"...take me to the hard places"

So here I am again, in that place of vague disatisfation....I have ALWAYS asked the Lord why I am here?  Not here on this earth but here in the United States....I have longed since I was a child to live in a foreign land and really thought I was headed there after a stint with YWAM, and Mark felt the same way...until the day he could not turn away the voice he believed to be God calling him to law school.  So, 18 years later I am doing to me what is not eternal...helping Madalyn with a history project, killing the fire ants in my front yard, making a grocery list, another load of laundry.    Don't get me wrong, these things have to be done but "In the light of Eternity" what significance do they have?  Yes, raising our kids to know Him IS eternal but that can be done anywhere and how much more impactful would it be to be doing it in Africa or India or China where we could serve and love those who have nothing?  Who don't have a church on every corner...or health, or freedoms?  My heart aches for these lands and I am so uncertian as to why God doesn't say "YES" to our constant prayer of "Lord send us"...Mark is willling, he has researched jobs in other countries, we have prayed to the Lord together to go and yet the "things" of our life  keep us here.  Law school loans we are still paying, a house payment, soon college.  I have the personality that includes being a  "visionary" and so I know that God can do ANYTHING...He brought us Hudson, a vision and dream I had also had since being a young girl and a 15 year prayer request.  Today he feel asleep on the couch and when I looked over at him, his beautiful asian eyes closed in sweet sleep I was caught  so off guard.  He is a real life dream sleeping on my couch...LOVE that after 2 1/2 years I still have to pinch myself that he is real.  BUT, I want to do it again.  If I can't go live somewhere else I want to bring him home a younger sister or brother, China, Ethiopia, a bi-racial child here...I don't care.  I want to take care of the orphans and yet financially it just isn't possible right now....not that we don't have the extra $$, we didn't before either, it just is so much more than that....and truly without the Lord making a way it won't happen.  

I do not feel this way because I don't "do" anything here...my job is working in a ministry where we share the gospel daily and support young moms who are facing uncertian futures.  I help lead a bible study, I am heavily involved in our church and I volunteer as often as I can at the kids' schools.....but its still here...vague disatisfaction.  

I looked at a blog today I haven't looked at in months and she summed up everything I was feeling...

f we are really following Jesus, we will go to the hard places. Being a Christ follower means being acquainted with sorrow. Because we must know sorrow to be able to fully appreciate Joy. Joy costs pain, but the pain is worth it.

So we go. This is where our family is today and where I hope to stay – loving, because He first loved us. Going into the pit, entering into the sorrow because He entered for us first and because by His grace, redemption is on the other side - again, and again, and again.

So, again...I tell the Lord "take me to the hard places"...