WARNING: this blog and the next few blogs are going to be snippets of my time in China
[LAST MONTH], because, for now, that is all i have to offer
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we had to show our passports at the door.
they won’t let a chinese citizen attend a Christian church service, but a foreigner is welcome.
we were greeted with tea, coffee, ice water, and cookies that looked familiar to home.
children [anyone under 21] were asked to gather anywhere they could find on the floor, so there would be enough chairs for everyone to fit.
i found myself [even though over 21] sitting on the floor with my contact’s sweet daughter.
we stood up and the worship songs began… Lord I lift Your name on H… was as far as I got.
the tears began to flood my eyes as the presence of the Lord overwhelmed me.
His presence is so thick. His presence and His beauty is surrounding China.
the pastor taught a message on accepting God’s invitation to behold empowerment of Jesus and not just having a form of Godliness and denying its power (1tim3:5)
he told us a story:
his son was sick… very sick. so, the father took him to the hospital to receive treatment.
when the nurses came back with the results, they took the father outside the room and told him that they were going to need to give the son a very painful shot, but that it would make him better.
they said they would have to use many nurses to hold the boy down.
so, the father went back into the room, and with tears in his eyes he told his son that the nurse was going to give him a shot… and that it was going to hurt, but that he [the father] was going to hold him down- not the nurses.
so, as much as it saddened the father to do so, he held his son down as the nurse gave him the shot [he loved his son so much]… as the son cried out, “no daddy, please no! why does it have to hurt so bad?! make it stop! please…” the father looked at his son and said, “son, i know it hurts, but i love you too much to let you stay this way. you have to go through this pain and hurt, so that you can be healed.”
God allows us to experience pain and hurting so that we can experience true healing.
with true healing comes dependency on the Lord.
with dependency comes the empowerment of Jesus.
this was what i had been experiencing over the last 9 months.
abandonment: leaving everything i knew behind
brokenness: letting go of who i thought i was
dependency: embracing my need for God to be Adonai [my master]
empowerment: stepping into my identity in Christ and who God intended for me to be.
[team TRUTH and team COOL living in China]
