Everyone is asleep.
I have been awake for three hours. My body thinking it is in the middle of the day still because three days ago during this hour it was.
The Lord is good and faithful and allowed me to return to Romania for one week.
One week.
It's almost a tease; but I am thankful for this one week.
The Lord can do a lot in one's heart in a week. For me this one week offered healing that I desperately needed. The Lord made sense of things for me that hadn't made sense in ten months. I don't know how to explain it all, but I will try.
If you know our story then you know that last August we returned from Romania, but not because I wanted to. I returned because my husband believed the Lord wanted to use us here. I returned with him out of submission. Not too much later what I feared happened. I became a little resentful and a little angry. Feeling as if I had to compromise what I felt the Lord leading me to do eleven years before.
Things are different now then they were eleven years ago. I am a wife and a mother and life is different.
How does what God told me 11 years ago about missions fit with my life now?
Well, over the last six weeks God has been healing my heart. Taking away resentment and anger and making sense of it all in my head and in my heart. It started with an apology and a much needed conversation that my husband initiated. There are a lot of personal details that don't belong on a blog, but all I need to say is that this was step #1 to me accepting where God has placed us and giving up my dreams and trying to see a glimpse of God's bigger picture....and forgiveness. O, how important it is to forgive and be forgiven.
Emptying myself, dying to my dreams, so that I can live fully to the glory of God.
Steve, thank you for this conversation that we needed! Thank you for leading us well! You were never "the bad guy" because we left Romania and I knew that all along. Thank you for having honest conversations with me over the last ten months and being so very patient with me.
Before leaving for Romania a little over a week ago the Lord just told me that Steve's passion for pastoring and North Knox and my passion for missions do not have to be in conflict with each other. That God can combine our passions for maximum effectiveness in spreading the Gospel locally and globally.
Sounds like common sense doesn't it?
Well, this was earth-shattering news to me! It has changed everything. My heart attitude, my perspective, expectations. And it was delivered at a perfect time. Just days before I left for Romania.
While in Romania a friend was there who also felt the Lord leading her into missions around the same time as me. We both have married since then and we didn't marry an international missionary. We had a chance to stay up late one night talking and sharing about our experiences and what God has taught us.
How we both have had moments where we wondered where we had gone wrong? Did we disobey God? Did we marry the wrong person?
God has shown me that these are doubts and thoughts that satan wants me to have. I didn't disobey and I definitely didn't marry the wrong person.
My vision was very narrow. I had tunnel vision where I believed that if I was going to be in missions then that meant I was going to live in a little hut in Calcutta, India forever amongst the people in a tiny village.
Eleven years later and God is showing me that he planned it perfectly for Steve and I to be in ministry together, with combined passions of pastoring and missions.
Perhaps we can support missions better by motivating and teaching an entire church campus the importance of missions!?! By leading teams over to help teach the people the Word of God and encourage and love on missionaries in Romania!?! Maybe we can help more this way!?!
My vision was just too narrow.
I am reminded that God's ways are higher and bigger than our own. And I am reminded that we can make plans, but it is God who directs our steps. Thankfully!
This trip was perfect in timing and God knew it.
This trip has brought healing, forgiveness, wiping away of resentment and frustration.
This trip has brought excitement, not only on my part, but Steve seems the most excited about helping in Romania than ever before. He is ready to get over there.
This trip has brought closure in a sense to me. Closure to a season of hurt and questioning and doubt. Closure to a season of grieving.
It probably doesn't make sense to anyone reading this, but not staying in Romania has seriously been a grieving process for me. It was a death to my dreams and it has taken a long time to get over it. That may sound so silly and juvenile, but this is where my heart has been.
I can honestly say that the grieving is over. There is excitement, there is joy, there is hope for the future.
Only God can do this for us!
There is a lot more that came out of this trip, but I wanted to blog about what God has done in my heart!
So often we go on mission trips to help people, but we are the ones most effected and changed. I knew that God was going to do this for me. I knew it!
It makes me think of this song:
You take our mourning, turn it into dancing.
You take our weeping, turn it into laughing.
You take our mourning, turn it into dancing.
You take our sadness, turn it into joy.
You bring restoration.
You bring restoration.
You bring restoration, to my soul.
This is my prayer for the people of Romania and North Knoxville!
No comments:
Post a Comment