New Beginnings

Well, I started my new job back at the end of July. I have to say that for the most part it has been a blessing. There have been a few set backs, but I believe God is seeing me through those and will help me pull through as he usually does. Mostly though, I have experienced life in a different way. These teenagers are full of love, longing to love and be loved. They are helping me to open up and except people into my heart like they are family. I still don't know how to handle friendships, how to know when someone is just being polite and when they are truely opening up to me and letting me open up to them, but I think I am getting a little closer. If nothing else, I am learning to be myself, and remembering who I am instead of who everyone wants me to be.

Glory to the Father

John 14:13 And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.

You may question this passage and say you can't just ask God for anything. I guarantee you that if it will bring glory to God, He will do it.

In my earlier posting I talked about some things I had been going through with my job and my relationship with God. This past school year ended much harsher than I had ever imagined in my last posting. My family has had a few hardships as well. Some I could see coming, others no one would ever want to imagine. I have always been taught that you must have faith but you can't expect God to do it all Himself, you must do for yourself as well. God helps those that help themselves I believe is how the saying goes. I have found in reality that is not all that true. Every time I have tried to do something on my own hoping God would use what I have started to open a door for me, that door was slammed shut. My mind kept going back to a sermon Bro. Chris preached. I cannot remember all the details but I do remember him preaching that the saying I just mentioned was not correct. Basically, and I hope I am not messing this up, we need to let go and let God do whatever it is He wants done and stop trying to get in the way. So that is exactly what I have been trying to do. I have been praying for God to open the doors He wants me to go through and to please make sure it is clear enough that I don't miss it. This has been extremely hard. I am not one to sit back and wait on things to happen. I have to be right in there making things happen and making things work. I am always determined that if I don't do my part then it won't get done. That is not at all what God wanted and He has been very clear about it, let me tell you. Through all of this I have been amazed at the people that stood beside me. Amazed does not even describe it, I have been humbled by the friendships that I knew were there but had no idea how strong they were. I usually view people as wanting to be friends as long as they can keep their distance. God has given me a trust in people that I did not know could ever exist anymore, a new faith in friendships. And that is just a small portion of what God has been doing. It is coming extremely close to time for the new school year to begin. I am still not sure what all is going to happen but continue to trust that God is in control and that He will make happen whatever is going to give him glory. I have even prayed for that specifically. Jesus said it best when He said "not my will, but yours be done" (Luke 22:42). The other day as I was reading in the book of John I came across the scripture I started this post with. I immediately stopped and prayed. I asked God at that time to let me know by the beginning of next week, this very week, what was going to happen so that I could stop feeling so, numb is the only word I can use to describe it, even depressed maybe. I asked Him to let me know and I asked it in Jesus' name so that it would bring glory to God, glory to the Father just as the scripture said. And as Priscilla Shirer said, I have been expecting the miracle. So I kept checking my email today, waiting for a phone call, but when the work day was over I still had not received a call. Well, the phone did ring and it was from the school, but I did not get to the phone in time and there was no message so I figured it really wasn't anything to do with anything important. A little later feeling a little frustrated I started typing my question to God into Google, knowing good and well that Google could not answer my question but it was not doing nothing. No, I did not get back any results from Google other than things like how to know when God has answered your prayer and how to get saved. For some reason I had the urge to check my email one last time. I kept telling myself "you idiot it is after 8:00 p.m., there is not going to be anything there until maybe tomorrow, you'd be better off checking back then." Turns out I was not an idiot after all. A little after 5 my boss had sent me an email. A big part of my question was answered. Not all of it, but enough that I am still up after 12:00 a.m. typing this post because I am excited, scared, anxious, and probably a few other emotions all wrapped up in one right now. I hope to find out more tomorrow, and pray that it is all good. God has brought me this far, I trust He is not going to let me down now.

