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,

Destination: Guatemala! March Update

Hello Everyone! It has been several months since I’ve sent an update because we were waiting for the dates of our trip to be finalized. Guess what? WE HAVE DATES!

We’ve been told that our trip will be from Sunday, July 25th – Tuesday August 3rd. I was quite excited to see that our trip is actually longer that the previously planned dates. Isn’t God great to reward our patience?! Currently I’ve raised $1,050.00 towards the trip, leaving an outstanding $450.00 still needed for my trip to be completely paid! We will hopefully start meeting as a team from May forward to learn more about Guatemala and the ministry we will be doing while we are there. Our trip seems to be moving in a progressive direction, and it couldn’t have come at a better time for me! Please continue to read some of the things God has been doing in my heart recently.

This past weekend we had our annual young women’s conference, DNA, and the theme was ‘Made to Worship’. After worship on the first night, Pastor Tina asked us to open our hands to the Lord to both surrender those things to Him which were making us feel bound, and also to receive from Him anything He had to give us. As I stood there with my eyes closed and my palms open, I had a very real encounter with the Lord. I was positioned to both give to the Lord and receive from Him, and was waiting for the Holy Spirit to reveal such things to my spirit. Nothing came to mind. Instead, the Lord showed me a picture of Him putting His hands in mine, and standing right in front of me. He gently said, “This is all you need.” This encounter with Him was so real it was as if I could feel the weight of His hand in mine.

I continued to stand there drenched in His presence and all I could do was giggle. He was so right! All I needed to receive that weekend was HIM! I remember during the service I thought to myself how refreshing it felt to wholeheartedly worship again. For the past few months I’ve been so distracted by the mechanics of the worship portion of a service that I had neglected to truly worship the Lord. This revelation in combination with God’s sweet embrace made me remember what I was created for, worship! Throughout the weekend, the Lord began to re-ignite my desire to worship Him.

As I said, the news about the trip could not have come at a better time. What better time to start preparing for this worship focused trip, than when the Lord is refocusing my worship? I’m trusting that the Lord will continue to reveal Himself to me and my prayer is that I’m instantly obedient to Him instructions and leadings. Beginning to rediscover my hearts deepest desire has been fun, yet I know the journey is not over. Please pray with me that God teaches me to worship Him how He desires to be worshiped by me. I trust His leading, now I need to also trust myself within those places.

Would you pray about being a part of my support team? All financial contributions are tax-deductible. Checks should be made payable to New Life Ministries International and the envelope (not the check) should be clearly designated with both the trip name and my name. You may include the country/trip name on the memo line of your check but please do not include my name. If the check is designated with my name, according to IRS regulations, you will not be able to use it as a tax deduction. Also, you may make an online contribution through our website at http://newlife.cc/. Because we have to meet deadlines for airfare deposits and other arrangements, I need to have adequate financial support raised as soon as possible.

And if you are interested in being part of my personal prayer support team, please email me or give me a call. We plan to keep our prayer team regularly updated with prayer requests and praise reports. Thank you for praying about being part of our team in any way possible!

New Life Contribution Policy: “Contributions to short-term mission trips are tax-deductible; however, in accordance with IRS regulations, these designated offerings are subject to the governing board’s control and discretion. When contributions for a particular individual exceed trip expenses, the governing board may redirect contributions to other mission team expenses or to another activity within the missions department.”

Breaking the Ice

Recently, I’ve been extremely emotional. Like, ridiculously so. As a whole I try to be a very transparent person, yet when it comes to the core pieces of my heart, I keep those very private. So much so that sometimes I don’t realize the truth of what I’m thinking or feeling because I’ve kept it buried from myself. Well, over the last week or so, I’ve felt like a blubbering idiot who can’t stop crying. Whether it’s someone sharing a story with me, remembering something from my past, experiencing the presence of God, or reading some stupid chain letter email… my heart has been tugged and I start crying.

The only emotion I could connect was feelings about my dad. All sorts of things have been appearing out of nowhere. Feelings that I’d assume were long gone, yet for whatever reason, they are resurfacing and causing all sorts of emotional spillage. Although, it’s not exactly painful… more so, like a release of something.

You know how there are times that you just need a good cry? Maybe it’s a girl thing but I know when I’m really stressed or overwhelmed with pressure, I always feel better if I cry. Regardless of what triggers the actual tears, there is something released and a sense of freedom that seems to sweep. THAT’s what these recent sobbing sessions have felt like.

I noticed in the latter part of last week that my spirit has seemed to be hyper sensitive as well, and began to assume the two are interconnected in some way. While on the retreat this weekend, God showed me a picture.

