In His Time

So I finally got up in front of DCF and gave my testimony. I'm not going to lie, I didn't really want to do it, but God told me to. Not that I was tempted to disobey, but being stretched is always at least a little painful and there was some definite stretching going on. But I gave my testimony, carefully planned out but still so close to my heart. There were no tears!!! but there was a consistent shakiness in my voice that had absolutely nothing to do with nerves. I could see a few faces in the crowd as their lives were touched first by the pain from the story and then the beautiful redemption that followed. I keep being reminded of Revelation 12:11 where it says that the accuser will be defeated by the blood of the Lamb and by the power of our testimonies! Even though it felt like I was baring my soul to a room full of strangers and friends alike, God says there is power in our testimonies, so I will hold on to that truth. The first evidence came immediately after the sermon that night. A missionary from Bangladesh came, not to raise money, but to ask for people. She wants help at a center she is building for the children of prostitutes at a certain brothel. She has the funds, but she needs people. She gave a short message and followed with an alter call for everyone who may want to go to help in Bangladesh or who want to receive the call to missions in general.
I stayed in my seat. I can't really say why, but I'm pretty sure it was God's timing, not only that I stayed in my seat, but that I gave my testimony that night. I knew I didn't need another calling to missions on my life. And there was something else holding me back. I discovered that it was the Holy Spirit when another student walked up to me with a few tears in her eyes. She told me she didn't want to go up to the front, because that wasn't what she needed. She already felt the call for missions on her life. Her heart was already broken for the helpless and the hungry and the abused. But she was confused. She is here taking classes, not out there helping. And that is where God wants her to be. Why is that? I almost laughed out loud; her words were an exact echo of what I went through about a year ago. I told her that God has a plan, but he likes to reveal it one step at a time. I told her that God doesn't need our skills, but our hearts. I told her that once she makes a decision to lay down not just her heart, but her life for Jesus, she is a missionary wherever she goes. It was a years worth of life lessons pouring out of my mouth and she totally received them! We were both blessed and encouraged. I was blessed to know that people actually listen when I talk, that the lessons I learn are applicable to other peoples lives. She was blessed to know that she wasn't alone, she wasn't mishearing or misunderstanding God's call. I think it was balm to both our souls. I left that night with a new assurance that God's timing is exact, and His will is good, acceptable and perfect.

The Honeymoon

Winter Conference was this weekend. It is this epic, Pentecostal gathering of college students from different ministries all along the West Coast. I have managed to make friends with quite a few people from around the state and more campus pastors and interns from around the state! It was really good to see them all. Catch up with old friends and potentially make new ones. But that isn't the purpose of the conference. This conference is for people to encounter God in a new way, to be encouraged, convicted, and empowered to make changes in their life that will further the kingdom of God on their campus.
And then there was me, in the thick of it, but totally lost as to what God had in store for me. You see, God and I are having our first honeymoon. I'd sit down after the speaker exhorted us to change our hearts and minds into a new posture for God. They would call down the Holy Spirit and encourage us to lay our hearts bare before him. Every time I sat down and tried, God wouldn't uncover a new dirty portion of my heart and soul, He would just bring me in and I would rest in His presence. THe absolute best way I can describe the season I am going through right now is to say that God and I are having a honeymoon.
Now, I've never had a physical honeymoon, but I can imagine what it would be like (although not too far, lets keep it PG) and I feel like it all applies to my spiritual walk. I can imagine the scariness and anticipation of entering that new level of intimacy. Then afterward, the incredible closeness, the relief, the peace and joy of lying next to the one person who knows you best in the whole world and just drinking in their scent and the feel of their arm around you. There aren't any demands at the moment. There aren't any walls between you, you have become one flesh If you two were the only people in the world, that would be ok. There is joy in that. There is peace in that. That is where God and I are. We just got through such an intense trial together. Now on the other side, I am so in love!
But here I am, totally in love and just drinking in God's scent, surrounded by conviction and exhortation. Draw near to God! Sacrifice yourself for Him! But wait, God and I were just going to go on a walk and hold hands! And then later we were going to have a nice dinner and gaze adoringly into each other's eyes! Is that wrong?
I decided right away that it wasn't, but I came to this conference and I didn't think God wanted me to waste everything about it. For the first two days, I spent most of my time drinking in His scent as mentioned before, asking God if there was anything He wanted to say. Towards the end, I decided I wanted to show God more love. I already surrendered myself and laid my soul bare before Him, but how about a nice romantic gesture? Yes, I made some radical heart decisions, but what if I decided to be more purposeful in the short term. To sow into people's lives in the present? During the last evening session, I stood there and watched people weep and cry out to God for healing, for His touch. I stood there and spiritually held hands with my Lover. Then, I saw a girl and God whispered in my ear "I want her to know that she is my princess and I delight in her" so I walked over and told her. She was so incredibly blessed! She had just been asking God about her identity and what she could do to delight in Him more! It was beautiful. Then I walk back to my seat and a woman approaches me and says "I saw you raise your hand when they asked who wanted to pray for someone to be healed. The ligaments in my ankle are all messed up, will you pray for me?" So a friend and I prayed for her. And she put her foot down and all her pain was gone! Crazy!
All of this was a product of God's heart for me. He is slowly changing me to be more like Him. Instead of having to be prodded and goaded into doing His work, he speaks to me tenderly until His desires become mine. Now I know I haven't arrived there yet. I can still look at myself and see selfishness and fear. Pettiness and jealousy. But what if I stepped willingly into the fire to be purified? What if God led me by the hand my entire life instead of fencing me in with thorns? I see years ahead of me filled with beauty and passion. My heart overflows.

