The Little Red Wagon

Jesus, what I truly want is You. So often I don’t realize that You are what I’m really seeking. So often I start seeking for what I think I need - more time, a better routine, a different perspective, or an improved attitude. I think I need my baby to sleep better, my toddler to obey immediately, and their dad to be needed less at the hospital.

What my heart is really craving, what my soul is longing for – is You. I want Your presence. I want to know more of who are. I want to just be with You – to hear Your voice and be held in Your arms. Oh how desperately I need You.

“Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:29-30)

For weeks now I have been contemplating these verses in Matthew about what it means to take Jesus’ yoke. I want rest for my soul. I want to let go of all that I am trying to do in my own strength, desire, and wisdom and to embrace only what Jesus is calling me to.

Jesus, more than anything, I want to embrace this wild, crazy, free, and amazing relationship with You. How can the God of the Universe desire to know me and to have me know Him?? How can the Creator want to walk with His creation?? How is it that God loves me even more than I can comprehend and that He is continually calling me to know more of this love?

A couple weeks before we moved to Cameroon, we attended a 9-day orientation at Samaritan’s Purse (SP) headquarters. Toward the end of our time there, the leadership at SP had all of the families who were heading overseas with the post- residency program to stand up so that we could be prayed for. A young woman about my age came and laid her hands on us as they prayed. When the prayer time was finished, the woman looked at me with her eyes bright and said this...

“While I was praying, I saw a picture of a little red wagon. You and your husband and children were riding in the wagon. You were all joyful and laughing. I think Jesus wants you to rest in Him and enjoy the ride as He pulls you along.”

I was really surprised by this but I thanked her with tears  – I’ve not had many people share anything like this with me before. I held onto this picture as we left for Cameroon. Even as we were flying out of Nashville, my emotions strong and overwhelming, I picked up one of Nathaniel’s books to read to him and two different stories had pictures of little red wagons in them. I brought a small toy wagon with us that I put on our bookshelf here as a reminder.

But then I forgot.

The past few weeks I have been struggling with tension and anxiety. Jason and I have been miscommunicating a lot. I’ve been often irritable with the boys. I could feel joy, wonder, and peace slipping through my fingers. I wrestled with anger over some situations that people I love are in. I battled fatigue and frustration over lack of time and my always mounting ‘to do’ list.

A few days ago we attended a retreat for missionaries in Cameroon. The theme was “Praying through real life” and was taught through the book of Nehemiah. I talked with several godly women and tried to sort and pray through my frustrations and emotions about life lately. The primary ‘take home’ message from the Lord?

“Let go of the handle, climb back into the wagon, and rest in Me.”

When we first got here, everything was new and a bit overwhelming. We have now here for 5 months and things are feeling more settled. Because Jason and I made the hard decision of me not working as a nurse at all for now, I thought I could fill my plate with many other ‘little’ things. This has added up to me trying once again to do too many things for too many different people. And once again, the hardest person to please is me. I want to do and be all that I think I ‘should’. Oh, and I want to do it all ‘well’ (i.e. perfect). I am exhausted by my own expectations and feel like I am gasping for air.

I had one wise woman say to me at the retreat “You are in a very intense season of life with little ones who need you all day, a husband who works hard and long hours, and living cross-culturally at the same time. What if you do only what is necessary in this season for what GOD has called you to?”

I’ve had to do a lot of soul searching the past few days (and am continuing to). I’ve been asking myself... What do I need to let go of? What do I need to embrace? What does GOD really want me to be and do?

In the midst of this, I am also asking Jesus for forgiveness and grace to re-surrender the handle and to get back in the wagon.

I don’t want to lose my joy as Jason’s wife and the momma of my precious boys. I don’t want to miss the people that God wants me to live life alongside and encourage because I’m too distracted by my ‘to do’ list. I don’t want to lose the ability to laugh, dance, rest, and relax because I am trying to carry a yoke that I have created myself and was never mine to bear.

I wonder if the reason that Jesus says His yoke is easy and His burden is light is because HE is the one carrying it? Maybe we just walk alongside Him – communicating with Him - learning from Him – drawing our life from His?

I still don’t understand much about these verses in Matthew. I am constantly trying to grasp what it means to rest, abide, or walk in God’s Spirit. What does it look like in the middle of every day, real life?

What I really want to learn this year is more of what it means to embrace Jesus’ yoke.

I want to learn how to stay in the little red wagon – resting in Jesus and all He is, and enjoying the life He has given me. I want to surrender fully to His leading – moment by moment. I want to embrace all the HE has called me to be and do. As I learn, I want to encourage others to do the same in their own lives.

Jesus, please teach me, help me, hold me. Let me learn of You. Thank you for Your gentleness and humility. Thank you for Your endless mercy. Thank you for picking us back up again and again and putting us back where we need to be – in Your arms, in Your yoke. Thank you – for You.