I feel like the weather

As I sit at my desk, looking out the window, I can’t help but think how accurately the current weather matches my internal emotions. The sky is a dull gray, the kind of gray it gets before a storm. Yet there are distant patches of white clouds, which seem to be desperately trying to shine through the gray looming in the air. The sun has disappeared enough that it can’t be found, yet its remnants are visible as there is still some sort of light bleeding through the sky.

I feel like the weather. I feel dull, gray, sunless and gloomy. My tears are like the weather that seem as though it should be pouring rain at a moment’s notice, yet only tiny droplets are escaping. I know the sun is present, but I can’t see it. I feel its warmth, yet instead of comforting me, it saddens me.

It’s just one of those days when you need as much Jesus as you can get.

Inexpressible Emotions...

...seem to be plaguing me these days. All I've wanted to do the last few days is cry. When I have room to do so, nothing comes out, and when it's most inappropriate (like sitting at my desk at work writing invoices), I become overwhelmed with waves of emotion that could nearly knock me on the ground into a puddle of sobs. I feel like crying is the only way to express the unspoken feelings I am incapable of articulating. Lately, I've been thinking a lot about who I am and who I want to be. Last week started off pretty rough. I got some disappointing news that broke me into pieces and I was overcome with the feeling of failure. All sorts of thoughts flooded into my mind about my future and the desires I have and I started to let those thoughts take over my mind. I started thinking about how certain desires I have will never be fulfilled and how I must be the one screwing up the potential fulfillment of others. The enemy was really mean, lemme tell ya. Since then I'm much more level headed, but regardless the wheels in my head were provoked to twirl. I began rationally thinking about how some desires of mine require not just God's intervention but His total control. This clearly removes me from having a part in trying to make things happen sooner or differently than He has planned. It's very anti-empowering yet completely refreshing when you have the realization that you are in fact powerless to bring fulfillment to God's plans without being wholly dependent on Him. I had such revelation, it's tough.

• This whole season of my life is about dependence on God in an extreme way, and He's extremely meeting me in that place.

I felt like the core of who I am was challenged by these negative thoughts. I started to think about what I could do to be better, or different, or anything more than what I am now. There are countless times that I observe other people and feel inferior to them. I don't get jealous but almost covetous of their abilities and reputations. I've never wanted to be someone just to be someone, but I want to be known for what God's given me and done through me. Yet I don't have that, and those thoughts crush me. Again with the enemy and his meanness, infiltrating my mind like that.

• But then, in the midst of that, God speaks- and it's like a breath of fresh air.

While hanging out with my ARC family, one of the girls said she felt God was saying that He hasn't forgotten me and my desires. She saw a picture of a check list of all the dreams and desires I have and that I'm going through and checking off all the things that God has fulfilled. Would you like to know why I know that's the Lord? It's the little detail of a check list. Really God, you had to tailor Your word for me to specific OCD traits that I have... REALLY? I loved it!

• And just like that, I am brought back to the realization that I'm utterly dependent on God.

It's been a while

It’s been a while…
It’s been a while since I’ve exposed.
It’s been a while since I’ve absorbed.

Exposing these wounds hurts Lord. Just FYI…

The past few months have challenged my faith in many ways. I had awesome tangible experiences with the Lord in Guatemala, and then ‘every day life’ kicked me in the butt when I got home. It’s as if in the blink of an eye, I forgot how intensely the Lord showed up, and I so easily forgot the enemy’s notorious quest to ruin me.

Get a clue Satan- if it hasn’t worked by noooow- it’s not gunna.

I didn't realize the freedom I was missing out on all this time. I don't believe it had to take this long, but M.A.N. did God pick a good time to make me ready for it!

I feel like I'm just now grasping maturity. I'm not sure what I'm grasping to be quite honest, but I can feel the difference in my spirit. Which probably has something to do with the way God released breakthrough for me while in Guatemala.

P.S. I've noticed God does really good work in me while I'm on the mission field. Yes... that does intrigue me. Yes... I have taken note. Yes... I do believe that speaks of my future involvement in missions and being overseas. Thanks for asking. ;)

There's a literal feeling I have within me that is different. It goes back to that maturity thing. I feel like my inner man... well-- inner woman... is standing taller and stronger.

Does that make sense? It does in my mind- so I'll continue.

About a month ago I had this moment with God, while I was in my car- stuck in traffic- for over an hour to travel the whole 5 miles through the tunnel to my apt from Olde Towne Portsmouth. In the midst of being consumed my one of my ABSOLUTE least favorite things on the planet (that being traffic) God so graciously and utterly unexpectedly broke heaven open over my Toyota and wrecked my soul in a tremendous way. During that experience, while unable to articulate it at the time, I received such a revelation of the scripture:

Matthew 11:30 "For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

It's as if the heaviness of a culmination of a few years of struggling and running; sometimes consciously - most without knowing I was; evaporated and instead I now carried a different presence. You would think after the way the Lord has rescued me time, after time, after time, after time, after...... (you get it right?) that I would stop running from the depths with which He wants to meet me. But in reality - I'm terrified. God makes me nervous sometimes because I've done a really good job as living through my life, which was not all puppies and sugar cookies lemme tell ya, without falling apart.

