The hard in the 'Yes'. About a month ago my family said a big YES. We said yes to taking a little girl into our home via foster care. She's two and adorable and also kind of feisty. It's been a hard month with lots of adjusting for all of us. Moving rooms around, managing new therapy schedules, and collecting all the stuff a two year old needs but doesn't have. We are grateful for so many friends and family who eagerly stepped in to help with clothes, a crib, and lots of encouraging words. We are thrilled to be able to give this little girl a safe and loving home for however long she's with us.

Amongst all the beauty of this decision I'm learning that the initial YES was easy. I mean don't get me wrong, we took days and days to think and pray and talk about whether or not this is something we should do. We didn't take this decision lightly. We needed to be sure that we were sure before we took the leap, because once we took the leap we didn't want to turn back on the decision when things got too hard. Beacause we (I) knew they would get hard. This is our second run with having a foster child placed in our home and the first time was HARD. And it ended with that child being placed with another family (who are great people and eventually adopted him.)

We said yes and then we started living. Living out the day to day with more diaper changes, more crying, more giggles, more baths, more people to strap into car seats, more mouths to feed and one more broken soul in need of love and compassion.

There are so many things in life that we have the choice to YES to.

Significant others.
Ministry opportunities.

Whatever God wants.

We proclaim the big YES and it's exciting and fun but then there are a thousand more yes's we have to say day in and day out.

Yes to writing one more paper for a class you hate.
Yes to fighting for a friendship.
Yes to spending the rest of your life with one person.
Yes to raising children in this crazy world.
Yes to adopting from another family, culture, or country.
Yes to a job you feel like you're over-qualified for.
Yes to serving God in whatever capacity he desires.

Those are the hardest yeses. Because they take perseverance. And sometimes discipline. They take commitment when you don't want to and love when you don't feel it. They take compassion when your compassion is all dried up and grace when you've got none left to give. Saying yes to marrying your best friend is easy. Saying yes to picking up their dirty socks AGAIN or giving them grace when they're 20 minutes late... exhausting.

The big yes takes courage and risk. The little yeses take humility and sacrifice. Both are important. Both are good. Both will hopefully produce fruit in our lives.

Our work, the act of saying yes to God and then walking it out in our daily life, will never be perfect but that doesn't mean that it's not GOOD. We GET to do good work because the perfect work has already been accomplished on the cross. That takes the pressure off, doesn't it? His love for us fills in all of our gaps and that's a reminder I need on a daily (sometimes hourly) basis.

It starts with one big yes and then a thousand more yeses to follow.
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