My days on the race are not always easy, somedays I am filled with homesickness that goes down to my very core. But then there are those beautiful moments that happen that make me smile and I know through that very moment The Lord is teaching me something, allowing me to experience it firsthand. Tonight, that moment came on the roof of the house I live in, where Imelda, a foster mom for Sarah’s Covenant Home lives with her four children. It all started as soon as she rolled up the rug in the middle of the room and turned up the music on her laptop, the worship dance party was in full swing. I’m not going to lie, I felt a little awkward at first. Here we are just standing around in a circle and we are just supposed to start moovin and groovin…to worship music. And then I looked around while I am doing my awkward side step and see her boys dancing and going wild, even lifting their hands to God. Imelda has taught these boys freedom in worship, yet there’s also a reverence in their home that the boys understand. She would remind them gently it’s not about them, all the glory to Jesus. This family lives simply. They dance together. They worship together, and at the end of every song, one of her boys shouts “Hallelujah!” That is abundant life. Here are these preteen boys dancing freely, not ashamed to dance and be silly. It was beautiful. Even the sight of Imelda going to each one of her children during our dancing and covering them in prayer, and having them close their eyes and receive it.
So what is it, Lord that I will need one day when I am a mom myself? Is it more wisdom? More patience? More grace? And then it hit me. The best thing you can do for your family, for your children, is to have your own intimate relationship with your Savior. It absolutely flows out of you and onto them. It was so easy to see that as I watched Imelda with her children. She is their living example of Christ. Some of them don’t even have a relationship with The Lord, but there she is being their constant, guiding them, lifting them up, disciplining them. The gospel isn’t just understood in her household, it is told to them everyday. It is written out on their walls as a weekly verse, it’s seeing their mom at the kitchen table at 6 a.m. every morning reading her Bible.
It is so evident that this woman finds her strength in The Lord to be able to do what she does. It’s a deep, intimate, day by day, minute by minute relationship and dependency on Christ that allows for Imelda to come from the U.S. to India, make her home on a roof and call these children her own. I pray that one day I will have my own home that lives simply, singing, dancing, and worshipping our Lord in such a pure way, not ashamed to call out ‘Hallelujah’ because He is worthy of our praise.
