Obedience

My blogger/photographer friend Ashley is on a blogcation this week, but that isn't stopping her from having some great and encouraging guest posts this week. This morning, I woke up to a wonderful guest post by Kel of Then There Were 5.

Kel and her family lived in China for quite some time, but have been back in America for three years after feeling God calling them back here to serve him in a new way. Sound familiar?

I don't know Kel, but I could tell by that one article how much she loved China. She says:

Every time we would come home, people would say "It's amazing you can do that sort of missions" or "I could never do that...leave my family....go to a foreign country...leave the comforts of America." To which I would say "oh, I just love it...I think that's why I can do it." God gave me that love.

Sound familiar?

A walk in the forest around the camp in Moldova.

Kel has some very encouraging things to say about serving God in America, and then she quotes a beautiful poem that I'd never heard before, and it spoke to me so very, very much. In Moldova, we literally lived in the middle of a forest, and the country is full of huge fields of flowers-- mostly sunflowers and poppies. Now, we live in the middle of the city, and, although we know this is where God wants us to be right now, I struggle a lot with missing Moldova and wishing we could go back there. So much so that I teared up just now thinking about it. My favorite part of the poem says:

I cast one look at the fields,
Then set my face to the town;
He said, “My child, do you yield?
Will you leave the flowers for the crown?” 

Then into His hand went mine;
And into my heart came He;
And I walk in a light divine,
The path I had feared to see.

I know that probably seems strange to many people... for it to be hard for me to leave the poor, foreign country that's half a world away from our families and come back to the nice, shiny American city where everything we could possibly want is at our fingertips... but it's true. And it's nice to find others who understand. I am choosing every day to honor God here and now in this life that he has called us to right now, even when my heart desires the flowers of the fields of Moldova.

Click on over to read Kel's whole post and the whole poem on Ashley's blog.