New year, new country, new team.
Lots and lots of change.
My team, One Fiddy Tree, is paired up with team Overflow this month in Myanmar. We are working with an organization called Compassion in Action, which is just outside of Yangon, in a village called Hlegu. We live on campus are teaching English to students at the school, Myanmar Missionary College.
It’s very remote, think like a campground, but the stars at night are so breathtakingly bright and beautiful.
Tonight, the six ladies of the two teams had the opportunity to host a Beauty for Ashes event for women/girls only. It’s a time to celebrate and fellowship with women. We had 38 in attendance! To break the ice, we played a quick game. Then, I was able to share a short message [which I will summarize in part below]. After that, the six of us washed the feet of all the women and prayed over them. We ended with cookies, nail painting, and a dance party!
In short, here is what the Lord placed on my heart to share. It’s basically four different lessons the Lord has been teaching me over the last month. Somehow, someway, I was able to string all the pieces together to form one fluent message:
First, the story of Leah, the unloved. Cue Genesis 29. I never given Leah much thought because when I think of Jacob, I think about how much he loved Rachel. How he waited and sacrificed for her. But Leah, she had weak eyes. She constantly compared herself to her sister and felt very unworthy, I’m sure. BUT GOD SAW HER. He enabled her to have children. She tried earning Jacob’s love by birthing his children. She gave it everything she had, but she still didn’t feel like she was enough; she was miserable. She named her fourth son Judah and declared, “This time I will praise the Lord.” As the story continues, the Bible focuses more on Joseph, Jacob’s favorite son because he was born of Rachel. BUT if you skip ahead to Matthew 1, we see that Jesus actually descended from the line of Judah, son of Leah. Salvation came through her line, in spite of her despair. God worked in and through Leah, even though she did not see it during her lifetime.
Second, the story of my own life. In some sense, I can relate to Leah. There are some days that I let my feelings get the best of me. I start to believe the lies of the enemy. I start to doubt. I start to feel guilty and shameful for things in my past. Fear creeps in, then settles in and starts to take control. Last week the Lord told me to write down all the lies and all of my excuses. When I did that, He began to reveal His truth. The lies were replaced with His words. In my doubt, I was reminded of His faithfulness. My shame was redeemed by His forgiveness. Even though I feel like I’m not, I can’t, or I don’t, the Lord says, BUT I AM AND I AM ABLE.
Third, the Lord gave me a vision of my life, last month in Thailand on our one of many tap-tap rides:
So, it’s like I took a pile of broken pieces and handed them to the Lord, like, “Lord, I can’t do anything with these, maybe you can? How can this be any good?” He says, “As long as you give me all of your pieces, I can do something greater.” He starts to put the pieces together. As he does so, He adds pieces I didn’t have before. He adds color and patterns; truth, wisdom, peace, gifts; things that only He has and can give. He throws out the bad pieces. He paints the ugly pieces a new color. He paints my fear into hope and trust. He paints my sorrow into joy. He paints my sin with His blood. He puts it all together with His love and says, “I’m making something new. Something that cannot even be compared to the old. Something different. Something new. Something beautiful.” He gives the gift of new life, the gift of eternal life.
Fourth, what does the Lord want to do for you? What is the one thing in your life that you can’t seem to escape, fix, or solve? Again, last month in Thailand, the Lord challenged me with Ephesians 3:20, which says, “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.” What unimaginable things does Lord want to do in my life? In your life? Do you believe He can do it? This month I’ve been reading the book God is Able by Priscilla Shirer, which dives into this very verse. [Shout out to Bethany for recommending it and passing it along!] She gives great insight into this passage:
“Just because God can, doesn’t mean He will. But just because He hasn’t, doesn’t mean He won’t. The bottom line is that He is able. And because He is able and because He is love, our hearts are completely secure in every situation, no matter how desperate or chronic or time sensitive.”
“Sometimes His best work is not what He does for us, but what he does inside us.”
“He wants us to trust Him, believe Him, and expect Him until our primary goal is not that He answers our prayer exactly the way we’ve been praying it, but that we know Him more fully and intimately.”
And in summary, GOD SEES YOU and GOD IS ABLE!
Derek was there to capture the evening. [THANK YOU DEREK!]
Enjoy!
**Side note, I never knew until coming to Myanmar that there are time zones split by the half hour [and apparently there are 15-minute time zones as well somewhere in the world]. So, here we are 12 and a half hours ahead of central standard time… very weird!
