Late into the night over cups of tea going cold, I heard her story and surveyed the landscape of her life from the outside listening in. My mind reeled and my heart ached as her words landed in my ears. There were problems I couldn’t fix; solutions I couldn’t provide. She was in a desert season — and I couldn’t change that.
The sound of humming lawnmowers and the carefree laughter of children playing could be heard throughout the neighborhood on that summer afternoon as I excitedly cut through backyards in an effort to reach my house as quickly as possible
Several months ago, I was asked a very unusual question as a room full of eyes were laid on me, awaiting my answer. “What quality instantly makes you dislike someone?”
As I have studied Amy Carmichael’s astounding rescue work, marked by such a dauntless commitment to seek and save the lost, I am continually reminded of the night when God seemed to pose the question, “What if that were Hudson?”
When our first child, Hudson, was four years old, Eric and I had a memorable conversation with a missionary who worked in an extremely corrupt and destitute part of the world. Thousands of children were dying everyday from starvation and neglect in the country where she served. She told us about a little boy who was just about our Hudson’s age.
My fingers glided over the small, wooden jewelry box, tracing the cluster of painted florals that graced the top. I noticed one of the hinges was broken, but that didn’t stop me from gingerly lifting the lid to peek inside to see what treasures lay within.
The joys of learning that Leslie was pregnant for the second time came as such a beautiful and profound encouragement in the latter months of 2006.
In the midst of a season of strange attack upon our lives, this joy-filled news was a shot of pure spiritual adrenaline into Barracks 28.
Leslie and I fell in love around a Bible, a piano, and the vision for Ellerslie Discipleship Training. The vision for Ellerslie originated even before the two of us exchanged our vows. It has been a deep part of our lives together — a stirring that never left us throughout all those years leading up to the day we launched it.
The sun was thinking of setting, so I trundled my way across the field to sit and behold its glory. It had been a whirlwind of a day, and — to be completely honest — I just needed a couple of minutes to regroup, pray, and refocus my mind and heart on truth before doing the next thing on my list for that busy day.