Life can be funny sometimes, meaning God can be funny and amazing all at once! I haven’t posted in awhile and that’s partly cause I have been grieving and still partly in denial which I am just realizing today. Today was the day I needed to have my next payment in for the World Race! Today was the day I was supposed to announce to the social media world that I was leaving with my squad, isquad, in September for an amazing, life changing, adventure called the World Race! BUT… Today I spent time with God, journaling, and reading the book the Ruth in my house in my hometown. Today I realized that I needed to rest and come to complete terms that I WONT be going on the World Race with the squad that I met and will never forget. My life never seems to go the way I picture it but the beauty in that is that it is going to be so much greater than I could imagine! Picture that… you have great plans and ideas for your life, you tell God what want and what you don’t, you think you know what’s best but God has a funny way showing you that what you don’t want is exactly what you need and exactly where He wants you to be. So I am sitting on my couch crying and laughing all the same time cause I have realized through this process that I wont ever tell God that I wont do something because its usually what He wants me to do and even more humorous is that after I do it I am so grateful that God’s plans are different and better than my own!
So here is my story of what God did at training camp for the World Race. It was the most intense experience I have had in my life physically, emotionally and spiritually! God stretched me and showed me so many things. He showed me that it is hard for me to receive love but that there are people in my life that are there to remind me of the way God loves me and sees me and I am so grateful for that love even though it doesn’t compare to God’s love, it will always be a reminder to me. If they can love me with all my faults and failures, Gods love for me is so much greater and deeper!!
They taught me what it means to grieve, to truly grieve, and let God speak His words and His thoughts over the hurts in my life. And man I didn’t realize that I really needed to grieve some things and let God connect dots of why I act the way that I do, and struggle with things. God rocked my world and brought me so much freedom and peace through it all! I cried with complete strangers who in such a short amount of time became family to me and I am deeply sadden that I don’t get to travel the world with them but I am so excited for each of them!!
God did something wonderful through this process of healing and grieving… He gently slapped me in the face! He in His lovingness basically asked me how I could go love on people all over the world but I couldn’t truly love all of my family, the people He brought into my life?! Wow, just wow!! There are relationships in my family that I need to be Gods love and not just say or preach love but be Gods love. I need to make the relationships with my family stronger and more like what the Lord intended them to be! God isn’t done using me here with my family and community as much as I wanted to leave and travel the world, God wants me home loving on the people here and rebuilding relationships in my family! The crazy timing of it all is that this is the first time in ten years that everyone in my immediate family lives here in Vacaville, my hometown. Talk about God lining everything up to bring restoration and healing the Galvan Family, an impact that will change the generations to come!!
While I was processing EVERYTHING that God was showing and doing in me, I couldn’t understand why God would bring me to this point where I had raised the funds, got everything I needed and was totally willing to leave to tell me to go home?!?! Was this my Abraham and Issac moment? Did God have to bring me out and away from everything I knew and loved to get my attention? Did He have to make me uncomfortable and vulnerable to take me to the place where He could heal and really speak to me?? The answer to these questions is YES!!! He brought me to my dessert place so he could do all these things!
But I was stuck!! I was afraid of what my team would say about me leaving and what everyone back home would say too! I am a huge people pleaser and I didn’t want anyone to be disappointed or upset with me especially the people that supported me on this journey. I talked with one of my team leader named Erica and she encouraged me and helped me process more. I than spent some time with God and He gently reminded me that He is my defender and that everything would be okay! I knew what I had to do but I didn’t want to do it! This wasn’t what I wanted but I was going to accept it. Later that day during a one on one debriefing with Erica we both came to the same conclusion that just because my race wasn’t on the World Race, didn’t mean I didn’t have my own RACE back home building my relationships with my family and being Gods love to them. She also told me to prepare for spiritual battle, that the enemy was going to try to bring fear and doubt over me and that I had to have a positive outlook on going home! All which I knew to be true and within an hour and a half of that talk I was on my way to the airport to go back home.