Legacy

Now, don't think I didn't know that I was blogging about the same Jesus story two times in a row. I knew full well that I was telling the same story. And you know what? I will tell it over and over again. To myself. To my friends. To my mentors and those who I mentor. Jesus healed me. Also, this blog isn't really to update anyone on my life. Its more like a journal that I can't lose but that I really don't mind if people read. So if you are reading, consider yourself warned. I don't really care if you understand what I am saying or not, this is a personal exercise.
At the end of freshman year of college, DCF had a mini-theme about the kind of legacy we were going to leave behind in college and in life. It really stuck with me and I have been thinking about it on and off ever since then. Last spring, before emotional disaster struck, I felt God really tug on my heart. I felt a strong calling to a life of service, but I really didn't know what God wanted that to look like. Then my mind was blown away with other things and I didn't even have the mental capacity to be confused about it. But a little before Christmas break started, I began thinking back on it again. God began birthing a new desire in my heart. Like all births, there is pain and confusion, but those aren't the parts you remember. Its the wonder and beauty of having a miracle laid in your arms that stick with you. This desire was the desire to truly live to be forgotten. What if I gave God everything I had? What if I never owned a house, or had kids, or did any of the other mundane, comfortable things that girls sometimes dream of? What if God's children were all the kids I needed? What if I lived everyday in God's house, grander than the most fabulous mansion?
Its a beautiful thought, the sacrifice and self denial, but I'm not as naive as I used to be. I have realized that sacrifice on the horizon is beautiful, but sacrifice in your face can be tough and dry and hard. Do I really know what it means to live to be forgotten? To truly surrender everything I have and everything I am on this earth in confidence of the glorious salvation God has promised? I'm still not sure. There are times when the biggest thought in my mind is that my heart is wicked about all else.
Luckily, God knows me. He knows me better than I know myself. Right when he started getting deep and personal with this new desire gave me a friend that I feel has been operating under this mindset for much longer than I have. Someone I can bounce ideas off of and get honest, intelligent, and insightful answers from. Its almost like God knew exactly what I would need!
I think its all part of the life long process of learning to take up my cross daily. Not weekly or yearly, but daily. To truly deny myself and the longings of my flesh. God has every right to ask this of us and smite us the minute we fail. But He is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love. He usually refrains from the immediate smiting. Instead he equips to do good works that He prepared beforehand. He holds our hand through the process and picks us up when we fall. He gives us community to support us and be supported by us. He helps us through the tough times and rejoices with us in the good. He is not just a good God, but a loving one.

