When I'm afraid of deep waters

Sitting on the side, I watch. I watch them jump and splash, learning not to be afraid of the deep. They look at the line that holds the deep waters and I see their fear. The deep. That place where they know they can no longer navigate by themselves. I hold them and slowly take them to the edge of the deep and they hold tighter to my neck and I hold tighter to them because I want them to know that I won't leave them there.  Deep waters are scary and when you're dog peddling, you might just drown. Even they know this.

 As I navigate my home lately, I'm dog peddling. Keeping my head above water but still feeling the deepness of it all...a place where my feet can't quite touch the bottom. Clinging to the Lord with a vice grip because I don't want Him to think I have this. I want Him to know that I'm dependent and if He lets go I will surely drown. I keep looking at the rope that marks the deep waters in my life. I'm in the deep. I'm dependent here and without Him I can't make it through the next hour. It's a good place, just a very vulnerable place to be. I'm terrified trying to navigate the deep waters of having five extra children in our home right now because I am living in the midst of the uncertainty and risk and physical exhaustion threatens to over take me on the hard days and I want to swim back to shallow waters where I'm safe and comfortable and ignorant to the needs of others but I can't find one place in scripture that tells me to be comfortable. As I walk out my days I'm reminded that I love children and as I delight myself in this place that He has called our family, I realize just how happy I am feeding and holding little ones up out of deep waters and teaching them about the Lord and how He is the only one that can truly save them. I thrill to wake up and hear the bustling of voices that are waiting outside my door. I always pray, "Lord I can't do this. You will have to show up and help me." I open my door and 13 children are running my halls or needing to talk. Leaders being born as more responsibility is being put on older ones. I see them growing closer to the Lord.
 
 

Paul says in his letter to the Philippians that he 

"Knows the secret".

He has been well fed and he has been starving; he has lived in abundance and he

has lived with nothing. His revelation?

That he can do all things through Christ who strengthens. Philippians 4:13

This extraordinary task of welcoming 5 children into our home was not by accident. We had prayed for the Lord to use our family any way He wanted, to glorify Himself and so when He asked? we said yes. I asked, "where and how?" He said, "I will provide" and He has. I marvel at watching my husband rise up and be the daddy to so many right now. Whispering in my ear, "we can do this. It's beautiful and it's hard, but God called us to it and He will not let us go under."

We walk through our days still eating ice-cream, swimming and school. We are a lot louder, the bedtime routine takes longer, but is filled with more kisses. Yeah, it's a risk swimming in the deep. I look at the shallow end of my "used to be" life and remember praying to be used up. He answered.

So on this day I give thanks for daily bread and a table full of hungry children. The heat of a long summer afternoon and the simple beauty of my bed at night.