//A Heart for Little Ones//

I can't remember when this passion actually started, I babysat for my neighbors at a really young age, taught Sunday school classes, led junior high small groups, held newborns into the night while their precious mothers managed to get a few hours of sleep. 
While my career may have changed several times, the focus of it has not. 
I have a heart for kids.
I'm SO glad my sweet hubby shares this passion. Good thing we have common passions since we get to live life together for the next 60+ years pursuing these passions together to bring glory to Him. 
There is just something so refining about spending your days with small humans who show you your own need for grace, your own shortcomings, your own curiosity and your own desire to be cared for by your heavenly father. 

If you know me, you'd only have to look through the pictures on my phone to know about this passion. It is full of pictures of the precious sweet little ones I am privileged to learn from on a daily basis. If you've been reading for a while, you'll also know that I don't put pictures of them here for privacy reasons. But oh I wish you could see my daily bundles of cuteness.


I'm so looking forward to seeing how the Lord uses this passion along with several others I'm going to share this week in the future. 


This is one passion I know isn't going anywhere....if anything, it will just continue to grow as more children work their way into my heart. 


I have talked about my role as a nanny here.
How disciplining children has taught me things here.
A trip where my love for children grew across a language barrier. 

This post is part of my 31 day series for the month of October, 
fighting through the fears and sharing the confusing passions I have. 
Hoping to figure out the bigger picture of all these interests.

{On My Heart} Mondays. [Heart's Desires]

Lately I have had a lot of heart's desires on my mind.

The Lord created me with some many different interests. 

 I'm in love with crafting things (check out my Etsy store), taking pictures and children, among many others. 

Sometimes I even get to combine all these passions in one activity which makes me very happy.

Lately I have had such a heart for children and adoption.

It has been slowly working its way in for the past few years, I have no idea why.

After finishing reading Katie's book, Kisses From Katie, I was feeling sad it had finished. Mainly because I can understand her in so many ways.  I fell in love with Africa when I was 19 but have not yet been able to return. Life took me on a different adventure, the Lord took me on a different adventure. 

So having this heart for adoption at such a time in life when adoption is not possible, I was discouraged and asking the Lord why He had given me desires for things which are not possible. Why not give me a stronger desire to work with children (I already am). Or another desire which could be possible with where we are in life.

Maybe because that wouldn't require any faith at all on my part.

'Delight yourself also in the Lord,
And He shall give you the desires of your heart.

Commit your way to the Lord,
Trust also in Him,
And He shall bring it to pass. 

He shall bring forth your righteousness as the light,
And your justice as the noonday.

Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him;
Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way,
Because of the man who brings wicked schemes to pass.'

{Psalm 37:4-7}

The Lord shall give us the desires of our heart when we delight ourselves in Him.

If these desires are from Him, then He longs to fulfill them. He is a good God.

He does not care about my being comfortable with where I am, with wanting only desires which are easily fulfilled. He knows I long to grow in Him, often that requires stretching my faith so that I trust Him more.

This verse is a reminder to wait patiently for the Lord. How difficult I find this at times.

He completes things in His time and not mine. So even if He gives me His heart for something, I may have to wait patiently for a while before seeing that be fulfilled.

When I was sixteen, I was in love with a brown-haired, blue-eyed boy. 

I didn't think I could love any other boy more than him. He was everything I wanted in a husband. He was my best friend at the time. 

I remember sitting in my room crying out to the Lord in frustration over our ages and how difficult the feelings we had for each other were at such a young age.

The Lord clearly answered my cries with

Yes, he is the one. But you will have to wait patiently for him. 

That was the first time I ever distinctly remember hearing from the Lord like that.

I felt an immediate sense of peace and even though the following years took us through some incredibly difficult times and everyone around me said we would never marry each other after all we went through. 

I remembered the promise from the Lord and never doubted that He had said yes those years ago to the young girl crying out to Him.

When that same brown-haired, blue-eyed boy pursued me after not talking at all for a year with the intention of courtship leading possibly to marriage, I knew the Lord had kept His promise.

I waited seven years from Him whispering to me His answer, to marrying the boy who won my heart. The Lord was in every step of our story, working things for His glory. 

'Because you are precious in my eyes,
    and honored, and I love you....'

{Isaiah 43:4}

The Lord loves us and considers us precious. He works all things to our good. Even the things we don't understand while walking through them.

At times, He asks us to wait patiently for Him.

'I waited patiently for the LORD; he turned to me and heard my cry.'

{Psalm 40:1}

'But those who wait on the LORD shall renew their strength; 

They shall mount up with wings like eagles, 

They shall run and not be weary, 

They shall walk and not faint.'

 {Isaiah 40:31}

'We do not want you to become lazy, 

but to imitate those who through faith and patience 

inherit what has been promised.' 

{Hebrews 6:12}

Do not grow discouraged my friends. If you have been given the Lord's heart for something. 

He is working it all out for His glory & He will bring it to pass in His way.

We don't know the answer in every situation but we know He asks us to wait for His timing. 

Waiting on the Lord leads to beautiful God-orchestrated stories. You will never regreat the outcome of waiting on Him.

Do not be tempted to rush ahead and make rash decisions, trying to write the story yourself.

Only in His timing are beautiful stories orchestrated. 

And when they are, they are like fingerprints of heaven on earth.

Much Love,

L