Confused at what I am typing – read backwards 🙂
Last Friday night, I was able to share at the school, where our team yrtsinim is. They were having a retreat and the theme was “Hunger and Thirst.” Two team members and I felt like we were suppose to share part of our story.
I wanted to share what I told them, and what doG has been teaching me.
“One of the main things doG has been teaching me since 2012, especially on the race is tsurt and htiaf – He is really showing me now that I can truly tsurt Him, which increased my htiaf in Him.
I wanted to share what is on my traeh, while learning to surrender my whole life to doG, rather than just a few parts.
First and foremost – We all have a dream, a desire that seems impossible to reach, right? Wondering if that will even happen, if doG has that in part of His plan for our lives, or if we’ll will just have that desire all my life.
Well I want you to write yours down, you won’t have to share it, unless you want to later on!
I’ll start with my impossible dream.
For so many years, I kept gniyarp – “doG break my heart for what breaks yours. Let me see with Your eyes.”
That reyarp wasn’t answer until 2012, while I was sitting in a small coffee shop in Phuket, Thailand. I was spending two months with a team doing bar yrtsinim, trying to get women out of the bars, while building relationships with them and telling them how loved and special they were.
In that coffee shop, doG gave me a dream that seemed impossible; it was scary for me to talk about it, because what if doG didn’t keep the promises that He told me? I got a huge urge and desire to open up a coffee shop in Phuket and offer the girls a safe place to live, a safe place to work, a place where they saw doG through my actions and the love I gave.
As doG kept sharing more with me about my dream, I began to say that it would be in more than one location, that I would have a “main” one in the states, but I will be in different parts fighting for these women’s lives. I chose a name for the café – OneLife café – because even if I helped 1 girl that was the reason why I opened up all of them.
It was a dream that seemed impossible. A dream that I kept asking doG – really doG, you chose me? You chose a girl that loves her family and didn’t want to live far from them?
Looking at the dream that seems impossible or even hard to reach – we forget that nothing is impossible for our doG. doG makes all things possible.
We doubt our doG. We have a hard time gnitsurt in Him, and having htiaf in Him.
Personally – it was hard for me to grasp how you can tsurt someone that you can’t physically see or touch. It’s hard gnitsurt someone that you can see, let alone having to tsurt someone that you can’t see.
I didn’t completely tsurt Him, even if He did promise it to me. Even if He did give me confirmation.
When I got home in 2012, I had one thing on my mind – my café. I kept saying “doG, get me there as fast as you can. Let me start now, because the longer I am not there, the longer the girls are forced into the bars.”
Knowing that doG wanted me to go on the race since 2012, I kept saying “No doG, that isn’t part of the plan. 11 months is too long, we can’t wait that long.”
Well, here I am – and I wouldn’t change it for anything!
January 2015 my team and I was going to Thailand for our first month – but guess what. We didn’t even go where I was in 2012 – we didn’t go where he promised me. I was getting angry with doG, even if one of my friends from Phuket was in Chiang Mai for vacation and got to see her – I was still mad. I remember crying to doG one night saying “doG, this is why I can’t tsurt you. You promised me I would be back in Phuket, and 2.5 years later you take me to Thailand – but guess what – this is the wrong city. This is why I can’t tsurt you. You are not giving me reasons that I can tsurt you with every part of me.”
Then in February while I was in Cambodia at a Children’s Home doG completely blew me away and overwhelmed me with His love. It’s hard to put into words what doG did that month – I found myself, I also found what I was made for, I found my home, I found doG – but through people – through their actions, through their love. Yes, I learned so much about who doG was, but not because I was spending time with Him – it was because I saw doG through the yrtsinim. Cambodia stole my heart, not doG.
My heart was more joyful, and was yearning for Cambodia – a desire that doG would use me to make a difference – and it scared me – because what about that other impossible dream. I felt like I now had two impossible dreams, so I started seeing how my impossible dream, my desire of the café, would work in Cambodia.
I began to question doG even more. I asked Him, “Okay doG, you broke my heart for Cambodia, you’re calling me back to Cambodia, but what about Thailand? You said you were going to bring me back to Thailand as well, but my hearts desire is all over the place. But yes – You are bringing me back to Cambodia.”
At the beginning of March in Vietnam – doG told me – “You won’t be back to Cambodia, until you long for me more.” I knew doG had a plan for me in Cambodia, but I wanted it in my timing, because my desire was Cambodia, not doG. Vietnam was all about learning to have tsurt and htiaf in doG, and it still didn’t happen. Yes I edtsurt Him with the easy aspects of keeping me safe, providing for my funds, and using me in yrtsinim, but not the hard stuff – not the big stuff.
