“Would you like to come on a mission trip?”
Young me hears: a really cheap vacation with friends!
Adult hears: take vacation days to go sweat doing manual labor in a third world country sleeping with bugs eating beans.
On my last mission trip with my childhood church my mama was asked to join… and yes, the latter statement above went through her head. But there she is, with me in the mountains of Romania eating beans for breakfast with cute little gypsies.
I remember asking her if should would go, with tears in my eyes, thinking about this being one of our last missions trips together while still living at home. So many years together, so many memories, so much of an imprint this treasure of heaven made on me. That’s my mama.
I remember halfway through the trip talking about the sweet little kisses from Heaven along the trip, again, so many sweet moments, so many sweet things. There’s something about these sweet little things that make all the difference.
What is a simple song to you? How would something so small move the heart of God? What are tears to you? How does a woman’s tears touch the Father’s heart to open her womb? What does a child’s lunch mean to you? How does this become food and faith for thousands in the hands of Jesus? What are these small things that He uses?
He loves the small things. He knows about every little thing about you from the way your pinky is shaped to how your first day of first grade went. He is tender.
I am so thankful my mama didn’t neglect to attend to the small things like the way she smiled at me, listened to me, and loved me patiently. I am also thankful for the bigger sacrifices like going on missions trips with me across the world with 35 hours of travel each way and manual labor, eating funny food, sleeping in a church nursery – these sweet things mean much to me.
Whether she likes it or not, I’m gonna keep inviting her.
Besides, it’s all her fault anyway. She took me on my first mission trip when I was 7 and now I won’t stop.
