God can • and will • break every chain that holds you back from loving people the way Jesus does. All you have to do is ask Him to give you that love for others.
The last few months I’ve been praying a lot for the Spirit to help me forgive the man I mentioned in my “rotten apple” blog a few months back. The more I ask for love for this man, the more I receive it. When I think about him now, I don’t cringe, glare my eyes, or harden my heart. Instead, my heart actually has compassion on him because he is so lost. I even felt like God was nudging me to send this guy a message to let him know I’ve been praying for him. (Woah, that’s all God – I’m not THAT nice.) I am now even more aware of what the Lord can do to someone’s heart when He is asked to mold it to look more like His. That’s exactly what He’s doing and will continue to do in mine. YAY!
While in Vietnam I saw this image when I was listening to the song “break every chain.” I had big shackles on my wrists and up my forearms, they were heavy and cold and there was one shackle for each letter spelling out the word unforgiving. So 11 shackles in all. As I was listening to the song, I saw each shackle break off and shatter, and at the end they were replaced with free flowing beautiful bangles. (For all the men out there that don’t know what bangles are – see photo below.) Each of these bangles had a Fruit of the Spirit on them. I realized that when I was in those shackles of unforgiving bitterness, I couldn’t show the Fruits of the Spirit to those who need to see them the most. I’m not a huge bangle person (although I do love bracelets) but every time I see them I will remember that people can’t see the beautiful free flowing bangles God intended us to carry around when they’re covered by hideous heavy shackles.
I want my bangles (Fruits of the Spirit) to flow freely from myself so that others can see, hear, and feel them. They’re a light load that is so much better than the weight of heavy, cold, and constricting shackles. I want the bangles I carry to shine so brightly and openly that others will ask where I got them because they want them too.
Ever since I have given my bitterness to the Lord I feel like it has been replaced with an excessive amount of joy. If you don’t know what I’m talking about – read my last blog. I feel like I’m literally exploding with it! Not because my circumstances are so fun or great all the time; but because my hope and trust is in the Lord and He rules my heart. My heart has now been cleansed of an ugly seed of bitterness that was very deeply rooted. Only God can do that. =) I just realized that the past two months when we got to our new ministry sites, I never once had a moment where I caught myself projecting my past experiences onto current ministries. God has changed my heart so much since that rotten apple blog – thoughts that used to pop in my head 24/7, don’t even cross my mind now after a full month of being somewhere. WOAH, GOD IS SO SWEET!! Praise the Lord for bitter free hearts!!!!! =]
On another note: the last few months I have not been able to share much online about the ministries we have been at. I can link you to their websites and tell about the organization but information I can give besides that is limited. I will be glad to share more stories when I am home and can talk face to face with people. However, at this time please understand that there are a lot of rules when it comes to sharing pictures and stories online from the ministries we work with. We want to respect the places we are serving at and honor their wishes. I wanted to share this in case people were wondering what we are actually doing around Asia! I have tried to put in a paragraph or so about each ministry (with the things I can say) and make my blogs more about what Jesus is doing in my heart – because I can talk about that all I want to! Although you are getting limited information on what I am specifically doing sometimes, I can guarantee one thing: the Lord is moving in Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, and China. He is real, alive, healing, and stirring things up and changing lives in these beautiful places. =]
Although I am sad to leave Asia tonight, I’m extremely excited for Africa! Swaziland is our first stop. YIPPY!! =) Our squad challenge this month was to make a video to the song “Waka Waka” to get us ready for Africa. Click here to see my last team (Kingdom Builders) video for the month. Hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoyed our time making it! =)
I’m not sure how much internet access I will have in Swaziland, but I will post when I can. It’s refreshing to take a break from the internet for a while sometimes. =) Good for the soul. Please keep our teams in your prayers! We will have an all squad month this time (YAY! the whole group is together for a full month!) helping out at an orphanage called El Shaddai. Click here to see more about this place. Can’t wait to see what the Lord has in store for us this month.
Love you!
Heather
Weird things I have eaten: donkey!!!!!! =) it tasted just like meat…pretty generic tasting…not too bad!
Prayer requests: safe travels, happy attitudes, and I have been asked to step into the role as one of the team leaders next month… please be praying for me as this position of serving my team will bring on new challenges. God will be stretching me a lot this next month, please pray for my flexibility as that happens! 🙂