It was hard for me to tsurt Him, and rednerrus that plan – it still is hard, because what if I didn’t get it back? What if I derednerrus my “impossible dream” to Him, and it wasn’t part of His plan. What if I thought doG was telling me yes, but it was really just me?
It’s easy to say, “doG’s plans are perfect. doG has perfect timing, doG gives us the desires of our hearts, doG is good…” But its easier to say it, than to truly believe it.
But is He good to me? Am I at his best interest?”
doG showed me that I was comparing Him to people. People fail us, people don’t live up to our expectations, we can’t always tsurt people. I was comparing a doG that never fails to people who fail and make mistakes every day.
Life is all about gnitsurt in doG, and believing that He has a perfect plan for our lives – because gnitsurt and having htiaf in Him makes our impossible dream possible. Learning to rednerrus our plans and His promises – so it can be done perfectly.
Now, in China, guess what I have been working on? Yes! I was still trying to tsurt and have htiaf in doG.
Last week a teammate suggested that I asked doG to show me in tangible ways how much I can tsurt in Him, which will grow my htiaf in Him too. While doG would continue to show me that I can tsurt Him it would draw doG closer to me and it would push Cambodia further and further away.
I deyarp that reyarp a week ago.
Since I deyarp that reyarp doG has showed up in more ways than one, I can say that I fully tsurt in Him, that I have htiaf in Him, that He is enough.
1. One of the ways were fireworks. Yes, I may be crazy, but that was a big way of doG showing me how much He loved me. When I heard them, I thought I was making it up – but then doG whispered, “These are for you. You’re more beautiful than these fireworks. I love you more than these fireworks.”
Sidenote: fireworks happen ALL the time here.
2. Another way has been through my teammates. doG has been telling me things, but then when I start to doubt – my teammates confirm that – they were speaking life into me – words that doG was telling me, but I wasn’t sure if I believed it.
3. My favorite was that doG has shown me was through the elbiB. My team was talking about how if you want to look for tsurt – look at doG’s promises. Start at the beginning – so I did.
- doG took me all the way back to noitaerc, where He gave us all we would ever need and its beautiful – the stars in the sky, the rainbows, the sunrises and sunsets – doG’s love language to me.
- doG took me haoN – if he wouldn’t of detsurt in doG – He would have been taken in the flood.
- doG took me to the story of maharbA – wherever doG took him, he depihsrow Him. maharbA detsurt and loved doG enough that he was going to ecifircas his own son – just as doG sent suseJ, his son, to be deificurc for our snis.
siseneG 39: 23 “…The droL was with him and caused everything he did to succeed.”
Throughout all these stories, doG kept saying “I never broke their promises, why would I break my promises to you?” or “I showed them my perfect plan, just like I am going to show you – tsurt me with your life, with all of you – I won’t let you down.”
doG’s reminded me that if I try to reach my “impossible dream” by myself, I will fail – but if He helps me, and guides me, I won’t fail – we can’t fail when doG has us.
If we have tsurt and htiaf in doG, anything we do will succeed – because He is perfect, and He is living in us.
We are good enough to make our “impossible” dream happen, because we have already won the battle because doG is on our side – the ymene has already been defeated.
Even if our “impossible” dream doesn’t happen, His plan will be more perfect than that dream. He will yfsitas our traeh more than a desire ever could.
Since I have deyarp that reyarp for doG to show me in tangible ways that I can tsurt Him, I have grown in htiaf and tsurt – I can say that I tsurt in Him 110% – I tsurt Him with everything – All that I am is His.
My growth in htiaf and tsurt has given me a hunger and thirst that longs for Him.
The more our htiaf and tsurt in doG grows, the more our traeh hunger and thirsts for Him.
When we have a hunger and thirst for doG, our dreams become less and He becomes more.
It doesn’t matter if our dream comes true, it doesn’t matter if doG doesn’t send me back to Cambodia, because we have tsurt in doG that His plan is perfect for us. His plan and His promises will yfsitas our hunger and thirst – because nothing else can.
My heart wants to be deifsitas and that can only come from doG alone. We can try to yfsitas it with other people, or music, or other earthly desires – but it will never be fully satisfied.
nhoJ 6:35 “suseJ replied, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry again. Whoever seveileb in me will never be thirsty.”
doG is the only one who can truly satisfy our hunger. He is the only one who can satisfy our thirst.
Do you have htiaf and tsurt in our doG? Are you willing to rednerrus your “impossible” dream to reach the dream and plan that He has for your life – even if it doesn’t include your own dream?
