great heart, though. Fine! You always expect too much of me! I said as if I were slamming the door in my parents’ face as a teenager. Grumbling like the Israelites in the desert, I pulled out my journal and rewrote my promise to God. I wrote out what I was giving up. Then I wrote a message to the person He was asking me to give up and cut off any chance for more than brotherly admiration.

To my surprise, the moment I pressed “enter” and sent the text, I felt like my spirit elevated. My slumped shoulders stood tall. I felt a relief in my chest. I felt like a haze had immediately disappeared with the snap of a finger. I could see clearly!

What a liar! I chuckled at myself for entertaining the voice that kept whispering in my ear, “It won’t lift until you at least try it. Just do this, not that. Otherwise this struggle is just gonna keep getting worse!”

Liar. I spoke to that whisper. It didn’t get worse. Now that I said, “No,”(instead of compromises of maybe) I feel the best I’ve felt in a whole month!

“Wow, God. What was I about to do? How was I actually contemplating these things and entertaining these voices?” I used to identify the lie so easily, so quickly, but this time I made a few compromises, and the voice of the liar got louder and louder. It was never about my passion or my desires. It was about my faith. Did I trust God? Wasn’t the sin of the Fall of Man about this lack of trust? Eve entertained the liar, lacking trust in God her Father, that He had her BEST intentions at His heart.

For those moments, that month or so, I didn’t trust God had my best intentions. It felt unfair. It felt like I had waited “long enough.” It felt like others are enjoying the passion of flesh, why can’t I? It felt like He was expecting too much from me. And on the other side, I indulged in movies and scenes and thoughts and daydreams that were far from having my best intentions at heart. So getting rid of this increasing desire felt more and more impossible. “It won’t go away until you try it.” The liar said, and I believed – momentarily.  

But then that’s the crazy thing about obedience. I asked God only one question. Lord, what do you want me to give up? The answer came so quickly, it was as if talking to my own father face to face. When I obeyed – even though I didn’t want to – something changed. Isn’t that what happened with Abraham? He obeyed and it changed history! Mary, she obeyed, and it changed history! You and I? YES, our simple obedience changes everything. Obedience unlocked the heaviness around me; it was obedience that set me free, not disobedience (it won’t go away until you try it). Feeding my desire to get rid of the feeling, the liar sunk in knowing very well he could twist my thinking with the “good” outcome of “getting rid of the desire.” Too bad for him, fasting and prayer are a regular part of our Christian walk. And it is this very practice – fasting and prayer – that saved me from myself.

I wrote in my journal later Psalm 37:23-23 “The Lord makes firm the steps of the one who delights in Him; though he may stumble, he will not fall, for the Lord holds onto his hand.”  And then asked the Lord to purify me and turn my passion into purity because I am weak with want to give in to the flesh. “Jesus, my Savior, help me run from sin and not towards temptation. Deliver me from my very own flesh.”

And He said, “My grace is sufficient for you, my Daughter. Just don’t let go of my Hand.”

 And He gave me incredible moments of celebrating the most BEAUTIFUL hands of my own daughters decorated by purity rings! After going through a 7 week series on relationships from my good friend, a local pastor’s wife, a number of our teenage girls took pledges of purity and made public declarations in which they were prayed over and celebrated! One of the girls who had struggled to believe she was ever worth redeeming and that the word purity itself made her want to spit it out of her mouth confessed after the 7-week-series that she learned the difference between purity and virginity; that virginity can be taken by force and is not always the person’s choice, but that purity is a commitment that will always be a choice.

Our world wants to make purity look impossible or "beneath" our humanity. But it's an elevation of spirit and more than possible. It's a simple, daily choice.

Come and Get Me

In my absence, she grew distant. Suffering silently under an impossible weight of fear and failure, she gave in to the darkness that beckoned her. When I returned from my short Stateside trip, she was gone. She turned her phone off, she refused any of our calls. She tried to fully disappear. Knowing she’s not a girl anymore but a young adult, I released her to the Lord and prayed she’d return before too many natural consequences take her further away from herself, her Lord, and me. But in church that Sunday, I prayed for her. Prayer changes things. Not because our words can do any work of their own, but because prayer opens our own souls up to the Holy Spirit. As I prayed for her with my eyes closed, I saw a glimpse of her. She was sitting in a one room house, dark and cold and empty. She was sitting on a chair with her arms wrenched behind her back and her wrists bound together, tied to the chair. There were no sounds. She didn’t speak, but she looked at me. Mute, she called to me. Her eyes were big but lifeless. She beckoned without opening her mouth, “Please come and get me.”

 And the vision ended. I opened my eyes, startled by the direct phrase, “Come and get me.” The look on her face, the droopy and dead eyes reminded me of the day I picked her up only hours after she was brutally raped in broad daylight. I realized, though it had been over a year later, she was not where I thought she was on her healing journey. I felt the Lord showing me, “Kate, she’s still back there. She’s bound. She’s trapped. She’s broken and hurting. She needs Me. I am sending you.” It wasn’t a physical prison but a spiritual one.