My wonderful boyfriend took care of the flight for me and sent me the info on my new flight home, which this peace of information is even more awesome later on in this story. But the attacks came very shortly after I had gotten in the car. I began to wonder if I was doing the right thing and my roommate, out of the blue texted me, “I am not even sure if you will get this or if you are checking your phone but I really feel like you need to know that God Loves you and is proud of you!!” I began to weep! Her text was so timely!! And this was just the beginning of God showing me that I am right where He wants me to be.
All I wanted to do my flight home was listen to my new worship music and sleep cause I was exhausted in everyway possible but God had a different idea! I had told God that I wanted to sit in the first window seat and there was one surprising close to the front. The older couple that was sitting in the row with the window seat looked nice so I asked if I could sit down and they said yes. Little did I know that this flight to LA would impact my life in such a way where I would never forget it.
As I started talking to the couple I found out that the gentleman had back problems and I totally felt that God wanted me to pray over him. (I had a couple people at training pray over me that I had healing hands and if God wanted to use me this way than I would let him) So I stepped out of my comfort zone and asked him if I could pray over him. I held their hands and prayed. I honestly don’t remember what I prayed about but I know I prayed for more than his back. The prayer moved him and it began this divine encounter. Pat and Lucy were so sweet and nice to me. They bought me a drink and shared there lunch with me and we just talked about every thing and anything. Pat than asked me out of the blue when I was going to go on my next big adventure and travel. I sat there in my chair and laughed in my head and told God in my head “Really you want to talk about this now?! It is so soon but okay I will!”
I proceed to tell Pat about the World Race and how I was planning on leaving on this 11 month adventure with God traveling the world but God had gently showed me that how I could travel the world and love on people and build relationships with strangers but I couldn’t even do that with every family member in my family. I explained that I wasn’t even supposed to be on this flight originally sitting next to them, that I didn’t even pick this flight home that I am on it but I am on it cause I am choosing to invest and love on my family instead of traveling the world.
What Pat said next with tears in his eyes, I will never forget! He looked right at me and said, “ You made the right decision. The decision most wouldn’t have made. The world will always be there but you aren’t guaranteed that your family will. Coming from someone who had the opportunity to love on there family and mend relationships, and didn’t! You don’t want to not try and than live with regrets that I have. I may have just met you but I am so proud of you!!”
The tears were uncontrollable for me! What he said was exactly what I needed to hear and God used a complete stranger to speak to me! To make it perfectly clear that I was doing what He wanted me to do! I was in awe of God! Pat told me that he hadn’t ever really met someone like me who was genuine, real, and kind and that I had impacted there lives and that he hoped one day that they would get to see me married with kids and how this decision would impact my life and generations to come! He even agreed to bartend my wedding!!
Pat and Lucy may have started as strangers when I first sat down but when I got off that plane; I had an adopted set of Italian grandparents. Lucy got my email and we are friends on facebook. She emailed me the very next day to make sure I was home safe! I honestly will never forget this sweet, wonderful couple and that flight to LA!
I was ultimately at peace besides a little worried about what life would look like now that I wasn’t going but I was just going to trust God and remember to never say never to God!! God had everything lined up… I still had my room at my house I live at, they hadn’t hired for position at my job, and everyone was thrilled that I was staying! This was going to be different year than I planned but I know it is going to be amazing and still life changing!! I have a wonderful life even though I am doing everything I in myself didn’t every want BUT God knows what’s best and what I need: I never wanted to be almost 26 and not married but here I am dating a fantastic, cute, loving, funny, real man of God who treats me like how I deserve and how I would want a guy to treat my daughter one day! I love my boyfriend Jack and am so thankful for him yet again I had told God I never wanted to be with an Asian and he is half Thai!! I love my job and building the nursery team and getting to know the families but I never wanted to be in ministry and here I am going on my 5th year working for a church! Again, all I can say is God is funny and amazing and I wouldn’t have it any other way!! I am excited for this new race that I am on and everything God has in store!
Thanks for reading this slightly long post and letting me share my heart with you!!
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