This month in Tanzania has had its ups and downs. I have experienced the most spiritual warfare I have ever experienced in my life, but I also have had great times dancing and singing with the people around me. Even after all this I was still not walking in the person that God had brought me into these past 4 months. This month was a struggle for me; our team looked different because one of our members was called home, so I had to process that with my team. I was carrying a lot of heaviness and not discerning where it was coming from. In the beginning of the month my team prayed for words for the month, and the word I received was patience. And that is exactly what I needed this month. I was walking in junk that I had not walked in for 4 months. I was getting easily annoyed with people, holding things back and not sharing how I was feeling with my whole team, and not walking in the joyous self that I had been walking in the past 4 months.
In my last blog about my birthday I talked about how I was able to sing and dance with the girls in the street and just find myself again. Worship that night was amazing and it was the first time in a long time that I got lost in the presence of God through worship. However as most people know as soon as you move closer to God an attack comes against you. Sure enough the spiritual warfare increased and I was back in that dark place again. I knew God loved me but I couldn’t understand why I was moving backwards instead of continuing forward. God was speaking to me through other people every day, with people telling me prophesies about my future and other things that I needed to hear. But yet I was still in this place and didn’t know how to get out of it.
The other night God did something amazing. All 10 of us girls plus our squad leader Rachel were worshiping together and as I was trying to enter in to his presence I kept getting distracted and thinking about things that didn’t matter. And then Stephanie asked us to go into our secret place and just listen to his voice. All I could do was pray that he would use someone to speak something that would make sense to me and that I would relate to and figure out why I was stuck in this place. That’s when it happened Stephanie shared that God had showed her the scene in Aladdin(my favorite Disney movie) where Aladdin is on the magic carpet at Jasmine’s balcony and he is reaching out his hand asking her if she trusts him. And that is exactly what Jesus was doing with me. He showed me a picture of me on a balcony with Jesus standing before me asking if I trusted him to pull me out of this mess, and to continue on into part 2 of the world race.
That was it exactly what I needed. I didn’t know how God could take me any further than where he has already taken me in the first 5 months of the race. But yet he is asking me to trust him again and to resign up for part 2 of the race. Where he can blow my already’s and what if’s out of the water. I’m recommitting my life to God in this 2nd part of the race and telling God that yes I do trust you and I would love to step off the balcony and go on a magic carpet ride to see a whole new world with you!