The next morning I called an emergency meeting. I shared the vision with some of our leadership team. We discussed as colleagues what we missed the last year in terms of her healing journey. As we noted gaps, we came up with next steps. We had a proper plan in place, now we just needed to find her. But how? We didn’t have any clue or any way to get a hold of her. We contacted her older brother in hopes she contacted him, and maybe he could give us information. But we couldn’t get through to his number. So we prayed.

 Pushed by the urgency of the vision and prayer, the case manager and I got into the car after the team prayed for us. “Holy Spirit, you know where she is. We don’t. Please take us there.” With no clear direction, we got into the car and drove. Somewhere along the way, the brother called. He affirmed yes she had contacted him but he had no idea where she was. He named the city of the last place he knew she had been. So we drove there. We picked up the brother first and drove to the city with no idea where or how we would find her. Along the car ride, we had found out information about a boyfriend in this city. So we started looking for the boyfriend. It took all day, but we somehow managed to find his number (through the brother calling someone with the boyfriend’s same name, but it was not the boyfriend; incredibly, the stranger knew the boyfriend we were looking for and gave us his contact number)! By the end of the day, we had managed to call the boyfriend and he affirmed the girl we were looking for was staying with him. However, he said he was “far away” and couldn’t meet us nor would he give us information to find our girl. He said he could meet us later in the week instead. I was ready to give in. “Guys, we tried our best. At least we have a contact of the boyfriend now. Let’s try again tomorrow.”

 But our case manager was pushed by her faith. “Let’s not give up, yet, M. Let’s try to find his place anyway. One more attempt.” Not believing it could be possible, I agreed anyway because her hope gave me hope.

 Having the name of the boyfriend and a picture we found from social media, we drove around a bit and showed the picture and asked random strangers if they knew this guy and where we could find his homestead. We were directed to an area and told to ask around again. So we did. We showed a lady the picture and she hesitantly called her friend over. He came over and asked why we were looking for this guy. We relayed that we were trying to find our girl and he told us sorry he can’t give any info because what if we were trying to find the guy for revenge. We spent the next 10 minutes convincing them that we didn’t want revenge, we weren’t going to hurt the guy, just that we needed to find our girl. Reluctantly, he gave us a general direction but not specifics.

 We drove in the direction we were given and the brother said, “Stop, I think it’s here.” We stopped and parked away from the house and waited while the brother went to verify the house. Sure enough, out walked the girl we were looking for. I sprang out the car expecting her to look shocked or even try to hide from me/us. Instead, she looked right into my eyes and walked to me. As if she hadn’t run away to begin with, she looked like she was expecting me. She hugged me absent-mindedly but hot tears fell from her eyes to my shoulder. She didn’t say a word. But I felt her in arms surrender to the Savior. When I said, “Let’s go home,” she nodded without hesitation, grabbed her stuff and got into the car.

 This is a day I’ll never forget for the rest of my life. Not just because we found her and brought her home. But because God chased her! He pursued her. He ran after her! O the God of Hosea, the one who pursues and redeems and makes all things new! I’ll never forget the miracles of that day. How we left in our car with absolutely nothing but a prayer. And it’s prayer that got us through the entire day. It’s prayer that led us directly to her. Like, y’all! Seriously?! It’s prayer that did the impossible. It’s prayer that changes things.

 One of the most powerful but simple prayers I’ve learned in the last decade is this:

“Jesus, come and get me.” 

He does. He did. He will.

A Different Kind of Cind37ella Story

Saturday evening, the night before my 37^th birthday, on the ride back home from my sister’s lakehouse to my parents’, I swiped through pictures on my phone I had taken earlier that day. I stopped on one that caught my breath: Lucia, Benji, and Silas (my sister’s lastborn) were holding hands about to jump off the raft into the lake. I stared, my thoughts stopping time. I dreamt of this moment. 

 I used to pray that God would give me a pause button just once, so I could stop life around me in order to catch up or just breathe. In that moment, I swear He pressed pause for me. Life flashed back to both Christmases and summers where I’d be home for a visit, spending time with my family, especially my niece and nephews. As wonderful as it was spending time with them, there was always a piece missing; I couldn’t stop thinking, “Ah, Lucia and Benji would love this!” or “I wish the girls could see this!" or "If only Ben and Lu could meet their cousins; they’d have so much fun!” Ever since 2014 when I made the fulltime move, my heart was ever in two places – never quite whole.

 On Sunday morning, at 8:39 a.m., minutes after Mass began, I became 37 years old. During the opening prayers and Gloria, all I could think was – awe. Standing beside me in the very smalltown Catholic church pew I grew up in were two of my Swazi daughters, Ayanda and Chloe. I remember the day I met Ayanda like it was yesterday; she was 13 years old. One of my favorite early memories of Ayanda was when she once asked me (after I stopped at stared at the stars for the hundredth night in a row), “Mama Kate, do you not have any stars in America?” I laughed and told her of course we do but I had never seen them so beautiful as the ones in Swazi. I also remember her first time in a hotel room. She screamed like she had won the lottery, ran around the room, cuddling the pillows, jumping on the bed, and jumping in and out of the empty bathtub saying it was so great she could sleep in it! And to think, she was standing right beside me in my home church, two years after returning from America for her 4-year social work degree. She opened the way for Chloe, who was now just beginning her college journey at MATC. Looking over at Chloe standing in the pew with me, I smiled recalling the first moment I met her.

