Since she was very young, our now-20 year old daughter, Grace, has wanted to be a nurse.  In the past few years, that calling has more specifically become a desire to be a medical missionary.  It’s a noble cause, we love our daughter and we know that good parents support their kids so of course we have helped her focus on getting the education she needs.

But we haven’t been entirely on board with the missionary part.

All of the places she’s considered are a lot further away than 100 mile limit my mother’s heart has been ready to tolerate.   We’ve encouraged her to finish her education and go on a couple of summer trips, hoping that would satisfy her calling and leave her life here with us.

Last Sunday something remarkable happened.  We were watching a video of a medical missions team that was in Thailand 3 weeks after the tsunami that took thousands of lives and left thousands more homeless.  I began to weep as I saw one slide in particular – it showed a young woman in scrubs with a stethoscope ministering to a child.  In that one slide, I saw my own daughter – decked out in scrubs as she is most days, stethoscope around her neck, ministering to a child in Jesus’ name.

I began to weep and when I leaned in to Paul to tell him what I saw, there were tears rolling down his cheeks as well.

That night, when Gracie came over to do her laundry we confessed that our support was originally just out of our love for her and we described what God had done in our hearts that morning.  She got tears in her eyes too because now she knows we really are behind her – not just because she’s our daughter but because she’s going into a  world to minister to lots of other daughters in obedience and joy at the commission God long ago place in her own heart.

We are beginning to understand why this is so important – both for the people she will share her heart and skills with and for her own fulfillment.   We aren’t just supporting Grace’s goals, we’ve finally begun to care about what God cares about and embrace the vision God has given Gracie to be His hands and feet in Kyrgyzstan or India or whatever place He sends her.

Robin says a wise friend once told her “I would rather have my children in the center of God’s will all the way across the world than to live next door out of His will”.  Sobering stuff and something that resonates in my heart, even though it goes against my own desires.  I suspect I’ll need to hold onto that, even as I learn to let her go.

So many times we support someone else’s vision because they ask us to or because we love them and it’s a noble cause but not because we really “get it”.  Many of us have promised to prayerfully and financially support Pastor Andy and Robin for those same reasons.  There’s nothing wrong with that – we love them and we care about what THEY care about but do we see God’s heart for Thailand?  Or for Kyrgyzstan or India or the hundreds of other places where His own children suffer and haven’t heard?

I haven’t but I’m prayerfully trying to get a glimpse of His heart for people He created that have physical needs, that haven’t heard and that don’t live next door.  Not just because Gracie or Robin or Andy get it, but because God does.

When your heart beats, I want to feel it.
When your voice speaks, I want to hear it.
When your eyes cry, I want to catch the tears
I want to know you.

Our hearts cry out for intimacy with the Father – it’s what we were created for!   That means, in part, being moved by those things that move His heart to action – the kind of action that will one day take a young woman halfway around the world to bring healing to His children.

I’m glad she’s not going tomorrow, but my heart is finally at peace with her calling.  God will make sure she’s ready when it’s time for her to go.  In the meantime, her mom still has some growing up to do.