I can’t believe I’m about to do this, but it’s about time.
How do I say goodbye to everyone?
I don’t know, but it’s about time.
I’ve never left home this long, and I don’t quite know how to process it. Is eleven months even a long time?
It’s about time to find out.
Here’s how life has been going:
I just spent two weeks in Memphis with my best friend, Taylyn Jaye Wilson.
My sister. I love her. She has contributed much to my testimony and walk with Christ. I can certainly call her a God-sent friend.
God graciously granted me time with her before I left. I think we both needed it. We are both starting new adventures and chapters in our lives. She has just started dental school and is getting married next year!!
We had some adventures like…
- eating pizza in the hallway the first night because we were locked out of our room and waiting on the locksmith
- incinerating butter while attempting to cook popcorn on the stove because we didn’t have a microwave
- navigating a new city when we are country road girls (who puts the green bike lane between the straight lane and the turning lane?)
- looking at wedding stuff
- climbing the wall to the apartment patio because we didn’t want to walk around
- exploring Beale street and a shop with hoodoo stuff in it (and also eating too much ice-cream)
- pancakes and cheesecake for dinner while watching Pride and Prejudice and drinking tea
I will miss her.
She was always an ear to listen when I wanted to share what I was reading and what God was showing me. I suppose I will share some of that with you who are reading this.
What I was reading: I was reading through the old testament – Kings, Chronicles, and through the prophets.
I was reading about how Israel sinned over and over and over and over and over and turned away from God to other things. So much of what I read was their coming punishment for what they had done. It was quite dreadful. But through it all, God was there waiting to change his mind, waiting for them to come back to him, waiting to have mercy on them if they repented, waiting for them to love him back. God was patiently waiting.
The book of Hosea made God’s love so clear to me. God uses the analogy of a husband and wife to demonstrate his relationship with his people, Israel. Prostitution. That’s what Israel had practiced. Adultery. That’s what Israel had committed. Israel was far from God, but God gracefully and mercifully accepted them back as his people because of his promise and because of his love for his people.
To add to this, Isaiah 62 says, “And you will be given a new name by the LORD’s own mouth… Your new name will be… ‘The Bride of God,’ for the LORD delights in you and will claim you as his bride.”
I wrote this in my bible a few days later, “The Bible is a love story. But not a happy, lovey dovey love story. It about an intimate relationship that has ups and downs. Happy times and times of fighting and consequences. Adultery. Prostitution. Yet our God forgives and lets us come back to him. He still takes us back as his bride over and over and over and over, always letting us come back to him no matter how many times we leave him for something else. He takes us back, giving us chance after chance. He loves us and restores us. Not because he is weak, but because he loves us that much and wants a relationship with us. He has chosen us for the long run; for as long as we will stay, he will love us. Yes. The bible is a love tragedy. But God’s love for us is absolutely beautiful. How a husband should love a wife if he truly and deeply loves her. God is love. I understand more now, this thing called love.”
No, I don’t fully understand and comprehend God’s love, but I did have this sweet time of reflecting on his love for us.
God’s love is the Good News. No matter what we have done. He is waiting for us to turn and come to him. He is waiting to love us. Oh how he loves us, the bride.
Taylyn got that earful. Now you did too, but maybe you needed to hear it or be reminded of it.
God revealed more of his love to me through this scripture, but he also did it in another way to too.
So I have this fascination of how God’s relationship with the church, his bride, relates to earthly husband and wife. I had previously mentioned to Taylyn that before I got married, I wanted to study more on this relationship and the parallels. I didn’t realize until a few days after I read all this that God was teaching me about the specific things I desired to know about him and his character. That made me feel even more loved by him. Just writing these things about him makes me feel more loved.
Other things that happened in Memphis:
There are other things that happened in Memphis, but I don’t feel like I should go into much detail about them.
One day we were on Beale street and we met this guy named Issachar. We got to have a brief conversation with him before the security guard took him away. We did get to speak Jesus’s name in that dark place which was refreshing to the soul.
We also visited two different churches. At one there was a guy wearing an eye patch. I kept thinking about him throughout the whole service and had a strong urgency to pray for him–healing for his eye. As soon as the service was over, I made a straight line for him, but after my first step, it wasn’t me.
I don’t pray out loud. I don’t boldly walk up to people and start a conversation with them for motives to pray for them. I don’t ask someone their name and then tell them mine doesn’t matter, they will never see me again when they ask for it. How rude! I don’t pray out loud and I definitely don’t do it three times. That wasn’t me. Who was it? After his eye wasn’t healed the first time I asked if he believed that Jesus could still heal. He said yes. I prayed again. And again I begged God to heal him. But God didn’t heal him while I was standing there. Why? I don’t know. I believe he can. I’ve seen miraculous healing with my own eyes. I walked away to go find Taylyn and as soon as I walked up to her, I was myself again.
I’m confused about it all. I have so many questions. What possessed me to approach this man and why don’t I feel like it was me who did it? I hope that it’s because it was God using me as a vessel and that it was him speaking through me. I hope he did a work in that man’s life. It’s okay if I never know.
Wow. The last two weeks were great. Now it is time to pack because I leave for Atlanta in 5 days!!! Less than a week! August 2 is the day!
It’s about time I step out of my comfort zone and into more of what God has for me.
Spain. Morocco. Israel. Jordan. Lebanon. Cyprus. Georgia. Armenia. Azerbaijan. Kazakhstan. Kyrgyzstan. Mongolia. China.
It’s about time to cancel my phone service.
Oh, the mighty things God will do in the lives of the people we meet, in the lives of my squad mates, in the lives of the people around the world reading our stories, and in my own life.
I’ve fallen more in love with my God these last two weeks, and I feel like I’m getting ready to go on our honeymoon. It’s about time I found a love like this.
He has provided over 54% of the funds I need to go through several incredible supporters. There is about $8,000 left to go. Thank you all for the donations, prayers, and encouraging words.
It’s about time to leave.
For it is time for judgment to begin with God’s household; and if it begins with us, what will the outcome be for those who do not obey the gospel of God? 1 Peter 4:17
