his voice

Oct 9, 2012

My heart is spilling over with gratitude today. Gratitude for the goodness of God. Gratitude for His patience with me. Gratitude for His majestic love. Gratitude for His voice.

He has been talking to me. Helping me learn to listen and then to act. Blessing me with His guidance.

For as long as I can remember I have wanted to change the world…to make it a happier, brighter, and more peaceful place. I remember as a little girl growing up in our family grocery store how much joy I felt when I helped others get their groceries to the car, or find something they needed in the store, or brought them a smile as they checked out. I remember jumping up and helping others AND having a great time doing it. I remember playing knock-and-run to our neighbors and people in our town who needed our help. I loved it then and I love it now. I love helping people have a brighter day and a more secure tomorrow. In many ways, it is what I was born to do.

As a grown up, this poem sums up my feelings much of the time.

Motherload

Motherhood has ruined me for life.

I want to nurse the world
A continent to a breast.

I want to cut up waffles
For all the third world
Send the dictator to his room
Ground the drug dealers
Wash out the pornographers’
Mouths with soap
And spray organized crime
With Black Flag.

I want to make all the politicians
And all the executives sit on the couch
And memorize the golden rule
And stand up and say it in unison.

I want to grab a bullhorn
And announce to the world 
That barbecues will stop
Until all the litter–all the litter–
Has been picked up.  

Oh, I could fix everything
If they would all just listen to me,
Listen to me,
Listen to me!

I have such illusions of grandeur:
I am a mother

~Carol Lynn Pearson

I am one of those people who would run off to a foreign land and spend my days bandaging wounds, feeding soup, and giving hugs. I would…if I could. And maybe I will someday. But God has called me to labor here in my home as a mother and to nurture these children He has blessed me with. While they are my first priority, those longings to save the world are ever present in my heart. Thus, Make It For Maggie was born. It all started back in 2009 when I first discovered Katie and Amazima. I could not rest until I created a way to be of service to Katie and the children she serves in Uganda. Women from all over the world joined with me in sewing pencil rolls for Katie’s schoolchildren and our family’s fall service project was born. The next year, my friend, Jodie Palmer, created Maggie’s Month and once again, I knew I needed to DO SOMETHING. I could not, NOT do something. Kat and I started brainstorming and Make It For Maggie was born. That first year was amazing. Things came together quickly (in three short weeks) and the outpouring of love from our community was enormous. In 2011, I really didn’t know if I was up to it. I had just been through an incredibly difficult six months with a breast lump and a variety of treatments and finally a lumpectomy that took me two months to recover from. But, Katherine was willing and God spoke to my heart, and with many helping hands we were able to create another wonderful event.

This year, there was no question in either of our minds if we would be doing it again. We are in for the long haul now. So back in August we started working on putting all the details together. By September things were rolling along, but we couldn’t decide on who our recipient should be. We had several excellent nominations and one fairly obvious choice, but as we prayed, we didn’t feel right about any of them. We went on planning, finding teachers, and working on the website, but we could not select our recipient with any amount of peace in our hearts. It was bizarre. In past years we knew exactly who we were working so hard for and had a central purpose driving us. This year, we had to keep working without knowing who all of this was going to bless. More prayers. More pondering. No peace. More work. More teachers. More people asking us over, and over, and over again WHO the recipient would be. More courage to wait until the peace came. More nominations. More prayers. No peace.

This went on for weeks and was a tad unnerving. But, we couldn’t feel right about just selecting someone because they needed our help. We wanted and needed to have confirmation from God that who we were choosing was right.

Registration was supposed to open on Saturday, but on Saturday we still didn’t know who our recipient was. Then, finally, yesterday, the answer came, with power and peace, it came.

I know this is long, but bear with me. It is worth it.

Last Sunday at church, when my heart was breaking over our ward split that would be happening in a few short hours, God spoke to me and told me to ask my friend, Heather, if there was someone at her church (where we meet for iFamily) who needed MIFM’s help. I thought, “Oh, that is a good idea.” But, I didn’t do anything about it. I think I believed I could still solve this whole thing and so even though time was fleeing rapidly, I didn’t call Heather. On Wednesday morning, as I was showering before I went to the temple with Keziah for her first time, I heard God speak to me again. He said “Tracy, someone is adopting children and they need your help.” I thought in my mind “Oh, we don’t do adoptions, we do children with disabilities.” Again, “Tracy, someone is adopting children and they need you.” “Hmmm,” I thought.

Later that day at iFamily, I shared with Heather our inability to feel peaceful about any of our nominations and the prompting God had given me on Sunday to speak to her about it. She told me about a family in her church who has two children with severe disabilities and told me she would find out more about their needs and how MIFM could help them. I thought, “Hmmm, maybe this is our family. I hope Heather finds out more quickly so we can make a decision and move forward.” As I turned to walk away, she kind of mumbled something about another family in their church who were adopting from the DRC. I froze in my tracks and asked her for more information. She couldn’t give me much, but I felt like this might be the answer we had been praying for. I still wasn’t sure and was rather unsettled by the whole thing. I kept thinking, “We don’t do adoptions. This can’t be right…but what if it is?”

But I kept thinking about it. On Thursday I told Kat about it and she wanted more information as well. Friday I left for SLC and our amazing temple trip. Sunday was spent watching General Conference and then working on the MIFM website into the wee hours of the morning. Monday was the last day to decide. We had postponed registration from Saturday to Tuesday in the hopes of having our recipient selected and our registration process smoothed out, but here it was Monday morning and still no recipient we knew was right. I kept pleading with God to teach me, to show me who we needed to select, to show me the path. Nothing. More website work. Finally, I called Kat and said “We must decide.”

And then we knew. We were flooded with peace. We knew we were to select TWO families and that one of them was our obvious choice from up above and the other was the adopting family from Heather’s church. I immediately called Heather and found out more about this family. It turns out that Todd, is the Youth Pastor at their church and is well-loved by many of our friends. It turns out that they have been praying and working for many months to raise the money they need to travel to pick up their sons. It turns out they had just made an awesome movie to share their message and their need. It turns out their seven-year-old son, JT, had just prayed that very morning for God to send them help.

And He did. JT, He did. He sent two crazy mamas who want to alleviate all the suffering in the world, but know they can’t, so instead they spread joy and love and goodness and build a community of people dedicated to changing the world one family at a time.

I can’t even begin to put into words my feelings about this. It is overwhelming to know, clearly know, God led us to this family who has been praying for someone just like us to find them. It is humbling to think of being an instrument in His hands. It is my desire to more fully align my will with His so He can use me more fully to bless His children.

So grateful.

Want to learn more about our recipients for this year? Check them out over at Make It For Maggie, then either click on the Registration button or the Donate button and join us in Changing The World One Family At A Time.

Thank you, God, for teaching me once again whose work this is and how much you love your children.