I've missed the One.

Kind of a rough season. Not because I am not blessed.  Mainly because I am not thankful enough that I am blessed. Always a head game with us ladies.

I miss my time with Jesus. Even for those of you who don't personally have a relationship with Him, you can imagine that the Jesus of the Bible is someone really cool to know and be loved by (even if you don't like some of his claim-to-be followers)(oh, and you are deeply loved by Him).  I truly had such a sweet/redeeming/all-encompassing relationship with God for a few years.  It was my foundation. It drove me to volunteer, to give freely, to love at all hours, to return phone calls and prayer requests at any time, to pay for people's rent, to keep my heart and wallet and most importantly, my time, open to anyone Jesus put in my path.

Because truly, that is what and who a Jesus follower is: one who will answer God's call at ANY second.  Anywhere, anytime, anyone.

I had the time of my life spending hours upon hours with my Little. She has changed my life. Like no one else. I dream of being like her. And she is 17. And I met her because I was following Jesus and he truly led me to that organization and then gave me her to be one of my dearest and most admired friends for my whole life. We have known each for almost five years!  And she is now the most servant-hearted girl I know. It puzzles her deeply that more high schoolers do not want to serve others.

Read more about/and from her, here

All because-I was available to whatever Jesus had for me.

And then he led me to volunteer with Children's Cancer Association. I met an amazing young girl named Caitlyn and spent time with her until her cancer went into remission (sadly it is back again-for the 4th time). After her I was partnered with a spunky life-giver, Lesly.  

Because-I was available to whatever Jesus had for me.

Lesly stole my heart. We spent a year together: having sleepovers (both of the Lesleys), taking her school shopping, going to the movies and dancing like we were crazy girls up and down the aisles, reading Narnia to her when she was on morphine, having her call me "Ginormica" from Monsters versus Aliens (she swore I looked like the girl in it-I just needed the shiny black unitard), visiting her in the hospital during chemo rounds, hanging out with her parents and watching Beverly Hills Chihuahua, doing anything and everything with the color pink, going on long drives so she could rock out to Miley Cyrus, taking her to OMSI, pushing her around her neighborhood in her wheelchair, and crying when she would yell at me because she was so worn out from it all.  She became one of my dearest friends. She was 9. 

And my heart tore, was broken, and felt pulled out when she passed away 2.5 years ago.  

Because-I was available to whatever Jesus had for me.

I MISS this.  I don't even know how to get back there. Life is so different now and I so want my daughter to know her mother as one who was always serving and loving others. But I need Jesus to do any of this. And I miss Him. I miss Him more than I miss my time with my husband.  This has been such a hard season, exacerbated by lack of sleep, but essentially driven by my lack of time to know God's heart for my life and for others.

So pray for me friends. I need a refueling by my Maker. The only one who we can truly serve with our whole lives: and in giving him everything, we get a life to the n-th degree.

I am missing the "n-th." And I have known it-it is insanely beyond awesome.

Love, Anna N

From a pure heart.

I have been more than honored to know my Little for almost four years (next March).  She is by far the most beautiful 16 year old I have ever encountered and my husband and I are always speaking of how amazing her walk through life is (in the midst of quite a few trials) at such a young age. 

She has all of the things that I desire our children to have: a love for God and a desire to know Him, a seriously deep beauty, conviction, passion, faithfulness (how beautiful in a 16 year old!), and dreams.

Here is something she just wrote that I thought I would share to hopefully encourage each of you "to be more child-like."

Lesley-you are one of the greatest gifts God has ever shown me.  It makes me tear up to think that He brought you into my life because you have entirely blessed and convicted me to live differently.  Thank you.

"All people have dreams they want to achieve or the majority of us do .A few days ago I was laying in bed and I realized how I didn't really know what to do with my life. I strangely sat in my room and started asking god what was my calling.. Surgery was something that I always found interesting.I remember being the age of twelve or thirteen and watching television shows on surgery! I have always been a fan of science. Though I figured that being a surgeon would be cool after becoming one what was I going to do? Later on that night I watched a video called Remember Nhu (www.remembernhu.org).This was my inspiration. As all people's callings should be based upon my heart was calling me to love people and help them. A summery of my dreams/calling.

I want to become a heart surgeon and use all the money to make or support organizations to fight against sex trafficking in other countries.Its horrible how these girls get treated and don't get to choice who they want to lose their virginity to.This is important because they are terribly broken and need god. I then want to buy a house and adopt or at least help all orphans and foster kids and teach them about gods unconditional love. I would rather adopt them all and become their mom but I don't really know.Furthermore I want to build a church or help build one in some other country.Most importantly become and be a women more of god I want to extremely love. 

I know this dream of mine is quite big. Some people even think impossible but with god and ambition nothing is.I've realized it's easier to have ambition for doing something if your doing it for someone else than yourself.In this case I'm doing it for him. I made the LORD almighty a promise a couple weeks ago on making a change in this world and I am going to do so.I am going to try.After all it took 1,OOO tries to finally create a light bulb(:

Now I would dearly love for you to try and live out your dreams.It might be put aside for a while because of family, problems, marriage and children not that any of these things are bad.Its important to know that it's okay as long as you return working on your goals, people after a period of time give up. Achieving them or trying to is what counts."

As Timothy Keller so eloquently states: "No child dreams of sitting in a cubicle when they grow up. They dream of changing the world. There is a mission."