I'm stepping into month 9 on the World Race. I have learned a lot about who I am and have walked out of my past and am just now learning how to step into my future. I am learning what that looks like for me especially concerning the ways He has equipped me in my gifts.
As I am at month 8 debrief, I am looking back over my life and I ask "where is God?" Not only has God moved and revealed himself over the past 8 months, but also where he has been in the past 30 years of my life.
When I was a child, God revealed Himself to me at church. My family were avid church-goers and I was taught all the Bible stories about the ways God loves us and one Wednesday night, I decided to give my life over to Jesus who is my savior and who has my best interests at heart. This decision was such an incredibly important decision even at the age of 6 because that choice put protection around my heart and soul for what was to come in the future.
As a teenager, of course I rebelled a little bit, but I KNEW right from wrong and that's how I began living my life. I was a rule follower. I did some things to break or stretch the rules some and I hid a lot from my parents, but God still protected me from the world in the way of my convictions about following rules. My relationship with God was more like that of a parent. I thought if I broke a rule, I would have a horrible consequence that would follow (I'd be "grounded" in a sense from the world).
As I was in college, I began really believing the lie that people like you better when you aren't such a strict rule-follower. I placed a lot of my identity into how others perceived me and I didn't believe I was fun or cool to hang out with if I didn't have a ton of friends. So I began breaking the rules. I went so far into breaking rules that my grades in school dropped tremendously, my relationship with my parents was falling apart, and I was putting myself in a bind financially.
I was hurt, my relationships were hurting, I hurt others, and I was living in the pit of hell. I was there and I didn't even know that I was in trouble until it was too late for me to get out of this pit by myself. (This was an actual prophetic dream I had several years ago!) I had willingly gone into hell, toyed with the Devil and didn't realize that he had no intentions of letting me go.
This is one of the points in my life where that decision I made when I was 6 years old made all the difference. It's like the parable of the lost sheep in Luke 15. "Won't he leave the 99 others in the wilderness and go search for the one that is lost until he finds it? And when he has found it, he will joyfully carry it home on his shoulders." Jesus searched for me in the pit, grabbed me by the arm, and pulled me out! The devil has continued to try and get me back, but Jesus has a stronger hold on me.
These past few months, I have had the opportunity to see God not only in my own life and the changes that is happening there, but also in the lives of others and all around the globe. God is in the eyes of the orphans and widows in Guatemala who have nothing, but still thank God for what they do have. I have seen God in the life of Jesús, the pastor in Honduras who left his home to follow the call to pastor at a church over an hour away. Jesus is in the heart of Hellen who has denied her own desires to provide love and a home to children who have been abandoned by their families on an island in Lake Nicaragua. I saw God in the church we stayed at in the Philippines and how He has called up the youth of that church to change the world one bowl of soup at a time. I worked alongside God in the ministry Lighthouse in Action in Thailand that kept girls and women out of sex-trafficking and shows them God's love in comparison to the false love of a man. I saw how God works through art in Penang, Malaysia and how that gives a new and fresh approach and appeal to the youth of that place. I heard God in the English lessons we taught in Cambodia to rise up a generation fully devoted to the Lord. And I have seen God provide for a pastor to complete an orphanage in order for orphans to have a stable place to live and grow in their strengths from the Lord in Kenya.
God is working and moving all over the world and in many different lives and hearts. People are rising up to the call and are making a difference in the lives of children who will impact the world. I still have 3 months on this race to experience even more things like these. I am lucky to get to experience these things and see where God is and how He is working in the world. The work that He has done in my own life and in my own heart has been undeniable. I don't want this to stop after 3 months. My race is not over at the end of July. This is just the start of my story.
So keep me in your prayers. I don't know what I will be coming home to. I don't know what God has in store for me in this next season, but I do know that He still has a lot to teach me. Pray that I continue to follow God's direction for my life wherever that may take me.
Thank you for your encouragement and the love that you have poured out on me. I can't do anything that I have done without the "behind the scenes" prayers and encouragement that you all have provided for me.
God is good. All the time.