 It was 2014, just three months after I had moved fulltime to Swazi and became an immediate mom to many. I slept in a bunkbed but would get woken up at night from loud cockroaches on the floor, mice in our storage room, or knocks on my door from some of the girls who had nightmares and couldn’t sleep. But three months in, Chloe was my first personal placement. I remember picking her up and seeing how shy she was. She was so little, just 10 years old, and she pretended she didn’t know English. Until I said something that made her laugh, and she outed herself. After that, she spoke some of the best English of any others and has ever since impressed me with her language skills (she tested OUT of the college English placement test! That’s beating some Americans y’all!). Can it really be? That same 10-year-old is now standing in the very church I grew up in? She slayed her fears and took the giant leap of faith to follow her dreams, and now she’s here.

 Dreams. I couldn’t stop smiling. I wonder if the priest thought something strange was going on by the giant smile beaming from my heart to the crucifix above while he talked. Awe. I was just in awe as more recollections of the past month flooded me. My girls in America? Did that really just happen? Our tour, Scars: Up from Ashes, did that really just happen? My other brother and sister who had never met the girls before but now know many of them by name – did that really just happen? Lucia and Benji hand in hand with Silas their cousin? I mean… I cannot wrap my head around it, but my heart is swollen with it. Awe.

 I am just in awe of the way God has given me the desires of my heart. I am Cinderella, and this is my story. It’s not the traditional one, but it’s a royal one nonetheless. It’s a story of a Prince unlike any other giving me a world I only dreamt of and never thought could be mine. Two halves of my heart became one in a story so magical, only the King Himself could make it happen.

 So, although Lucia’s birthday note said, “I’m sorry that you’re turning 37 years old but to me you’re 30 and I love you so much!...” I couldn’t be happier turning 37. I’ve lived the heck out of my 37 years, and I have no regrets. (Mistakes, yes – regrets? No.) If God took me Home now, I’d be fully satisfied. I haven’t missed out on anything the world has to offer because my God – He is out of this world. My Father has blessed me with the desires of my heart: making it whole.

Lord, may my 37^th year of life be a living testimony, an aura of glory, pleasing to You and perfected in Your presence. I know I complain of loneliness now and then, and I still pray for an earthly husband, but honestly, with all my heart, You are enough. My Prince, You have already given me my Cinder37lla story, so I can’t even imagine the best that’s yet to come. <3

Even When It Hurts

Part of motherhood is the sword that pierces your own soul, too (Luke 2:35). 

I get that often enough to make it hurt – deeply. Words hit their mark, assignments sent to distract, disappoint and destroy. I think every one of them goes through this stage at some point, a wall of hatred and rejection, “I hate all of you!” and “I can’t wait to leave this place and be on my own” are the most recent. There’s also the “I don’t need you” and “I don’t want you” because “I am here because I had to be, not by my own choice.” Fortunately for me, I have the most magnificent armor, a prayer army of family and friends, and a love so resilient from a God who loves me like my own Hosea. My Lord is so close, and He speaks through my writing.

I had written out anger and poured out my hurt into my journal pages and then paused to ask for God’s truth, what does He say about this situation? I wrote with hands that were mine but words that were not my own:

“She is hurting. She is drowning in her own fear and tears. Carry her to Me. Only I can heal her. Only I can love her back into life again. Hold her for Me, Kate. Don’t scold her, just hold her. Be My physical body. I love you and have chosen you for such a time as this.”

Only because He loves me first can I love others even when it hurts.

"I have found the paradox. That if we love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt. Only more love." 

-Mother Teresa

 

When the World Stops

 Rays of gold and streaks of orange, this copper sun, setting like an African crown on the horizon, creating a magnificent backdrop to our basketball court.

A light breeze – no longer hot like the summer months when evening still holds the heat of the day.

A symphony of sounds – the birds chirping away like they own the place, not a worry in the world.

The touch of roughed up rubber, yet smooth from wear and the sound it makes dribbling the ball on the cracked cement.

The look of their smiles – oh their smiles – just a random afternoon of unplanned hoops with a few of my girls, and the feeling of their admiration at my “swish.” My soul smiles and pride of the past creeps in like the voice from the newscaster, “Hot-shooting Mary-Kate Martin hits another!” I may be old but I’ve still got it, I wink to myself.

She looks at me and says, “This is peace. This is the most peace I’ve felt in a long time.”

No words are necessary. Just the sounds of the ball on the cement, hitting the backboard, birds as our melody, a captivating sunset, and breath of heaven that prickles the skin.

The world stops in moments like this. Peace. Joy. Contentment. No “duties”, no “to-do” lists, no overwhelming feeling of time slipping away. Simply being present. Oh, the greatest present.

In moments like these, the world stops – joy is alive where peace resides.