My Aunt came into town this weekend. She told me this story that ended up fulfilling a request I had to God.
It's been a year exactly today, since I stepped back on US soil from being on The World Race. A few days ago I realized this, and sat down to try to type up a blog for you all. Well, not only that, but honestly, to process everything I was feeling. I wrote about what I have been reading in scripture, and by all means, it fit perfectly with an analogy of being home for a year. But, for some reason, I felt like I was having a hard time wrapping everything up. Usually, when I write blogs, I pray through it, and God gives me words, from start to end. This time was different. So I shut my computer, and pondered what to do, or if I was even going to post a blog. I decided to pray fervently for God to give me the exact words that He wanted me to share. The exact emotions, He wanted to me to feel about being home for a year now.
That was yesterday.
I will try best to represent the story in the same way that it was told.
My Aunt tells me a story about a church service she attended recently. She happened to be sitting across the way from this young man who she noticed was having a hard time moving. Come to find out, this young man had a story. He had got into a wreck a few years ago and was basically told that he had no hope. Of course, with Christ on our side, nothing is hopeless. So, as the story goes, the prayer warriors in the young man's life essentially lifted this guy from the grave that the doctors made for him. The fact that he could now walk on his own, and communicate to a certain degree is a miracle in its self. So as is standing during worship and she can't take her eyes off him.
You know when you are in a worship setting and you see someone… someone who with every part of their being is worshiping Christ. Someone, who takes in every word of the song and makes it their prayer, their desire. Someone who longs for, and encounters God in a way that inspires you to dig deeper within yourself?
That was this young man. He was singing with his whole body, with every muscle strained in longing to know His creator, His Savior, His Healer. He was standing there, raising his hands to this God that he knows. But she could see, that for him, raising his hands was not an easy task for this young man. Once he finally got his hands raised, arms above his head, one side started to sink down, because of the lack of strength he had to do hold this pose. He doesn't relent, he started lifting again and again. His father was standing next to him, and all of a sudden his father looks over, grabbed his arm and sets it on top of his shoulder. At the same time, the other arm was starting to slip down to his side, and he kept forcing it up, but each time it got less and less higher.
My Aunt of course, as anyone would be, is enamored by this scene, and was still gazing with tear filled eyes. Then, she sees a woman walking down the isle, eyes locked on the same scene that she hers were. This woman, slides in, past the father, past the son, and stands next to the young man. She, turns, grabs her sons arm and holds it straight up, not in pity but in love. All along, the son is never deteriorating from his presence with the Lord. The family, all three members were one. One body, worshiping in community.
Of course, at this point, I am doing math problems in my head while listening to the story, a little trick I heard once to keep from crying as hard. It was working, but inside, my heart was nearly beating out of my chest. After many persuasive thoughts of, "Just excuse yourself and pull yourself together!" The story finished.
I sat there, not only thinking, "What an amazing story." But I sat there, realizing, this was it…This was God fulfilling my request. This is what He wanted to tell me. This was His word for me.
My family and I about how similar this story is to when Moses was holding his staff above his head and 2 men came over to hold both of his arms, to keep him steady. It was them, helping him keep his hands up that made it possible that the promise of the Lord was fulfilled. (EX 17) Not only that! Before they grabbed his arms, they stuck a stone under him. What a beautiful reminder of who gives him strength… the Cornerstone!
I kept thinking about what a beautiful picture of community both these stories are. Three people bonded together and serving one another.
Three in one.
Trinity.
God Himself is in community. God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. God values and see community as important thing, because HE is community. We are called to live in community, just as He lives in community.
I was brought back to the scene of Jesus in the garden before His crucifixion. Bent over, on the ground, sweating blood… all for the sake of love. How weak he must have been? How could He even find the strength to pick Himself up?
Trinity.
I got a beautiful vision of God and the Holy Spirit, not in pity, but in love, standing by Jesus and pulling Him up off the garden's ground.
Month 6 in Romania, I was called to commit a year in Sheridan. For what? To serve Christ, specifically women. Have I had eyes to see those who were weak, tired, and needing encouragement, or even just a friend? Did I walk over to them and offer to hold their arm up? To pick them up off the ground?
Did I?
I sat there, worried, broken that I didn't. Thinking, "I should have, I could have done better." To be honest, my default, was to listen to lies that were screaming in my heart, that I didn’t do what I was called here to do. I could have done more. That I passed by someone who needed me to ‘hold their arms up.” Truth is though… we can ALWAYS do more, that the beauty of a growing relationship with God. But I also need to rest in the fact that God DID use me. Maybe not in the way I imagined, but the ways HE imagined.
Then, like a movie scene, small situations and conversations I had, ran on the pages of my heart, from this past year.
A silent, "Well done my good and faithful servant," settled in my spirit. Followed by, “Keep running the race.”
I don’t say that to brag about my impact since I have been here, but I say it to confirm to all of you that, God WILL use you when you choose to place yourself where He calls. Drop your expectations and let the Holy Spirit lead you, and never allow your race to end.
As of now, what are my plans? Well, for quite awhile now the Lord has given me the word January. I have been praying about a few different things. Pray with me that I continue to have eyes too see past my own desires, and that the Lord’s will be implanted in every aspect of my decisions.
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