Smol tok nomo |
Smol tok nomo |
If I were to blog about all the lessons I am learning it would be entirely too long, If I were to blog about all the lessons I have left to learn it would be longer still, so I am going to focus on one that I took a while to learn but am finally starting too understand. If I share it than maybe it will help someone else like it is helping me. Its kind of common sense and you may think as you read this “she hasn’t already learned that!?!” and that’s ok. If so, than I am glad you have picked it up easier than I!
I am by nature a people pleaser. If I think someone is upset with me or doesn’t like how I do something I face temptation to dwell on it, and if it is something outside of my power to change, well I can tend to obsess. It is funny how God knows just where to put us to help us learn. Being driven by the need or opinions of others wouldn’t work where He has me now. In our case in particular, there is a very real felt need for schools. Many villages want one and don’t understand why they have to wait. If I am not careful I can think, “this is our job ,why we are here!” knowing that to them we are not doing our job because we aren’t meeting their personal need immediately. It is no fun feeling like you are constantly letting people down. I know that we have lots of work to do with the government to give these schools the best chance of making it after us, I know of the blessing the schools that have already started have been to their communities, and I know we have had to do a lot of observing culturally to develop the best policies and training in these formative years to unfold why so many schools have collapsed here. When I let my mind go to how God has lead us so far, and how He will continue to lead, I can have peace that He will show us how to move with each step He has us take. So what lesson am I learning? His timing is a game changer. There have been aspects involving government and politics that I have been tempted to want to try and fix. However He tends to speak in that still small voice, “not yet, not yet, ok now!” HAHA! When I wait for Him I have found some of the issues resolve themselves without any action on my part, I have watched God remove people opposed to Christian education, and I have seen impossible situations start to weld together in perfect sync, harmony, and unity. Because of this I can look ahead and see where God is taking this and that when we move in sync with Him and not by the pressures of men it is setting up to be done well -as He has intended. So the greatest lesson here? It was never up to me! I am just a tool in His hand moving when He says move and standing still when He says stand still. That is where He has me now. I am so excited too, because I see God setting things up to help us help others. So many pieces slowly coming together to an ultimate explosion of Christ centered education. I can foresee it done in a way that the villages can take pride and ownership for the role they play in their schools. So a quick recap of points to my God lessons in my personal walk: Wait on God’s timing. Don’t allow the pressures of men to cause action wait and listen to God. I f I try to meet all needs in myself I will break down and not meet any needs, so be faithful to the needs God places in front of me and willing to stretch as He opens doors to more needs. In short, keep your eyes on Jesus He promised to guide you and in the end, He is the one to please! Thats an honest open look at where God has me, Where does God have you? Any lessons you have learned lately that you want to share?
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Tonight I read a quote from A.W Towzer;
“ It is doubtful whether God can bless a man greatly until He has hurt him deeply.” This quote got me to thinking about my last few months. It is always perplexing to decide what you should share as a missionary or even how much you share. You are going to deal with the backlash of some who will say by sharing about your struggles (such as sickness) you are bringing the focus too much to yourself and not enough to Christ. I guess the more I grow I tend to disagree with that blanket statement. My mind goes to the scripture that says “we are made overcomes by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony” (Revelations 12:11). How can someone be an overcomer if they did not first have something to overcome? What I overcome may look different than what you face or what you overcome but the central truth is this, “we all need Christ to overcome.” Most know this past year, 2016, I have struggled with my health. I spent time in the local hospital with a kidney infection and eventually spent four nights in the Australian hospital diagnosed with dysentery and an all out battle with E coli bacteria possibly affecting other areas/organs in my body. My immune system had been weakened and normal life had turned into a struggle with so much sickness. Which is why I was thankful and excited to finally get the right medicine in a better hospital, I was excited to be done with sickness. In January my whole family got sick with something between a cold and the flu and I was excited that I was that I didn’t succomb . I attributed it to the Daniel fast I was on and clean eating and was hopeful my immune system was getting stronger. They all got better and thats when I fell sick. We had scheduled training in Big Bay bush and I assumed it was merely a cold and went ahead thinking I could rest while Nathan handled the training. Things took a dark turn and I was no longer able to cough as my head pain was so severe. It was all the markings of a tropical illness and I become nauseous to the point of