That Changes Everything

I never knew a piece of paper could change everything.

It doesn’t really change anything in the present, but it changes our future – it creates possibilities that were never there before, and with great possibility comes greater responsibility.

 This piece of paper, which looks nothing but common, is a court-order for my official guardianship of Lucia and Benji. I’ve been raising them no different than if they were my own regardless of having an “official” document, but it definitely changes their future! They can travel with me now, and I have more responsibility to commit to caring for them for the next ten years as well. Looking back at the last 8 here at Hosea’s Heart and looking ahead towards the next 10 has left me utterly anxious and stressed. Benji is now getting older and the girls coming into Hosea’s Heart are now around his age; he is no longer the cute baby boy. He is a growing boy and has much different needs than what is offered here at the girls home. The cases that we have received lately are horrific things done to toddler girls, that by age 7 they are conditioned to reenact the sexual violence that’s been done to them. We have to protect and provide healing for these girls just as much as I need to protect and provide for our only boy. I started thinking, do I need to move off site? Do I need to rent a house? Buy a house? How? With what funds? Can I build a different house still on campus but further away from the girls homes to create better boundaries and separation? Can I leave the girls home campus when I just moved here three years ago into a house I designed? A house that is small but perfectly conducive; it’s by no means perfect and there’s a million things I’d love to redo, but I still love it for all its coziness and the memories it already holds in just three years – it’s the hiding place, a place of bright colors and comfort, rest and fun that the girls get to come to when they need it, too.

 As I had been thinking ahead, all of my next step plans include the dream I’ve had from the beginning: a husband. And if you’ve been following my journey, you know this because I write about a future hubby all the time. Maybe I’ll get married soon and the husband will want to live offsite so that’s how we’ll buy a house and move. Maybe hubby will want to build our own house. Maybe hubby will be rich :P maybe hubby will be… hubby, hubby, hubby.  In my head, hubby was going to be the answer to all these problems. There was no “next level” in my thoughts about still being a single mom slaying life as it comes. Ha. No. Being a single mom was never, ever the dream.

 So I heard the Lord whisper, “All these plans of yours, Kate, include a future husband. What if there is no husband? Then what? Do you still want these plans? Do you still want to move offsite? What if you will still be single? Can you picture a life being single and happy?”

 No, I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. “You would NOT do this to me, would you, God?!”

 In my journal I wrote:

28 June 2022

 Papa,

Would you really expect me to be single my whole life? Ever since that thought the other day, I’ve been shattered. Cried my eyes out – puffy and red – all day yesterday. I’ve lived my entire life dreaming of this future husband, and I’ve been content waiting because he is going to come eventually. I’ve been dreaming about guys ever since I was in kindergarten! (hehe) Had a crush on Troy, then next year Levi, then next year Dustin, then Eric, then Jake, then Shawn, then Nick, then another Nick, then Chris…and onwards it went into college. A new crush basically every year. And post college I kept dreaming next level = always a hubby. And it was all going to be worth it when he finally comes.

 But now? What if hubby never comes? What if it’s my plan and not yours, Lord? I must begin to picture my life as a perpetual single mother. That changes everything, Lord. I don’t want to move offsite, but how do I raise Benji? As a single mother, I still get scared and still need community; I still need family. Will I never get my twin boys? ;)

 I need to dream of my future being happy without hubby – satisfied in my singleness, not as temporary situation, but as a life ahead. Surrender hurts.

 In my vulnerable state, Satan took no delay in throwing in his own punches. Thoughts of self-doubt overwhelmed me. Am I a capable mother? Am I fit for this? If I travel and leave the kids behind now, is that appropriate? Would I do that to my own kids? If I take them with me to the States, will the other girls feel betrayed and upset? Will the kids’ mom and my first daughter reappear and reconnect? Will she blame me and hate me for being a mother she couldn’t? For giving her kids a chance she ran away from? Can I truly care for these kids and myself and the ministry on my own? What about home? Where is home now? Do I stay on campus or move off? When I am Stateside, is there room for me and two kids to appear in everyone else’s life and schedule and space that side? What if I fall for someone but he doesn’t want this life? What if someone falls for me, but it’s too complicated? Where is home? Where will home be? What is next, really?

 In my prayers, I like to imagine what God might say to me if we were talking face to face. So this is what came next:

“You are concerned with colors and walls and home(houses).

But I am the Colors, the Artist, the Creator, and the Builder.

I am the Head, your Husband Redeemer. I will give you everywhere you place your foot.

I am Home, the Healer, Redeemer, the Hiding Place. I will show you even greater things than this.

Come and follow Me. I am Home.

With Love, 

Papa - your Provider”

Going to confession and Mass the other day really changed my perspective, too. After getting off my chest a list of sins, the priest responded gently, “I sense a spirit of restlessness in you.” And he began speaking to that and encouraging me to rest in God’s love and peace for me. At the word “restlessness” a lightbulb went off. That’s exactly how I feel! But I hadn’t known how to put into words the anxious movements inside my chest. Then at Mass, the reading was from Luke 9. “Foxes have dens and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head” (Luke 9:58).  

 Jesus had nowhere to rest his head. Even foxes and birds have homes, but for missionaries? It’s something we give up. Yet, I had forgotten that. As the priest shared the passage, he reminded us that while Jesus had nowhere to rest his head, his disciples did. He gave us the picture of John, his beloved disciple, who rested his head against the Savior’s chest at the Last Supper. What a beautiful picture of rest, of Home. And we are all invited into that rest, into that Home.  

 Instead of worrying so much about houses and walls and permanence, I needed to simply rest my head on my Savior’s chest and Trust Him.

 After reading a devotion on the story of Mary and Martha, I put myself in the scene and imagined what Jesus might say to me as the Martha of the story.

You take my hands in Yours and whisper, “Kate, Mary-Kate…you are anxious about many things, but only one thing matters above them all. Me and you. Come to Me, Kate. You are exhausted and burdened, and I will give you rest. Lean upon My shoulder. Listen to my heart beat for you. Spend an hour in my Presence, and you’ll spend the day in my glory. Mary-Kate Frances Martin, you are my delight. I marvel at you. Come, and let me love you. All my love, Jesus.”

 

The image stopped me in my tracks. God marvels at me?

28 June 2022

Jesus, sitting in your presence today is glorious. Away from shame and self-inflicting voices and accusations. Away from distractions. Immersed in You. I watched a small lizard, skin dazzling in the sun, with a stripe of yellow and all the tiny bumps and lines in its skin, watching an area of skin inflate and deflate on the side of its neck, watching it breathe – and being in awe of the Maker, the Artist, Elohim. Adonai, your attention to detail is enthralling. I was enthralled by the details of a tiny lizard.

Imagine. That’s how you feel about me, Jesus? Enthralled with me? Wow.

Now that – that changes everything.