Enter, Spirit

I think I may have experienced radical inner healing. Let me explain.
When I heard that the 2 girls from Marin Pazon had died, I cried for hours the first chance I was alone. Next time, I was alone, I cried for a few more hours. I knew I needed help, so I prayed (with more crying) and talked to one of the mentor type people I have in my life (with still more crying). Lather, rinse, repeat. I spent the next 9 months battling what I can now identify as depression in the form of a faith crisis. You know those commercials for anti-depressants, where the people lay in bed in a dark room looking forlorn? Or they stare out a dirty window watching others have fun doing things they used to enjoy? It was kind of like that, except real.
The sadness wasn't the worst part. The worst part was that my Comforter was gone. I tried and tried, but no matter how I twisted it, God was culpable for their deaths in some ways. God killed my children. God killed my sisters. I was angry. So angry I wanted to throw things. After that I was sad and hurt. Why would He do this to them? I thought He was Good.
During this terribly dark time in my life, my relationship with God grew stagnant. I don't think I ever considered actually falling away from him, but the personal and intimate part of our relationship was dissolving and I was building walls. I stopped having Jesus time. Every time I would draw near, I would just sob and writhe in pain. Eventually, all motivation to seek after God fell away.
Towards the end of the quarter I met with Michelle and she asked me how I was doing spiritually. After a few pointed and deliberate questions, the truth came out. Even though I could control my inclination to sob now, things were not doing well. We walked to a park and sat down and she said we needed to heal this, so we prayed. She said I needed to ask God the hard questions. Ask him where he was and what he was doing during the times I felt he had failed. So I did.
I asked him where he was when I left Elena? Why did he ask me to leave her alone, with no one to feed her and sit with her. I asked, but I didn't receive an answer. Michelle did. She said she got this picture of God sitting down by her and taking up her hand and holding it. Its funny, Elena was completely non-verbal. When she wanted something, she would point with a frantic look on her face until you got it right. When she didn't want something, she would grab your hand and pull you down next to her and just pet you. I think God was saying, she was satisfied.
I asked a few more questions, and the whole process helped. I wasn't really hearing a whole lot of God's voice. But together with Michelle, we were pulling down walls brick by brick.
One afternoon in India, we had a bit of free time and I felt God's call in the back of my mind. It had been so long since that happened, I was both excited and apprehensive. What was this going to look like? It wasn't a good time to have an emotional breakdown.
I climbed up to the top of the orphanage and looked out over the tree tops. It was misty and tropical and beautiful. There were workers in the rice fields and a herd of ducks were playing in a group of puddles. It was gorgeous. Then I sat down and read a little of the Bible. But that wasn't what God had in mind.
I closed my book and my eyes and I decided I would ask God the hardest question I could. I said, "where were you when those girls were dying of dehydration?"
God answered right away, "I was giving them drinks of Living Water."
I was floored.
They were with them in heaven. He had called them home. I cried a few silent tears and then went downstairs with no one the wiser.
After that day, I realized that the hunger and the intimacy were back, but last night I realized something else had returned. The Holy Spirit.
At DCF last night was the first real worship time I had had time for since that day. During the singing, I got a really clear sense of what was going on the in DCF body. I asked God if he wanted my to get on the mic and share. He gently said it wasn't necessary and I smiled as another student, one of the campus pastors, and our guest speaker talked about what God had been laying on my heart for the group.
Lately I have been meditating on the dual meaning of brokenness in the Bible. God wants us to be broken and contrite before him, but he also wants to make us mature and complete. During the last few months, I was an expert at being broken. It kind of sucked. It really sucked. But now I am both broken and whole. I bow before the great I AM, Yahweh, God the Father and I am lifted up on wings like eagles, planted by streams of living water, princess and daughter of the Healer. Forever and ever. Amen.

