Ecuador has been such a crazy, fun, weird learning experience for me. I’ve seen so many things I don’t think I could have when I was at home in all my comfort. I have been able to meet people that I can build relationships with and have them see how I’m spiritually growing. On the day to day basis I have felt like I’ve grown in maturity with the Lord. I’ve been craving the Lord’s presence, reading the Bible, praying and worshiping.
The other night the girls that I’ve been living with showed me that I have grown. God gave them these two words that I haven’t seen in myself before. It gave me so much encouragement to hear that I could be these things. The first word was confidence. God see’s me Confident. They told me that they have seen where all my life I preferred to be on the sidelines. But they said God wants to see me out on the field chasing after that ball, running on the field confidently.
The other word God told them about me was Influence. God see’s me as an Influence to others. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that piece put into my life before. I knew I was able to share things with people but never in a way where I could be a person to have influenced someone else’s life. Until this week…
I think all of you guys know now that I work at this Ministry, Pan de Vida. There are so many freaking awesome people who work there and I am so proud to work for them! But I have really grown to love this woman, her name is Maria. She is just the sweetest old woman I’ve ever met and she only speaks Spanish so that just shows how much actions can influence me. She is a wonderful mother of two teenagers and has another little one on the way. But just last week my team found out that her daughter, Tanya, who is 13 or 14 was diagnosed with paralysis on the right side of her face. She has been dealing with a lot of stress in her family which is what they think is the cause of her losing the feeling in her face. When we found out what happened we all prayed for Maria and Tanya and when we did I got this vision from God.
It was almost like I was Tanya so I could see through her perspective. And I was standing there starring at something but all of a sudden I saw someones hand wave in front of the right side of my face and my face just lit up with joy and I could smile again. I shared the vision with my team and they told me I was going to be the one to heal her.
But the reason I connected so much with Tanya was because I had that same thing happen to me. Its called Bells Palsy. Bells Palsy is a paralysis or weakness on one side of your face. I had it when I was 13 and it affected my life dramatically. I couldn’t smile like I used to and I couldn’t blink completely with my right eye. When I found out what was going on my mom made me sleep in her room every night so when I went to sleep she could check on me and make sure my eye was shut all the way. I only had it for a couple weeks then it went away. But I believe I was healed by the Lord because I could have had it for the rest of my life but I was healed. The virus is still in my body and it could be activated at any moment but I think God had me healed so I could tell my testimony to Tanya and heal her so she could have hope that she won’t have it for the rest of her life either.
Those two words Confidence and Influence has really showed me that I can change someone else’s life and use these two skills to do it.
