God has been doing a lot in my life the past three months. It has been hard to process all of it and to share it with everyone back home but I want to try. When I first got on the race I felt like I had lost everything. I lost myself, my confidence, my ability to love and listen, my ability to speak my mind. I became overwhelmed with fears and insecurities. All things that I thought I had worked through. These past three months God showed me somethings in my character I needed to work on and also somethings he gave me that I had not been using the way he wanted me to. Once I got to Cambodia things finally began to come together for me. In my effort to be submissive and a servant I had become passive and filled with nothingness. God clearly spoke to me on afternoon in Phnom Penh. “Shannon, I gave you a fire and a fight. I did not want you to extinguish it but I wanted you to allow me to use it fo rmy glory.” I have always been a strong person and a fighter and often I was fighting against people or pushing them away, but God wanted to use that fight to further his kingdom. I have finally understood how to be alive in myself again.
Something else that God has really spoken to me is about how Satan works. The bible tells us that he is the father or lies. He is deception. I got to experience and witness how Satan uses lies to trick us. As a believer I am a child of God. I in loved and protected by God. Jesus paid the price for my life and Satan can not have me. There is nothing he can do to me. Satan has no power, Jesus conquered him when he rose from the grave. He has been rendered powerless. Satan does have deception which he uses to make us believe he has power. We give Satan his power over us when we chose to believe his lies instead of the Truth that is God’s word. When we listen to the little voice in our head that says “I’m worthless. I’ll never be good enough. God can never love me.” Those are lies from Satan but God has given us the truth which is that He loves us and that we don’t have to do anything to earn his love. I experienced Satan trying to get me this past month with his lies. Everytime I would hear somethng that was of rejection I would have to speak truth to myself and Satan was not able to have a foothold in my life. Every day we have to put on the armor of God. We have to stand firm in the truth and refuse to believe any lies. It is not always easy but we must do it or we give up our freedom that Jesus gave his life for.
I know that God still has more to teach me on this trip. I am learning how to just be instead or trying to strive or earn my way to God. I am trying to love people how God loves me. I am trying to think and see the world and the people how God does. I am heartbroken by damage sin does everyday in our world. I am heartbroken by the selfishness I see in myself everyday. I want to just love and serve with all of my heart and I am asking daily for God to grow me in that.
Here are some more pictures from Cambodia
