I
have now been in Mijas, Spain for a little over three weeks now and it blows my
mind how time has been flying by. Getting more experience everyday on being away from home, and usually I
forgot that life goes on at home. This time it has been 
different. Being away from home and grasping that concept of life continuing is
hard for me to put my mind around. I now have a different perspective.
On Tuesday January 19, 2010 my grandpa
passed away. He was 91 years old,
pretty amazing huh! He was a man
that weeks before he passed away he was outside chopping wood for his
fireplace. He was definitely
one of my heroes. But being a
ocean away from my family has been difficult.
Lets
just say my life has been a whorl wind from before I left till now. A week before Christmas my grandmother
suffered a sever heart attack. Two
days before I was suppose to leave my grandmother had a seizure/stroke right in
front of me. At this point I
wasn’t going to leave the country anymore. I was going to throw my $700 plain ticket in the trash and
stay home with my family. The day
before I left I had a conversation with my parents ended with your grandparents
would want you to go. But I was
told that I needed to come to terms that I might not see them again.
Trying
to swallow something like that seemed impossible. So I hit the road and began my journey for the next six
months. The news hit me harder
then I thought it was going to. Thoughts began to run in my head. I should be home. Was I
being selfish for coming to Spain? The thoughts ran constantly in my head. I am never going to see my grandpa again. I won’t get to see him wearing a hat
that had mine, Ginni & Bekah’s picture really big on the front. I wont be to walk into his house, go
into the living room and see him in his chair ready to give me a big hug. That no matter how much my life felt
out of place, with a hug from him made all the worries goes away because his
desire was to bring our family together.
As
these thoughts were running through my head people began to tell me, “don’t
believe those lies.” And they were
right. The Lord has me here for a
reason. He has a huge dream for my
life. He has called me here at
this time. At this point I have
been praying for the Lord to put a supernatural peace over me. A peace that no one can give me but
HIM. And the Lord truly has and
because of this I have been able to grieve the loss of my grandpa. And it is a beautiful thing because my
memories I have of him are great. And that last memory I have of my grandpa is him coming to see my
grandmother at the hospital and so happy to see her bride of 63 years and they
embrace.
So
why do I tell you this. Well this
is what I have been dealing with this past week. There are so many times during the day of my past week where
I could of accepted the lie that I don’t belong here and I should be home. But I didn’t. I took hold of my present and pursued it. And with the grace of the Lord it has
happened.
These
weeks in Spain we have proclaimed that we are passionate, we are God with skin
on, we are dangerous, we are rock breakers, we are self-sacrificing, we are
KINGDOM. We have been able to
search God’s word where the Lord has called each one of us to great things, big
dreams and been able to immerse ourselves in intense community to challenge us
to our word.
There
is more I will share soon of what we are being equipped with but I felt this is
the message I needed to send. Until next time…
LIVE FOR THE YOUR DREAMS….WE ARE CALLED TO SPEAK THE TRUTH…AND
DON”T BELIVE THE LIES….BRING KINGDOM
This is from the Pittsburgh, Gazette, February 22, 2001
LOVE YOU GRANDPA!
