Have you ever thought that you are where you are when you are just for one soul?

Maybe it’s been 20 months or 20 years or 20 days in your current vocation, but you’ve found yourself still looking for reasons that explain why you do what you do.

I’m almost exactly at six months in my position as an in-home counselor and if I ever doubted why I spent the last half year doing this work, I got my answer this week. I had two littles in my backseat and we were singing an old gem of a camp song together. I thought it combined the right amount of encouragement toward healthy eating habits while weaving in excitement about delight in the Lord.

I like bananas
I know that mangoes are sweet
I like papayas (papayas!)
But nothing can beat
that sweeeeeeeet love of God

I’ve been walking-round-in-circles-five-miles-per-hour,
tryin’a find my way back to my Heavenly Father
the world tastes sweet but soon it tastes sour
then I ask Him in and I receive His power

We sang it several times, like a loop actually, because at the end we would bounce back and forth with “O!” until our “O!s” ran together and we swung into the bananas again. I saw the actions pumping in my rear view mirror and a smile stretched across my banana singing face. Some time in the middle there, between raps and bridges and verses and O-O-Os, one of the littles asked if we could pray. I gulped past the lump of months prayed for this case and the helpless mound of messes it was stuck inside. I looked into that rear-view mirror and said, “That’s a great idea. I’ll start.”

Before I could say amen, she said, “Now, it’s my turn.” And, oh! What tenderness came from that little one! She rounded it out by saying, “A-num.” After we talked about prayer (and how she can pray whenever and wherever she wants because God loves to listen to us), she thought she had more to pray, so we prayed again. Then we talked about how we can pray about anything – things that make us sad or frustrated or happy or afraid – and there were a few more things she wanted to add, as long as God was listening.

Then we started with the bananas again.

This moment – this one case, this one child, and this one family. This. Maybe every bit of my six months in this vocation has been for such a time as this. So that I can sing about bananas and mangoes and the sweetness of Jesus that is better than all fruit combined.

If every 14-hour-day had moments like these, working might happen with a little less effort. But I also wouldn’t rejoice as deeply or depend as desperately on the Lord for His provision of grace.

Maybe all this – whatever this is for you – is for one single, solitary soul. And, friend, I want to tell you today that that soul is worth every 14-hour-day of frustration. Worth every banana singing face and a million more. Keep pressing on – further up and further in, believing God is glorified by your faith that He is sovereign over moments like these.

Because Jesus left the 99 to rescue that one single, solitary lamb and then became a helpless Lamb to ensure our rescue could be complete.