Mountains and Valleys

Life is filled with ups and downs, good days and bad days, moving forward and moving backward. And while it would be nice to see continual forward progress in the kids and families that I work with, and in my own life, that just isn’t reality. We are all human. The ebb and flow of ups and downs in life is a part of humanity, as is the continual struggle of making decisions that propel us forward, push us backward, or keep us stuck where we are. And while we can pursue continual forward motion, I am convinced that we will never be completely free of life’s mountains and valleys until we reach the other side of paradise.

While these ups and downs can be quite frustrating, I think they can also lead us into further humbleness as they teach us to give grace to ourselves and others and leave us in awe and wonder of God’s perfect, faithful constancy in contrast to our fickle inconsistency. It also frees us to see our present circumstances from a new perspective—to know that our current valley or mistake isn’t the end of all things or even all that important in the grand scheme of things. Rather, it is a chapter in a much larger story that will end in the perfect plateau of complete joy.

So when Mario misses Bible class again or when Jorge comes home drunk after promising to quit or when I lose my patience and say hurtful words, I can continue in hope knowing that this is all a part of the messy, complicated process of being restored to who we were created to be. I can celebrate the mountains and not be consumed by the valleys because of the grace and mercy that our constant God lavishes on his fickle children.

So today I celebrate with Wendy, who is starting her own business, and Perla, who made the honor roll, and Jose Luis, who is a leader on his cultural dance team at school. And I join in prayer with Adriana, who is struggling to find motivation, and Yolanda, who feels trapped in a hard situation, and Leydy, who is struggling to pass math. Praying that God would give me and my fellow Back2Back staff members the patience to walk with them through the valleys and the mountains til we reach that perfect plateau.

In addition to continuing to pray for the hills and dips of Back2Back’s work in Mexico, I also ask that you would join with me in praying for my future. As I think about how I will be finishing up my Master’s program in 9 months and begin looking at what the future may hold for me, I see a blank page of both uncertainty and opportunity. I want to be wherever I can best seek and serve God but am not sure what that practically looks like. While I am unsure as to where I will be and what I will be doing after graduation, I feel called to continue working remotely with Back2Back until then by continuing to supervise a Mexican case manager and consult with staff on big changes we are making to our process of working with the families. An additional $2,500 is needed for me to continue this work through December. I would like to invite you to be a part of this work by financially partnering with me and would love to talk with you more about this. If you are interested in financially partnering with me in this work, you can visit https://donations.back2back.org/and specify that you would like the donation to go towards staff support and place my name in the donation memo box. Thank you so much for considering this and for all of the ways that you support me. I am so grateful for all of you.

I pray that you would see God’s presence clearly in the mountains and valleys in your life right now and that you would be comforted in knowing that you never walk alone.