Hello my awesome crazy people whom I love dearly.
Guess what?!!!! If you have not heard yet I’m fully funded. That is right. Because of you beautiful people the love of Christ is being shared and I am so very grateful for that.
If you didn’t know we are currently working in Greece with refugees from all over the middle east.
It is by far the most sobering month we have encountered. We are daily coming in contact with innocent pure hearted people who have suffered outrageous trauma. We have heard and seen countless stories and seen spirits of complete hopelessness. Many of these people are currently without homes and have no idea when they will obtain one.
Just yesterday I was speaking with a women who traveled from Afghanistan with her young daughter (about 15 months old) and her husband. She told me she used to be an accountant. She had a stable and secure life. As the danger became apparent in Afghanistan they decided to leave and arrived in Greece about 6 months ago. I met them in a park, where they have been living since they got here.
At the end of her explanation she looked at me with that intense look of desperation that has the power to make one feel suddenly ill. She bluntly told me she wanted to die. And as we continued talking it was apparent her weary spirit was screaming at me for help. For relief.
She wanted….no she NEEDED a home. A safe place, a refuge.
I gave what I knew I had and I told her she was loved beyond belief. I told her she has a home with her Father. A place more beautiful then she can dream up in her beautiful head. We prayed together and she gave me a bashful “thank you.”
With all of the despair and tragedy penetrating our once sweet tidy and comfortable lives its easy to look at it and feel powerless. BUT all of it has gotten me really thinking about something my pondering arsty fartsy spiritfilled aunt told me at my layover in Atlanta just a month and a half ago. Her and my cousins drove down to spend time with me when I had a couple hours in the states (shoutout Dunkin clan!) and as we were saying goodbye she shared something so great with me.
She told me the Lord had been teaching her through a recent move from Oregon to Florida that our only true home is in the Holy Spirit. When we feel uprooted and without a roof or a place of comfort we start to learn that the Holy Spirit is the only one who can truly offer those things.
Wowzah. I have been thinking about it ever since.
We are surrounded by the desperate screams of people who are longing for a home. Through processing this agony I have been constantly brought back to this crazy truth…
With the power of the Spirit the Lord offers us a home!! Not only in the eternal but in the here and now. For every refugee. For everyone of us no matter the race or background or religion. For every child of God.
God has not forgotten all that is lost and broken. He has not ignored our aching for a home where we can be free as loved children of God.
He has given us the Holy Spirit. Who intercedes on our behalf with groans the words cannot express (Romans 8:26)
“And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.” John 14:16-17
He is home for all. In the secret intimate place that is the Holy Spirit we find the rest and life we had been so desperate for. We no longer have to doubt the goodness of God in the face of something like the refugee crisis. We can have peace knowing He has gifted them with a home that transcends all of the pain and suffering. It is meant for every victim of pain, everyone of God’s children.
It gives us all the ability to live Spirit lead lives. Maybe we have no car , no house, no consistent place to rest our heads. But we sure do have a place to rest our souls. The things of this world no longer shake us but our hope is now in radical love of our Savior.
WHAT FREEDOM.
Let us be so full of the Spirit we have no other choice but to let Him out.
Every child deserves to find rest in his Father’s house.
“May The Lord bless you and keep you;
The Lord make His face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace.”
Numbers 6:24-26