India

Well, I told myself that I needed to process things more. After what happened this spring in Romania, I was torn up. It took me about 9 months to really heal my relationship with God. During this time, I was ministering and discipling like normal! I didn't feel like I was ministering out of emptiness more than usual, I think there was a lot of grace there, but my relationship with God was growing stagnant. Every time I took a baby step forward, it seemed like I would hit a wall. Most of the time it was a wall that I built because it was so painful to move forward. God wasn't a God of compassion, trust, or promises. His plans were higher than mine, but that didn't mean they were good. I tried so hard to trust him, but I couldn't lay it all down at his feet. Letting go was too painful. God gave me a promise one night when I was praying alone. I told Him I wanted to trust Him again. He said I wouldn't trust him until I saw redemption in this situation. I took that to mean that He would make everything right. I wanted him to come with a bang. To supernaturally rescue every child from that place. To heal their hurts and soothe their hearts. But that isn't what God had in mind. Like the time God spoke to Moses, God wasn't in the storm, He was in the whisper.
One afternoon, I had a little bit of free time at the orphanage and I felt a little tug from God. I grabbed my Bible and my journal and I climbed up to the highest spot on the orphanage. I looked out at the fields and the trees and had a few moments of worship. God made nature and it is a masterpiece. I see Him in every green growing thing and every cloud. He is beautiful. After that I sat down and read from the Bible, from Leviticus actually. Earlier that week, I had been enjoying the nuggets of God's character I was getting from the laws, but here I was unsatisfied. So I closed the Bible and just prayed. I told God like I had many times in the past that I wanted Him back. My head knew so many truths but my heart just didn't want to follow yet. I asked Him the toughest question I could think of, one that I hadn't had the guts to ask yet. I asked Him where he was when those 2 girls were dieing of thirst. He answered right away, more clearly that he had answered in months. He said, "I was giving them drinks of Living Water." I started crying. I asked if they were there with Him and He said yes.
Ever since then, my hunger, my intimacy, the things that had been missing from my relationship with God... they were all back. He was just waiting for me to lay down my burdens. I learned a little about my personality this year. I am the personality type called melancholy, basically I am a thinker, an emotional, passionate person. I love my passion, I can't imagine life without the passions God has given me. It is one of my strengths, but with that comes a weakness. I can get overwhelmed with the worlds troubles, I can have trouble letting go of pain and giving it to God. Like pride, I think this will be a life long lesson.
Before I left for India, Kali and Zach were praying with me about my pain about those 2 girls and about my trip to India. Zach said he thought God was preparing some one for me to process things with. He laughed and said he wasn't getting a prophetic vision of a husband or anything. My curiosity was piqued. I already had a few mentor type relationships. I already had strong friendship where iron could sharpen iron, the only kind of relationship I was missing was a romantic relationship. That wasn't what God was talking about and I wasn't in a steady emotional state to start one anyways. But I really think God was saying that He was going to process things with me. I think our relationship is entering a new level. The last 9 month sucked, but I really think I am entering into a new place, a deeper place. As much as it may hurt, I look forward to where God is going to take me.

Pascho

So since I have a life outside of Romania, I decided to create a blog about it. Crazy, I know. Most likely, no one will every find it, but at the same time, I feel so bold and daring that this is on the internet and someone could find it if they really wanted to.
Enough of that, the word I wanted to talk about today was pascho. It's a Greek word often translated as 'suffering' in the Bible. But in one instance (Acts 1:3) it is translated as passion! The suffering Jesus endured for us, translated as passion! At first I was tremendously confused. How could passion and suffering come from the same word? I am afraid that for a few seconds, I had entirely the wrong definition of passion in mind mind. Then I remembered.
I have been described as a passionate person. People have even told me they envy me my passion for things! In my mind I think that these people can't have experienced too much passion in their lives. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't trade my passions for anything. They are part of who I am. It is the indefinable ache that accompanies them that I feel isn't to be envied. This ache is part of the passion, but it brings to mind the suffering of Jesus. Not just on the cross.
The definition of pascho is 'to be affected or have been affected, to feel, have a sensible experience, to undergo' it can be used in a good or a bad context. When you are sick, you 'pascho' (suffer). When you are having an amazing day you 'pascho' (revel in the joy of it!). When you hang on a bloody cross to take away the sins of your children, who you love more than life itself... which is it? suffering or reveling. Oh wait, it's passion!
The ache I feel when I think about people, places, things that I am passionate about... how much more must Jesus have felt when he prayed, when he entered triumphantly into Jerusalem, when he said to Judas "You will betray me," when he hung on a cross and said, "It is finished!"? How much does he feel for me? The old reference to Jesus' sufferings known as "the passion" makes so much more sense. In fact, I think it has gained a new beauty for me in its rediscovery.
That is the extent of my thought on that. Maybe I will write a Bible study on it someday. Maybe I will just leave it here to marinate in cyber-space.