nearly throwing up with the pain. My neck begin to grow stiff and the base of my head where it meets my neck hurts so bad all I could do was lay silent with the tears falling. It was in that bed sweating in the heat and away from what had become my home, I begin to quote scripture. I quoted scriptures about healing, about how God was able and nothing was impossible. I went over Psalms 91 and claimed my healing. I won’t lie I did feel in my heart that God had brought me here, and I was here to serve Him and He should protect me and keep me. I pleaded this with God in bed for two days but no answer came. I fought so hard the creeping thoughts of how God had betrayed me, how I had given God everything I had not held back a drop and yet He required more suffering of me. I felt alone and betrayed in the middle of nowhere on the other side of the world. Eventually it did get worse and when I could I would read from Job, not that I think what I faced was even slightly akin to Job, but my threshold for pain was obviously far less so I thought if only I could lock in on how he championed his pain. We had to head home a day early and if moving to cough made tears escape, off roading down a mountainside was a new level of torture. I rode with a rag in my lap in case I threw up from the pain. My husband watched helplessly as every jolt the tears just streamed. Obviously I couldn’t fight this on my own and would need antibiotics. I took the walk of shame into the local clinic hoping to get medication and be on my way but was given another blow, my infection was too high and I would have to be admitted to the hospital again. Where are you God? Where are you?! I believe those two days in the bush feeling so far away from God will stick with me the rest of my life. To be honest I still didn’t have complete victory a few weeks later but I did still have a cough when I got tired. We begin work on Jubilee School a few weeks later and as we went the full week without a day off trying to get everything done, I could feel myself breaking down, and I found myself sick … again. This time unable to keep my food or even water, I went nearly seven days without eating. On day five I broke. I am not proud of my flesh, but I never regret being honest with God. He sees what is in our heart anyways so there really isn’t any hiding. Friends, it is hard to share with you the ugliness that came out of me. I accused God of failing, of abandoning me, I lifted myself up self-righteously as I reminded him of my faithfulness through the years and of how I had my fair share of pain and testimony material. Now He had surely left me, and unjustly so! Now if you are a Christian and reading this please don’t begin to say things like “I would never say or do that!” not because of the affect it would have on me, but I wouldn’t want you to ever find yourself in this place. It was a place of brokenness not like the times as a younger Christian where I was so broken over sin in my life and cried out for a Savior, but a place of brokenness where I felt it was out of my hands and I had been broken to the point of ashes. Ive been done wrong in my life, come from broken family situations, been poor in my youth and lived in hotels and church fellowship halls, but through every situation I have always had my Jesus to walk with me. Not being able to feel or find Him in the dark was not easy. I felt like Peter sinking into the water, "this might be it God, this might be the one I can’t handle, not so much the sickness but feeling you so far away from me!" I wept. I wept some more. Then I begin to form the words “help me” please God help me. The realization comes in that He truly is our only hope. Who have we on earth besides thee? Oh the desperation for my Savior! Oh God I can face anything but life without you is more than I can bare! Please don’t stay silent when I need you most. I began to understand David somehow and his desperation in the Psalms. I asked my husband to sing a specific Psalm for me when he got home and he sang the following: “ Create in me a clean heart go God, and renew a right Spirit within me, Cast me not away from your presence oh God! Take not your Holy Spirit from me! Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation…” Oh at last I feel Him come! He is here! He has entered the room. I don’t begin to understand why we are called to the fellowship of His suffering. Maybe it is necessary to purge our flesh and purify us. I do know that of any suffering I may face nothing compares to not having Him in my life. If He is calling me to suffer so that others have an opportunity to know Him than I want to say, “Yes. I won’t quite, I won’t walk away. Lord, I will work for you until you call me home." My cough still lingers at night and some days I am scared of what I might catch next, but He has restored my joy and if He wills it I trust He knows best and is crafting something with my suffering, perhaps growing me for my own good. One thing I do know as His love covers the four corners of my heart tonight, He is a good God and I am only in the middle of my journey - He sees the end. He has given me all that I need to fight every weapon that is formed against me. Someday we will sit down by the Jordon and I can tell you the story of how I overcome, and you can tell me yours! Then we can praise the Lamb who was slain for every victory - rather healing, or sanctification, or whatever He brought us through. He does all things well folks. |
AuthorWife, Mother, Missionary, Teacher, Friend ... just a few of the many titles I gladly wear. Never dreamed this is the journey God would take me on. Archives
July 2022
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