GRATEFUL WONDER

SO MUCH MORE than I asked or imagined? Well… I can’t see any big miracle right now. I came in weakness, wondering if I could sustain another Alcan trip of 5,000 miles—our fourteenth journey over fifteen years across these rugged, wintery miles.

We travel through mountain ranges, scrubby forest wilderness, smoky valleys, blowing glacier dust, over snowy, winding roads, and frost heaves. Dusk falls early. We peer intently through darkness and falling snow. Suddenly a moose appears before us! We brake… too late! A broadside hit knocks her off the road. Miraculously our truck sustains minimal damage and the moose disappears into the brush.

Before this trip I offered my “loaves and fishes” to the Lord. I said, Lord, I’m Yours. I’m getting older. I love the warm autumn weather at home in Spokane. You know what this very long, cold, curvy, bumpy, and sometimes dangerous ride does to us. Yet, You bought me with Your blood and deep down I know You call us to make this trip to Alaska again. Therefore, I offer to You my little faith and take this step in obedience. Please multiply my trust and glorify Yourself.

Rather than fly to Alaska, we needed to drive and make various stops along the way. The first night we enjoyed sweet fellowship with Canadian missionaries. The next two nights we reconnected with my brother and family for a wedding. Three road nights in our travel trailer brought us to Palmer, AK to reunite with our son’s family and delightful grandchildren.

The following week we served with Arctic Barnabas Ministry Family Retreat at Victory Bible Camp. God blessed us with many good conversations, fellowship, sharing, and opportunities to listen to stories of pastors and missionaries serving in remote villages. We also reconnected with supporters, friends, and our sending church in Anchorage for two days before driving to the Kenai Peninsula.

Nearly another week passed as we visited our eldest son’s family and additional delightful grandchildren, ABM staff, and friends. Each night God graced us with good sleep and each morning I prayed for God’s Spirit to revive and fill me.

As our trip nears its end I am weary. Glad? Yes. Thankful for strength and grace and purpose? Yes! Thankful for windshield time to debrief, process, and reflect on God’s grace and goodness? Most assuredly! Has God multiplied my little faith? Yes, in many quiet, beautiful, relational ways: sweet conversations, hugs, sharing, and reconnections became multiplied loaves and fishes. At first my weariness blinded my eyes to the relational miracles God gave to me. Now I finally see it!

Jesus didn’t want to send people away hungry so He multiplied a small boy’s lunch to feed thousands. He still does not want people to go away hungry. As we offer Him our small “lunch,” our small faith, our few talents, even our weaknesses, brokenness, and fears, He takes them, redeems them, blesses them, and uses them to reveal Himself to us and through us to others.

Two thousand years ago His hands broke that bread and fish to feed physically hungry people. Today He wants to multiply our faith and obedience to feed relationally hungry people. For Him to do the humanly impossible requires us to ask for two graces: We must ask Him for a gift of faith and we must ask Him for such a deep relationship with Him and others that we want to obey.

A warm and beautiful Spokane autumn beckoned me to stay in my comfort zone this fall. At my age, every excuse presented itself. Yet, deep down, I knew what God wanted. Thankfully, in spite of excuses and tested faith, God worked in me to will and to act according to His good purpose (Phil. 2:13).

In Philippians 2:3-4, Paul tells us to do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility to consider others better than ourselves. He says each of us should look not only to our own interests, but also to the interests of others. Then in verses 5,7,8, he says our attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus who made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, He humbled Himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross!

What small sacrifices I make in comparison! He left the glories of heaven (a far greater distance than 5,000 miles) and the intimate, perfect presence of His Father (far greater than warm climates or creature comforts) to enter our broken world and be despised and rejected by men. What amazing love!! He knows. He understands our weaknesses, our fleshly struggles, and failures. He does not despise or condemn us for them. He wants to bless us by multiplying even a little faith to give us more than we could ever ask or imagine.

I face one more challenge on this trip: writing, editing, and completing this women’s letter while we drive. Perhaps God, in His amazing grace, will multiply my efforts on this curvy, bumpy, seemingly endless road to bless you today in some small way.

God is able to make all grace abound toward you so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work (2Cor 9:8).

How sweet His promises!

THANK YOU, LORD, for loaves and fishes multiplied. I had so little… Not enough to share, but I gave my little to You. Somehow, in Your hands, You made my little much, So much more than I asked or imagined. We all went away… satisfied, and this child looks back in grateful wonder.