It is strange that after 3 months of living in Guatemala, I am now about to live another 3 months in Thailand. Seriously! What is my life??
I also find myself asking where in the world has the time gone! and how do I write a blog for this time?
I guess I will start with something that really grabbed ahold of my heart in Guatemala and is still with me now even in Thailand.
It’s these guys!
They are in my every thought and in every one of my prayers. When I go to rest with the Lord in the quiet place, they are there in my heart as I sit at his feet.
I don’t know what is happening to me. I love these guys so much.
I have lain awake for hours almost every night and overshadowing my desire to go back to sleep is an insane desire to present each one of them before the One I trust and pray for his will and greatness for them.
What is going on with me? I didn’t even know them 3 months ago and now I love them as much as I love the closest people in my life.
What the heck?!
The crazier thing is that I know that they don’t love me as much as I love them. Don’t get me wrong, I do feel loved by them. They have welcomed me (someone they did not know and still don’t really know) into their lives, they let me speak truth to them, and they let me eat all their food.
Even in their love for me, I know some of them doubt my leadership and don’t see a purpose for why I’m there. Some of them pursue me, most of them don’t. Some days they are great and some days they do things that make me want to push them over a cliff
They are certainly not perfect.
BUT…
Still the love that I feel for them continues in overflow. When I look at them all I am able to see is the crazy amazing beauty that the Lord displays through them.
I see men and woman of God’s kingdom. I see the freedom and healing that the Lord will bring them into. I see the future teachers, nurses, preachers, husbands and wives, mothers and fathers who will bring the kingdom to the hurting and broken through their relationship with the Father.
It is in this place that I realize this is how the Lord feels about me. He loves me more than I can understand. He does more for me than I can see, that allows me to live the life I’m living right now.
There are times I don’t trust his leading in my life and assume that I know best what I need just because I’m the one living my life.
Yet in that, He still sees me as his own daughter and continues his faithfulness to me despite all the baggage I bring to the table. He continues to fight for me even when I’m not fighting for him.
The more I think about it, the more I’m overwhelmed by who I am starting to see he is.
With that, I am also seeing more and more another side of the tragedy of sin.
When I think of the fact that at one time I was eternally separated from him or that the only part of God that I would forever experience was his wrath because of my sin, I am overwhelmed.
I know in my heart that apart from Christ I am not a good person.
I know the thoughts of my mind and my heart outside of the control of the Holy Spirit.
So when I consider these things I am humbled and brought to my face with the knowledge that I am the recipient of the greatest grace and love that can ever be known.
I would know nothing of the freedom I know of now, if not for for the forgiveness and mercy I have received through Jesus.
God just keeps opening my eyes to these truths and the new life I now have in him and these past 3 months have been a gift of watching him do the same thing in the hearts and lives of the people I get to walk with and oversee.
“See what kind of love the Father has given us that we should be called children of God; and so we are.” -1 John 3:1