I'm not scared to deal with my past or to grow more intimate with Him, it's the part where I have to let go of the claim I feel I should rightly have to my bondage. Hear me out here...

It's not a desire of mine to live bound- not even close. But there are bits and pieces that create the bondage that I'm not fully ready to let go of. For instance (and I'm getting REALLY personal here so consider yourself privileged) - the baby - I had him, and I am forever connected to him, and him to me. Yet, it took me YEARS to release the right I felt I had to still refer to him as 'my son'. Yes, I'm his biological mother, and yes, he is in fact my son, but I have no right to the title of 'mom' in his life, therefore I shouldn't speak about him as if he's mine. I chose to give him to someone else, I did that. And with that decision, I should have given up my pride, but didn't. It was an extremely hard time when I had to let God have my son- 'my son'. THAT is just one of the bits I'm referring too. Claiming the baby wasn't wrong, but it was wrong for me, and wrong for the healing that God was trying to bring me through and because I held on to my pride and felt entitled in a sense, it hindered timely healing.

I feel like I'm rambling -- but it's good for me --

In my life, I'm slightly distracted by a few things though. However, a lovely friend of mine shared with me that she felt like God was showing her a knotted mess of strings that I need to give to Him and He will straighten out. I knew exactly what she meant, and what He wanted. However, it's been difficult to let Him keep it. I had no problem giving it to Him in the first place, but I keep taking it back, then giving it to Him again, then snatching it back once more. Sooner or later He's going to close His fist so that I can't grab it anymore... that'll suck- but will be for my best, so do what You will Lord! But PLEASE be gentle, k thanks.

So here I am, in this awesome place with God, I'm on a well rounded diet of Burden Lite, I feel free-er (yes that's a word!) than I've felt in I don't know how long, and I am abundantly aware of God's love for me. It's fascinating actually, I've been in the 'honeymoon' season with the Lord before, and it was precious. But this is different, I feel His love all the time. It's like I'm forever being hugged by Him and I feel His warmth surrounding me.

Like right now--- it's happening--- the hug. It's fascinating I tell you, absolutely mind blowing.

Destinaion: Guatemala! Trip Update

Hola!

We’ve been back from Guatemala for a week now and I’m still processing all that God did within me.  While I initially thought I was going on this trip for the kids we’d encounter, I quickly found out that God had other plans. Weeks before I left God was highlighting some areas in my life from past issues.  During that highlighting process, God was also burrowing to depths within my soul that I hadn’t known were there or that were so fragile.  I mentioned several times before, during and since the trip that I felt like God was breaking me into a million pieces a million times.  Little did I know, but God was beginning an extreme and rapid healing and restoration that would take place within the first few days of our trip.

The first statement I remember Eunice, our missionary, telling us when we got to Guatemala, and even before, was that we needed to be filled with the love and joy of the Lord because that’s what we needed to pour into these kids.  She said that if anyone of us were feeling off, we needed to let the rest of our team love on us so that we can be filled.  Something in me winced every time I heard that because I knew those were characteristics that were deeply bruised within me, and I didn’t want to admit it to anyone.

Over the past year and a half to 2 years, I’ve felt a steady shift in my life.  It seemed as though, due to some less that wonderful circumstances, that my life acquired so much stress and lost all joy.  This was a foreign feeling for me.  My whole life I had been known as someone who was ‘always happy’.  When the Lord started to do intense restoration in me, the appearance of happiness shifted to a strong presence of joy in the Lord. With that presence absent, I became a different person.  Someone who wasn’t joyful and someone who was not exhibiting the love of God the way I should have been.

For the first few days of our time in Guatemala, I was a wreck.  I was constantly crying and felt completely vulnerable in ways I hadn’t felt in a very long time.  One morning, we all had to go around and share how we’d been feeling since being in Guatemala.  I felt perfectly composed to share, yet when it was my turn and I opened my mouth, I burst into tears.  I explained that I felt joyless and broken and felt like I was mourning the loss of several things all over again.  The brokenness was so deep that I didn’t even know how to help God help me.  All I knew how to do was tell the Lord that I was open to whatever He wanted to do but had no idea how to articulate what it was that I was feeling or going through.  I felt like the joy of the Lord that had been pointedly talked about during the preparation of this trip seemed to be what was uprooting this pain, and yet healing it at the same time.  I had no idea joy could heal, but it can, and was doing so in me.

