(This was written in the beginning of March 2019)
In Adventures in Missions there is a really awesome women’s ministry called Beauty For Ashes, comes from Issiah 61:3, “to all who mourn in Israel, he will give a crown of beauty for ashes.” My team and I had the really awesome opportunity to help put one on in the village, San Lorenzo. We had a meeting with the coordinators, Betty and Rake (pronounced “rock-aye”), the day before and they filled us in on what the 2 hour retreat would look like. We were told that each girl on my team would be matched with a translator at different tables. Then, all the women would show up and would all be given the opportunity to share a couple different things, all through drawing with crayons. (They use crayons incase anyone can’t read or write, so crayons level the playing field.) We were told the women and ourselves would share in our table groups how we view God, a hard time in our life, and where God was in it. As the meeting went on, I was told that I would be one of the translators at one of the tables for my teammate, Lil. I was immediately filled with anxiousness and fear. I doubted my Spanish skills all afternoon, I tried to text my family but the WiFi was down. I put in my headphones to try to calm my nerves and these lyrics came on.
“I lean not on my own understanding, my fate is in the hands of the maker of heaven
I give it all to you God, trusting that you will make something beautiful out of me”
wow. Re-read those words if you have to. They are so powerful. The Lord reminded me that this was certainty not about me. That he choose to use me, he allowed me to study Spanish for such a time as this, to further his kingdom. I needed to stop doubting the knowledge that he allowed me to consume and remember.
Still fearful I asked one of my good friends, Anna, to pray over me. As she did, she reaffirmed truth in my life reminding me that God is going to do what he will do and that I certainly wasn’t going to get in the way of his plan, because I was a part of his plan.
I opened up my Bible trying to calm my nerves and find comfort when the Lord revealed this to me: If we live in God’s perfect love there is no fear, but if we live in even the slightest amount of fear we aren’t doing what our entire beings were designed to do, which is to be loved! I figured out that love and fear are opposites! Perfect love drowns out all fear that we have, it is our choice of where we will place our feet, in fear or love. If I chose to live in fear I would never realize my purpose in life, I would never experience the joy, excitement, and adventure of being loved. So fear or love? At that moment I choose to walk in Papa’s love.
The next day, we headed to San Lorenzo for the retreat and it was so amazing! Abba gave me ears to hear and a brain to understand the majority of what the women were sharing about their stories, and he handed me the words to share Lil’s story, as well as mine. He is so good and so faithful. Looking back, It was so selfish of me to be so worried about translating, this retreat certainty wasn’t about me. It was about Abba, these women, and them finding freedom! How faithful He is, and forever will be be!