This Time Around

This has really been a challenging year for me. I say year, most people would say few months but when you work in the school system the year seems to start with the new school year. Anyway, lots of things have been going on. No, I can not go into detail because my job is a job no matter what. Neverless I have been seeing lately how much God has been "pruning" me. I went through my spell of anger and temper tantrums. I felt (and sometimes still do)so distant from anyone including God. From everyone else simply because of my trust issues. Knowing who to trust is a hard thing for me. However trusting in God comes very easy to me so feeling so distant has been very hard and I have had to pray consistantly about it. Like others have said it is not God that moves away it is us. I have been striving to live more by faith and not by my feelings anyway. God has shown me over and over that He is still there and everything will be okay. This too shall pass (my situation). I can see that my trial is a long way from being over but there is nothing like being able to see just how much God is doing in my life. I have a long ways to go but He is continuously showing me that He is not done with me, is not leaving me, and will never give up on me. Hallelujah!! Praise God!! It is nice to not feel so distant anymore or angry. I am finally feeling humble. God never passes up an opportunity to show me that I am not in control He is. Without Him I can not get through and without Him nothing I do makes since. When I feel I have no friends to confide in He shows up and says "I am right here, I am listening, let's talk". When I insist on talking to a face I can physically see He waits patiently for me to realize He is the only one that I can find comfort in. When I get angry and try to handle things my way He waits quietly for me to throw my fit and then calmly redirects me. He truely is my rock and my salvation. He teaches me in ways I never thought possible and others would never believe even if I could find the words to explain it to them. He has brought me through so many valleys and storms. He is the only reason I am here to be writing this today. I was begging Him for a while to remove the obstacles from my path that I could not remove myself because I was too weak. I could not understand why He couldn't just take it from me. I see now that I have to go through this to get to where He needs me to be. I have things that need to be worked on and He is pointing them out to me and teaching me how to deal with them - with Him and not on my own. It is definitely not easy but He never said it would be.


Matthew 11:28-30
28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Proverbs 3:5-6
5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
6 in all your ways submit to him,
and he will make your paths straight.

After Nicaragua

I wanted to go to Nicaragua to help, to try to do something for God I have always felt I should be doing. Even though I lost my way for a while, when I got back on the right path the desire was still there. When I first arrived my thoughts were along the lines of "yes these people are living poorly, but they are only just behind about 30 years or so from us in the United States. Kinda like when I was a kid". The houses we saw for the first few days were mostly concrete and lots of them were very nice for their needs, at least what you could see in passing. The ones that weren't so much I thought of the stories that my parents and grandparents told of how things were when they were growing up. Poor and not knowing where your next meal was coming from. Only they at least had board houses that had floors even if they did have cracks big enough to feed the chickens under the house through. My grandparents and Tony's dad would tell me stories of making their own soap, salting their meat to make it keep because they had no refrigerator, no Christmas gifts all over the floor just maybe one or two things if you were lucky and maybe a piece of fruit in a sock that was hung, among other things. These people in Nicaragua didn't even have that. Dirt floors, tree limbs holding up plastic, tin, cardboard boxes, or whatever they could use to make a shelter. They seemed happy enough. Even in the most poverty stricken place we visited the people would ask for us to pray for ourselves for what we were doing. How humble is that?! God is doing great things through El Ayudante. Please keep them in your prayers and the people they are trying to help.

Since I have been back I have been so emotional. I have been looking at things differently. Trying to motivate myself to stay on track with the discipline we had when we were there of keeping busy preparing ourselves for the next time we went out to witness and deliver care packages. They were so open and loving. It reminded me of being a child. Of living in a family that didn't have much, of course we were rich compared to these people but in our society it makes a huge difference in how you are treated. I can't stop myself from crying over the things that bring such pain in the children's lives around us. I didn't realize how much I had allowed myself to become numb to those feelings. Those feelings are helping me to remember a little more of who I am and what I stand for. It is ok for people to not like me, it is ok for people to make fun of me for living for God, it is ok to be a good person and not be cool and/or tough all the time, it is ok to hurt and cry, it is ok to stand up for what I believe maybe just with love instead of so much anger, it is ok to be open about who you are and what God has brought you through..... Not that I hadn't been realizing these things before, but they are becoming more emotional for me and not just knowlegeable - if you can understand that.

Nicaragua Mission Trip

Well, only two more days left before I leave for Nicaragua. I can't believe it is already here. I received my schedule of what we are planning to do while we are there yesterday. It is all sinking in now and I am ready for this journey that God is leading me on. It seemed while I was thinking and praying about this trip that doors were shutting so that I would not be able to go as seems to happen when I plan to venture out with out my family. But every time it was like God was saying to me not to worry I will take care of it and He did. At the time I didn't know if that meant I wasn't suppose to go or not, but I soon realized the doors were not closing only being adjusted to be opened properly. God is so awesome. I have been thinking about all the things God has brought me through and all the things He has taught me. I know that doing this for God doesn't even measure up to a spec of what He has done for me. I am so grateful for the opportunity.

Opening Up

So this is not something that I would normally do. I do not have much to say to people. I am very quiet and withdrawn most of the time. However, that is not who God wants me to be. I have been trying very hard to learn to open up, learn to push myself to do things that I wouldn't normally feel comfortable doing. How else am I ever going to allow God to use me. Of coarse I can't step out on my own, I know that God is with me every step of the way. This does not mean that I will be talking about myself a lot. I have thought for a while about what I would talk about if I ever joined a blog. Then it hit me one day, the one thing I enjoy talking about is God. So that is what I am going to do. I will talk about God and the journey He is carrying me through and the things He teaches me. That is exactly what my life has been is a journey with God, even when I did not realize He was there.