The team listened to my choppy, sniffle filled ramblings and within moments was surrounding me praying and loving on me.  A mixture of my confession and their prayers allowed for tremendous breakthrough in my life.  God revealed to me that the reason I’ve been having such a hard time the past year ½ was because I had been consistently running away from the healing He wanted to do within me.  Because I was running away, I was causing myself to push away His love and joy that He so willingly wanted to shower over me.  The life circumstances that seemed to be ruining me had very little responsibility for my feelings and emotional state.

After that moment, things began to shift in my heart, spirit and soul.  I felt joy; I felt a restoration for what I had once held so dear.  I knew I finally obeyed God whether I meant to or not.  I physically felt a weight lifted from within my heart.  Since then, the joy of the Lord has become more abundant within me and has caused so much healing.  Every day I feel more restoration and healing in the places that have been hardened and broken for quite some time now.

Now, onto the actual purpose for going…  Below is a brief play-by-play of how we spent our days:  Day 1 Monday July 26th Left VA for Guatemala, met the rest of our team once in Guatemala City, went home and had some team building games Day 2 Tuesday July 27th Visited Oasis girls orphanage to play with the girls Day 3 Wednesday July 28th Team prepped for worship festival workshops, drove to a community that was extremely affected by the eruption of Volcano Pacaya Day 4 Thursday July 29th Visited Nueva Vida orphanage to play with the kids, visited a friend of Eunice’s for dinner Day 5 Friday July 30th Visited an orphanage for kids with aids, went back to Nueva Vida for worship festival Day 6 Saturday July 31st Visited La Isla orphanage to minister to the kids and hand out clothes, went back to Oasis for worship festival Day 7 Sunday August 1st Lead worship at a local church, Eunice preached, and the team prayed for people in the congregation Day 8 Monday August 2nd Visited Funda Ninos orphanage all day, play 1st ½ of day then did the worship festival 2nd ½ of day Day 9 Tuesday August 3rd Free day to explore Antigua Day 10 Wednesday August 4th Left Guatemala to go home to VA

Most of the kids remembered our team mates that had gone the year before, and would frequently run up to them and say, “I am free!?”, which was their way of saying that they remembered the song *I am Free* and wanted us to sing it.  And we did, 4 trillion times. J  The kids loved it, and I’m pretty sure that song will never been erased from their minds, or ours!

As you know, we went with the intent to minster to kids in different local orphanages through teaching a worship festival.  We would visit the orphanages 2 times, once to meet the kids, play and love on them; then a second time to teach the worship festivals.  I assisted the music team during the festivals.  Our team taught a beginner course on reading music, clapping to the beat, and hearing the difference in pitches when singing. Then we’d put it all together and teach the kids a song in both English and Spanish.  Every group acted a little differently and we accommodated accordingly.  Most often, our group was without a translator, but luckily, music is a fairly universal language.  It was very stretching and forced us to exert a lot of energy, but we had a blast doing it each time!

We would also have times where we prayed over all of the kids.  There were several testimonies from the kids of God working in their lives from healing physical pains, to sensing the Holy Spirit’s love in their hearts.  It was amazing to watch these little people willingly open their hearts and spirits to God and to verbalize what He was doing in them.  While most of these kids were from abused homes, they recklessly loved us with unconditional love within moments of meeting us.  I strive to be someone who shows God’s love that openly.  There are several kids that now own a piece of my heart.

Overall the Guatemalan experience was life changing to say the least.  Since being home, I’ve had daily thoughts to study Spanish and become fluent so that I can go back one day and connect further with these amazing kids.  I don’t know where God will lead me in the future but God has spoken clearly that He’s moving me into a season of balance and alignment.  Hopefully while walking in alignment with Him, God will lead me back to Guatemala some day!

Thank you all so much for your financial support and prayerful intercession for me and my team.  Your partnership has truly changed my life and shifted the atmosphere in Guatemala towards Christ even more!

Destination: Guatemala! June Update

Good afternoon everyone! Our team for Guatemala has had a few meetings now, and everything seems to be happening very smoothly. We all get along well; we got to spend some time as a team with Eunice, our missionary, and we all researched our assigned topics about the country and shared that info with the team. We’ve also gotten assigned the responsibility of coming up with some resources for what we plan to share while we’re at the orphanages. I’ve just spent the beginning of my afternoon looking up songs for our team to sing in Spanish. Doing so has brought back some great memories of when I was on my mission trip to the Dominican Republic when I was in high school, and it made me that much more excited about Guatemala! We leave in about 7 weeks and I recently found out that my entire trip is paid in full!! God continues to amaze me with His generosity through supporter’s prayers and finances. Without both, this trip would not be a reality for me, yet it is and I’m SO THANKFUL to each of you! The team was encouraged to ask for a list of intercessors that are willing to cover us in prayer. If any of you feel specifically led or would want to dedicate your time to pray for me while I’m gone, please reply to this letter and I’ll add you to my list! Again, thank you all for your prayers and support in every way! I’ll keep you updated as we get nearer to departure! Lots of love,