6 weeks from now the World Fusion Team (my team) aka the G Squad is scheduled to launch to the first country out of the 11 that we will be living in over the next year! Everyone from the US will be leaving from LAX (Los Angeles Airport, CA) to Thailand. Our flight is at 10:50 PM, where we will fly from L.A. to China and then get a connecting flight from China to Bangkok, Thailand. We all got this pertinent piece of information today and I felt compelled to share with you all this great news!
“It’s beginning to sink in”, one my team members said in our fb group. We have yet to meet each other in person and I am honestly a bit nervous in meeting my “adopted” family for the next 11 months around the world. However, it is comforting to know that this team of individuals have been, is and will be apart of my eternal family in heaven! Please continue to pray for me and my team as we are still pursuing our financial goals in fundraising to go on this race.
I am an emotional wreck on the inside and an uptight/nervous stickler on the outside right now. I just spoke with with supervisor at work a little while ago about my last day and even though I said that I was a little sad and scared to go (which I am), I honestly can’t wait to leave as well! I don’t remember if I ever shared what I do for my 9-5 job……lol, but just to fill you in, I am the strengthening families coordinator at Asociación Puertorriqueños en Marcha (APM) for Everyone, a Latino-based health, human services, community and economic development non-profit organization serving the Philadelphia area. Working as a SF Co. for the past couple of years, my responsibility was to strengthen families within our community umbrella agency via facilitating and coordinating events that would help educate, empower and support children and families in the 24th and 26th police districts of Philadelphia.
I have grown to really love this position and take pride in the work that I have accomplished. I have met and established some really awesome relationships within the community that I work in. I am not looking forward to leaving those relationships. However, I have struggled a lot with being consistently personable/approachable with some of my co-workers which is why I can’t wait to leave as well. I know that that struggle has to do with my pride and APM wouldn’t be the first avenue where I have struggled this way. Heck, I struggle this way with some of my own friends and family!
Pride is just one of the millions of sins that I commit on a daily basis…but it is something that I constantly ask the Lord for forgiveness for…as much as I love interacting with people I also shy away from people as well. I get too caught up in my own personal assumptions or anxiety and end up missing out on opportunities where the Lord could have used me in serving that person or vice versa.
Here is a devotional that I have been reading and re-reading throughout the day, where the Lord is reminding me of his grace through his Son Jesus…everyday is a fresh new start filled with new mercies and grace because of the blood of the lamb. So if any of you have ever felt this way or are feeling this way right now, I am going to take a moment to pray for you and me to ask the Lord to help us and draw near to his grace during our times of need, which for me is every minute of the day!
Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. (Hebrews 4:16).
Every one of us needs help. We are not God. We have needs. We have weaknesses. We have confusion. We have limitations of all kinds. We need help.
But every one of us has something else: We have sins. And therefore at the bottom of our hearts we know that we do not deserve the help we need. And so we feel trapped.
I need help to live my life and to handle death and to cope with eternity — help with my family, my spouse, my children, my loneliness, my job, my health, my finances. I need help. But I don’t deserve the help I need.
So what can I do? I can try to deny it all and be a superman who doesn’t need any help. Or I can try to drown it all and throw my life into a pool of sensual pleasures. Or I can simply give way to the paralysis of despair.
But God declares over this hopeless conclusion: Jesus Christ became a High Priest to shatter that despair with hope and to humble that superman or superwoman and to rescue that drowning wretch.
Yes, we all need help. Yes, none of us deserves the help we need. But no to despair and pride and lechery. Look at what God says. Because we have a great High Priest, the throne of God is a throne of grace. And the help we get at that throne is mercy and grace to help in time of need. Grace to help! Not deserved help — gracious help.
You are not trapped. Say no to that lie. We need help. We don’t deserve it. But we can have it. You can have it right now and forever. If you will receive and trust in your High Priest, Jesus the Son of God, and draw near to God through him.
