Leaving Family

God's call and His will are something that we know to be perfect and irreproachable. However, His plan being perfect does not mean that it is free of suffering, pain, tears and sorrow. Perfection from God comes through the fires of trial and if Jesus as Man was not exempt from these things, and if we are to follow in His footsteps, then we should be preparing for such things and not shrinking away from them.

God's plan for me in Africa is perfect. However, God's plan for me requires me to leave my family behind. Not in the sense that I stop all communication or cease to love them, but rather that I won't have many opportunities to show them that in a physically present way. I am not going to be the with them less and less as I get older and deeper into God's will, and I am going to miss them.

Since before I was called to Africa, I can see where God's hand has been in easing me and my family into this distance. I worked at Village Creek Bible Camp for a while and was a camper there too. I was never really homesick, ever. I really love camp, and because I wanted to be there so badly, and loved where I was at so much, I simply did not miss spending the summer with my family. When I graduated and went off to college, I still did not get homesick. God, I believe, built a resilience within me to some extent.

During the Thanksgiving break of 2008 I had a reality check. My mom's side of the family gets together at every Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas. The Easter and Christmas of 2008 I had missed or would be missing, along with Easter of 2009, and I already knew this going into our family Thanksgiving. My cousin, Cody was born a few months before me, and we grew up, in the early years, more like siblings and good friends. As Cody was about to leave the night of our Thanksgiving reunion, he looked me in the eye and asked me when I was going to see him again. He caught me completely off guard because I honestly didn't think that he cared anymore. I was wrong. It dawned on me that it would be about a year, next Thanksgiving, when I would see him again. When I told him, he nodded his head, said okay and pulled me in to a hug.... At that moment, it took everything that I had within me to not cry. As I waved goodbye from the window, I cried.

God was choosing to reveal this reality of His plan then. The security that I experience with my family now, and being at home, where I was raised, and having all those comforts; those things are going to fade into memories as time progresses. It hit me then.

Oddly, this was the very same Thanksgiving break that God made it obviously clear to me that I was supposed to relent to the valiant pursuits of this man of God that God himself had put into my life for a specific reason. For two plus years I was being pursued by a godly man and had done everything, including outrightly rejecting him to encourage him to stop his pursuit. He never stopped, acting in faith on God's will, and God came through. I know that I am going to have a family in Africa, but its a bit newer. I am going to have brothers with me in Africa, and eventually sisters, but they are being brought together by God right now, and God has been bringing us all together for a long time coming, and we probably have done a very poor job of realising what has been going on.

In recognising and accepting all of these things, the fact that I won't have my Mom, Dad, Dakota, Kolby, Grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles close anymore is daunting. This family is a good family and it is a good thing to desire, but it was for a season and a time in my life that is drawing to a close. A new season, with a new family cometh. And it is hard. It is hard to accept, it is hard to believe. God wants what will be best for me, and what will glorify Him.

I do not know what would be best for me, but I know the One who has such knowledge. So I am going to follow His and where He leads me I will go, and where He stops me I will stay. It would be wrong of me to hold on tightly to a good thing that God is calling me to open my hand and let go.

Letters

My support letter went up very quickly, they were sent out quickly, but there are some that have made me incredibly uncomfortable to deliver. I don't think that this uncomfortability is something that is confined to me, or that it is necessarily a bad thing at all. Maybe this is the feeling one gets when they step out of a boat and into the crashing waves as Peter did, maybe it will be done only to find that the ground beneath my feet feels surprisingly solid.

But right now, I really don't know what will happen. All I know is that I've been called to step out in faith and to deliver a message, much like I am called to deliver letters. God really chose the people who were given letters, not I.

God, what I really need is for you to expand my faith, please increase it a few more micrometers towards the size of a mustard seed. I am relying on you to send me, people will be the means, my faith the fuel, and you, you are the one who will spark it to make it all work.

For the Moments I Feel Faint... instead of Faith

So I was pretty sure that I was going to be gone for about six to eight weeks this summer. Today I was beginning to write my support letter and got to a part where I wanted to say how long I was going to be gone... funny part was that I didn't know. So I called AIM and got forwarded to the short term secretary, Corola. She told me that Rae hadn't solidified the times yet, but the educated guess was about three weeks in all. I politely said thank you and got off the phone.

I was upset and ready to call back and let them know that I didn't think I would be going on that particular trip because with the amount of support that I have to raise, plus the preparation that I have been working on to be gone all summer, plus I thought that I could be used better, for a longer period of time. Why would this happen this way, this isn't what I wanted.

It took a little while, but I eventually came back to God's will and his sovereign goodness over everything. I said yes to His choice for me and said, whatever happens, God is good. I still wasn't content in my heart, but I knew that whether my stubborn heart liked it or not, I was going to Senegal.

Not very long after that Jared Weston, a brother of mine, posted this back, "Something we need to be reminded of every moment of the day." This was encouraging, which meant I was going in the right direction, God still speaks.

I started to realize how pride filled my thoughts about this whole time thing had been that morning. God revealed to me that I would be really lucky if I came out of Senegal with an ounce of emotional, physical or any other type of energy or strength left within me, and what was left would be non-existent apart from Him. I told Him that I would keep pouring and rely on Him for the refilling process. But man, I was ready to scratch that today, and now I feel really faithless for thinking that.

God is outside of time, and three weeks will most likely seem like an entire lifetime to me while I am gone, because I will be on His time, not the world's or my own. God is able to do what I think would take me eight weeks in three weeks. He really is. I pray that these impurities will be burned out of me. Even as I am beginning this week physically ill and emotionally drained, I still wanted it my way and not His. His will has it right, and that is what I am going to follow as He teaches me exactly what that looks like.

A few hours later, when God and I had struggled through all of this, and I had gotten back on the altar as His living sacrifice, God spoke to my heart again through Jared again. Jared posted Daniel 11:35 on his status. Daniel 11:35 says, "Some of the wise will stumble, so that they may be refined, purified and made spotless until the time of the end, for it will still come at the appointed time." Praise God. I am praying now that God will give me the courage to remain on the altar.