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.  

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.

Two Percent Chance

 As the sun began to set with its golden African crown of mixed yellow and orange, I stood with one of the girls, soaking in every last ray before darkness set in with its winter chill. She shared her worries about life outside of Hosea’s Heart – will she fall like her older sister or feel hopeless like her younger one? “Will I have a chance?” her question aimed at heaven. When we finished our conversation, the sun had long gone down, but we didn’t feel the chilly air. We prayed together and were filled with a peace that seemed to even warm us. She left me with the biggest smile and longest hug she’s ever given. I said nothing extraordinary to deserve such a hug; I simply reminded her what she is worth and what she is capable of. It’s these moments I know I am right where I am supposed to be.

Later that same night, another girl came to me for prayer as she’s been struggling with physical pain attached to some deep, deep emotional wounds. I tried helping her uncover lies she’s believing; some she let me peel back, but others she wouldn’t let go of. “I can’t say it’s a lie if I believe it’s true,” she said. Though I knew it’s this very lie at the root of all of her anguish, turmoil, and even physical pain – “I am damaged goods; I can never be restored” – I couldn’t force her to see the light when she’s still feeling the winter darkness.

So I said instead, “Do I have a chance?” She looked at me confused, so I continued. “Is there any chance I can try to prove to you this is a lie?” She cocked her head in question. “Or do you feel like you’re going to believe this no matter what I say?”

The faintest smile began to curve on her lips and she muttered, “You have a small chance.”

“How small? What percentage?” I asked.

She answered bitterly, “Two percent.”

Now I smiled. “That’s all He needs.” She curved her brows in a frown and I answered the question she didn’t ask. “The two percent you’re offering – it’s not for me. It’s for God. That’s all He needs – just a chance, the smallest opening, even the weakest of invitations. So I’ll take the two percent!”

After we prayed, the air around us that was heavy and dark lifted. She left me with a smile on my heart and I thought, “This is right where I’m supposed to be.”

Sometimes we think our faith has to be huge to be worthy, notable, true. But Jesus says even if you have faith the size of a mustard seed – a mustard seed – it’s enough (Matthew 17:20). In a world where we are constantly given the message that we aren’t enough, and in a ministry where girls have to perpetual battle the lie implanted in them at such a young tender age of abuse that they will never be good enough because they are damaged goods, how amazing is it to remember that our two percent is enough. We don’t have to be 98% confident, we just have to be honest.

The place where Jesus meets us, whether in the winter darkness or the beautiful sunset, is right where we need to be.

 

 

Oceans of It

 I drew a picture once with the phrase, “Give me your tears of sorrow and I will turn them into joy. Oceans of it.” That very picture and phrase enveloped me in 4D as I stood waste deep in the ocean of St. Lucia last weekend. Warm and salty, like tears, the ocean waves wrapped around me like a huge hug from heaven. (Although the following day, the waves came in torrents, sometimes punching me in the gut and toppling me to the sinking sand beneath my toes, (ha!) but that was a different kind of joy and laughter for later.) 

There’s just something about the ocean. The surround sound without speakers, the humbling incapability of stopping a single wave. How small and vulnerable we are as humans, consumable by sharks or the angry ocean currents themselves, yet God decided we were the crown of all creation. Precious, delicate, breakable but rebuildable.

I needed this joy, the warm salty tears that fell from my cheeks just days earlier as thieves had broken into my house and stole some very important, sensitive, and precious items, namely a hard drive that has 10 years of life’s work along with photo albums of every child for the last 8 years and counting… They had been watching my house strategically for some time and knew our daily schedule. They knew what was in my house because they targeted the solar batteries and electronics: my TV, laptops, iPad, tablet, hard drive, and a fan. (The fan, really?) It wasn’t the loss of items or the breaking in that was the hardest, it was being strong and stable for the rest of the campus – being the “head of the household” I felt like I couldn’t be weak; I couldn’t be afraid; I had to be the strong one. But I just couldn’t last with that facade. I couldn’t hold it all together though I tried, and in those moments I questioned why God would allow this to happen now and why I am still having to face fears of being a single lady leading the ministry. Doesn’t God want me to have a husband? Isn’t that HIS plan, not mine, from the beginning of time that a man (husband/father) should be the head? Or if I’m meant to stay single, why did He pick me, couldn’t he have picked someone else with a packaged deal that includes a strong man? I’m tired of being the “strong man” I told God. And as I went on retreat that weekend to St. Lucia (it was planned for the graduates, and I almost canceled after the break-in, but knew that’s exactly what satan would have wanted), God reminded me that my weakness and vulnerability are beautiful and healthy expressions of Himself in me. And that the only Strong Man we need is truly Him.

While the ocean waves lapped around me, I watched my grown up kids (almost all in their early 20s) play like school girls in the waves. They screamed and ran away from the crashing currents; some belly flopped and dove at the waves head on. Some got swept under and stayed their distance, others stayed in the entire two hours, begging to stay longer when it was time to go. In those hours, my heart was filled with the most joy I’ve felt in a long time. Difficult to describe the kind of freedom I experienced as I watched and played with them in the ocean. Their joy was my greatest gift, my deepest delight! There could not have been any better medicine than that! It was the most carefree, stress-free,  uplifting, peaceful experience in a long time!

That night, as I reflected on the day in my journal and prayer time, I felt the Lord reminding me of that scene and whispering, “And that’s how happy you make ME, Mary-Kate. The way you felt watching your girls and the joy from within – that’s how YOU make me feel. You make me happy. I am a proud Father. I want to delight in you. I want to give you joy and give you more of these moments. Let me be Your Father and you be my child. You don’t have to lead all the time or be the parent all the time. Sometimes, you just need to be a kid again and let me love you.” With eyes closed I had this vision of me as a little girl on top of God the Father’s shoulders. We were both laughing and I was pointing to something extraordinary in the distance that I normally wouldn’t have been able to see had I not been on his shoulders. He was simply laughing, with a huge smile, enjoying me being so happy and excited at what I was seeing in the distance. “See, this is what I want to show you. I want you to have this experience with me. Trust Me, and let me take you to places you’d never go on your own.”

During another retreat session about the images of God, we were asked to pray over the images and discuss who God is to us and how we see God in our lives. The memory that came back was me in second grade giving a presentation on our heroes. Our teacher gave us an assignment to draw and talk about our heroes. While most of my classmates drew their parents or grandparents, I drew God and boldly proclaimed He was my hero. I got teary eyed thinking back to my second grade self, and how different I am now. Why hadn’t I connected to God as my hero in such a long time? And now was time to go back to being a kid and let God be my Hero.

With God as my Hero, we are making amazing progress on the break-in issue (they’ve come back twice for two more attempts but unsuccessful) and the support from people around the world has shown me once again, it is not by my own strength or by trusting in people, but in trusting God our Father, My Hero. I can be weak and scared and vulnerable because He is strong and stable and constant. He knows – every detail of the break-in, every detail of each thief and their own lives, where every item was sold to, and He knows the heart behind EVERY single person who has donated to help support our security.

I am moved to those warm, salty tears – but not of sorrow. Rather of surprise, blessing, and joy. Oceans of it!