The heart and mind are the true lens of the camera.
–Yousuf Karsh

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It snowed. A lot. Schools were closed the day before when all the snow in the earthly atmosphere seemed to fall on our town. But, here we were the day after and the only 6am call I got was one saying schools were opening 2 hours late. What that meant was that I was going to have to figure out a way to tunnel ourselves out of the 18” of snow burying our house. While the children were still warmly nestled under covers, I opened our front door to brave the storm and get us out, a task that proved more than a little difficult since our 4 year old had played with our snow shovel after the last snowfall and it was somewhere buried in our yard underneath that 18” of snow. There I was in sweatpants and sneakers with a Rubbermaid storage container lid attempting to make a path for us to get out.

My heart was in it at first. I was the pioneer woman, using whatever I had to forge a new road so we could press on. Go me! But, with every dig with that bending plastic lid and every melting flake on my cheeks, my heart got a little colder too.

Why was Mark’s conference this week? The timing couldn’t have been much worse. I had been planning to go with him, teach and serve by his side. But, because of the timing of it falling right in the middle of a handful of other very significant commitments, I had to both stay home from a retreat in Atlanta I had been looking forward to for months as well as not go with him as his partner in the work. My hands were starting to blister and my socks were wet with melted flakes that had snuck in. I snapped a picture of my plight and texted it to my husband just so he’d know how hard it was for me while he was uncomfortably hot on the other side of the world. With about 6 feet left to go, I quit and resorted to stomping on the deep snow until it was at least packed down enough so that the children could step on it to get to the cleared street so we could walk to school. And, I came inside.

Love—not the feeling of love but the action of love, love lived out—is made up of heart, head, and hands. Arguably, love should start in the heart and overflow to the head and hands as that love is demonstrated in service. But, I firmly believe that there are times when God calls us to love in a whole different direction. Sometimes, He calls us to love with our head and hands simply out of obedience fully knowing that in our humanity, our hearts are not quite there. Love cannot wait. We cannot wait for our heart to change so that we can then love with our head and hands as well. Life is too short and our hearts too entangled in our own frailty for that. Instead, he urges us on, gently directing us from behind as a parent guides a newly walking toddler in where to toddle. He knows that something happens in that obedience; our hearts tend to follow.

No one thanked me for making that path though my dear husband did text several sorries. My heart didn’t burst like the Grinch’s later that day, and I wasn’t supernaturally filled with joy and excitement to do dishes and laundry and clean the dirty puddles of slush from my kitchen floor. But, when we got all bundled up and cross-country skied in our sneakers to school that morning with kids giggling the whole way, I knew I was where I needed to be. And, I knew God was doing a work in me and encouraging me to keep on keeping on even when my heart was lagging behind.

That’s the God who loves me. The God who loves me where I am but doesn’t leave me there. The God who blesses me when I obey and serve by warming my often icy heart through glimpses of Him and His love for me. In this case, one of those glimpses came in the form of a plow truck with a neighbor behind the wheel who not only cleared our whole driveway that afternoon after plowing for nearly 2 days straight but then also stepped out of his truck and shoveled by hand what snow remained in our way, including those 6 feet I had stomped on in frustration earlier that morning.

Maybe it’s not such a bad thing to sometimes plow without a shovel. He may not bring that big plow truck to clear the whole road and fix the parts that you messed up that same day, but He’ll bring it one day. And, until He does, He’ll be working on that heart of yours to get it more in line with His so that you can love with your heart, head, and hands.

It’s been quite a year.

We hosted our first Together Called through The Sparrow Fund and realized we were a part of something much bigger than what we first thought. Mark went to China for 2 weeks to do some great work at a university in Baoding in May. We started doing this crazy thing called rais*ing support so that we could do an even crazier thing called quitting the full-time job in the finance industry to be a part of that China work full-time—which we did in October. I went to China, and he went again. We entered the world of middle school (insert scary Law & Order noise here), and our eldest shocked us by seemingly mastering middle school.

It’s been big stuff this year sandwiched between lots of little stuff with big significance too. Deeper conversations with the kids. Dinners together every night. Talking about what our family is about. A child going to Sunday School willingly who would never go before. A child celebrating the success of another. Lots of day to day little things that are over in a few seconds but become a mental souvenir of a season of life that I hope to not forget.

That’s been our year. Serving in new ways, leaping in new ways, looking back with a sigh, and looking forward with anticipation.

Join me as I look back. Over the next few days, I’m sharing a few snapshots encores, a way to flip through a scrapbook with friends and say, “Oooo…yeah…I remember that.” I’ll enjoy it way more than any of you do, no doubt. But, join me anyway, nod and smile, maybe leave me a comment or two to celebrate the snapshots of life with me.