I was peering down a well that seemed to be completely empty, the chasm of darkness traveled further than I could see. In the next segment I was able to see the ground to the well. I saw myself standing on and looking at an endless body of crystal clear water that was frozen. Beside where I was standing on the ice was a man with some sort of chisel. He was kneeled down, gently tapping away at the surface of the water. Soon a crack started spreading from the point of the chisel across. Then another crack, then another, then another, until finally one of the cracks began to leak with the water that was trapped beneath. In the vision I remember being afraid of the water that was escaping, yet the man hammering the ice seemed to be smiling. Not understanding what was happening, I began carefully walking away from the cracked ice. As I watched, the cracks in the ice grew larger and more water began to erupt. The vision shifted and now I saw myself swimming underneath the ice covered water. I remembered the familiar feeling of panic as if I were watching a movie where someone was trapped and needed rescuing. But this was a different panic. I was not panicking because I was trapped underneath the water; my panic was because the water below the surface was being exposed. I was frantically moving away from the open places in the ice where I could have gotten out. Instead I was trying to avoid the exposure to stay beneath the ice.

While asking the Lord what this meant, He spoke to me that this is what He’s been doing with my heart. I wasn’t able to see the depths that He’s brought me too over the years or the depths that He wants to continue deepening. Within those depths, there are places that I’ve felt I needed to hide, emotions that I’ve been trapping and freedom that I’ve been running away from. He said that it’s time to release and be free. He urged me not to be afraid of the solid surface being broken, because it was never meant to be there in the first place. He told me that He’s taking gentle care and is working His way through the ice so that I am able to be freely washed away with Him.

Seeing that vision brought so much clarity to the emotional roller coaster I’ve been on recently. Understandably there are feelings still remaining from past tragedies, but again, even with the raw and vulnerable state of my heart, I’ve not been feeling bad pains. These are good pains; pains of release, pains of freedom, growing pains towards Christ, maturing pains, some uncomfortable pains yet all good pains.

Destination: Guatemala! January Update

Thank you for your patience in waiting for my update as our team has been finalizing decision regarding our trip.

I’ve been waiting for our first team meeting to provide you all with more information on the specifics of our time in Guatemala. Rather than give you trip details, I have other news to share with each of you. Our Guatemala trip has been postponed to later this summer, probably around late July or sometime in August.

There are several reasons for the rescheduling: 1. NLMI requires at least 5 people to make a trip happen and there were not enough people signed up for this trip yet. 2. With the amount of work, orphans, and energy required for the trip to Guatemala, a small number of people would not do the children any justice. The team last year had 18 members and from what I’m told, they had their hands full! 3. Because advertisement for the trip and support raising all fell so close to Christmas, and only 2 months before the trip, our leaders feel that if people were given more time to plan and prepare, that the number of team members would increase. 4. The trip requires people w/ skills in singing/music/art/ and dance and unfortunately at this point, we don’t have each of those components on our team. 5. One of our team leaders, Eunice, would only be able to stay with us until 1/2 way through the trip due to other ministry responsibilities; rescheduling would allow her to be a part of the whole experience.

As soon as I received this news, I knew in my heart that I was still called to this trip. Moments after I discussed these changes with Tina, our team leader, I went into a worship service. There was a Kim Walker song playing, which was already a favorite of mine, yet God spoke loud and clear to me through lyrics in the song. “No turning back, I’ve made up my mind. I’m giving all of my life this time.”

I felt God’s heart for me as those lyrics were repeated. He’s made up His mind to send me to Guatemala, and I’ve made up my mind to give Him my whole life. The Lord distinctly placed a burden on my heart for these Guatemalan orphans, and I fully trust His faithfulness in bringing me to them!

The main thing I want you to remember is that the trip is NOT CANCELLED... just rescheduled for later this year. We just want the opportunity to be made available for more members to join our team AND we want it to be the best possible ministry TO THE ORPHANS!

God overwhelmed me yet again with His faithfulness and has provided amazing financial support in an extremely small period of time. I promptly sent out my support letters during the week of Christmas. In 5 short weeks, the Lord has provided $1,050.00 towards my $1,500.00 balance owed for this trip; leaving only $450.00 to raise between now and the summer time. HOW AMAZING IS OUR LORD?!

While in my deciding process I assumed this trip was out of reach since money needed to be raised in such a short period of time from when the trip was introduced. Yet as soon as God spoke Guatemala to my heart and spirit, He made sure I knew HE was the one providing!

At our Sunday morning service, Pastor Dan showed a small video of the disaster areas in Haiti. Several pictures showed young children in the midst of the tragedy. As tears filled my eyes, the Lord comforted me by whispering that I’ll be able to hug and comfort the orphans in Guatemala and spread His loving heart to them.

Thank you deeply to everyone who has sent their support both with prayers and finances. I feel your prayers and God’s riches are being stored up for those orphans!

Please continue to pray for the team God is building and for the lives He wants to affect in Guatemala. I will keep you updated as we receive more information on our trip!

Love lots of love,