This month, we have been living and serving with the amazing staff of Y-WAM El Salvador. I feel so insanely blessed by all that God has done here. Our ministry varies from day to day, but all are incredible. One of my favorite ministries this month is evangelism. We pray and we seek the Lord, then we set out, with Him as our guide to speak to strangers…at the mall, in the park, wherever He leads. It has been the most challenging. But that’s exactly why I love it. It forces me to rely on God completely. There is no other option. A week ago I had an experience that will forever be etched on the pages of my heart. God lead me to an amazing woman. Here is my journal entry from later that day. The entire time I was talking to her I was also having a dialogue with God like I have never had before. So to help you share this experience with me… I am going to share my internal dialogue with my Father as well.
What I was saying to Him is pink. What He was saying to me is blue. And black is what was happening externally in response to this conversation.
March 14, 2014.
Valeria.
Today I prayed and I begged for the Lord to use me. I pleaded. Holy Spirit have your way. I was desperate. I prayed. I waited. I trusted. I saw an image of a woman drowning. Someone suffocating. Not forgotten. At the mall I was scared/exhilarated… God HAD to come through because there was no other option.
There was no room for me. I was pleading Lord please use me. I need you. I need you. The first woman wasn’t right. I was shaking. Lord, where do I go? What do I say?
Trust me. Trust me. Trust me Stacie.
Molly says to me “We are following you. You are the leader today.” Nerves. Anxiety.
Trust me. Walk. There she is. That’s her. Say hello.
Lump in my throat. Wait. She is smiling. It’s like she has been expecting us.
Tell her your story. No I can’t do that. I can’t just launch in to it. TRUST ME. Ask her if she ever feels like she is overwhelmed or suffocating.
Yes? Oh man. Okay.
Does she have a struggle?
Wait…she is talking about her boyfriend.
Tell her what I have done for you.
Okay. She feels like she is drowning. Three years.
Tell her Stacie.
Okay I am going to tell you a story because I know why God put us together. I was just like you. I knew God wanted more from me, but I kept settling and compromising. I made one choice and that opened the door for sin. I told her that I never thought I would get to the point that I did. I never planned on it. I ignored God and did things that I knew weren’t right. I cried for her because I remembered when I was drowning. I knew/know what she felt. I remember thinking I would never be free. I remember thinking I would die before I would taste freedom.
So I cried and she cried. I cried with a stranger in the mall in San Salvador.
I told her that Jesus set me free. I told her what the Lord has taught me. That He longs to give us good things. He will never bless a relationship that does not glorify Him. I told her that He has shown me that He wants to give me a man that loves me, a man that knows HIM, and a man that points me to Him. He is the destination. Jesus is the point. I told her she was worth more. I told her that I just met her but I loved her and I never wanted her to end up like me. I meant it. I love her. She is special. So she listened to every word. She cried and she told me “I am going to do it now. This is what I needed.”
She thanked me and we hugged. I shared a verse with her. God is so cool. At one point when she was talking, she put her hand around her throat to illustrate the drowning, suffocating feeling that has become her norm. It made me remember that feeling of choking on fear. But most of all, it made me appreciate my spacious place. That is where I live now. An open, grassy, flowery field-a spacious place of freedom with Jesus. So I turned to Psalm 18:16-19
He reached down from on high and took hold of me; he drew me out of deep waters. He rescued me from my powerful enemy, from my foes who were too strong for me. They confronted me in the day of my disaster, but the Lord was my support. He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me.
I’ve read it a million times but today I saw “he drew me out of deep waters” and I realized God speaks to us so specifically. When I prayed, hours before I even knew her and God showed me a woman drowning it was because He wants to save her, his daughter, from drowning. And He did. Today.
