Friday, February 24, 2012

February 2012 Letter


I have been struggling to fill everyone in over the past month.  I feel like the past few months I’ve been singing the same song, going through the same struggles, and slowly but surely getting ready to head into missions.  I didn’t feel much new was going on…. Until last night, that is.

I decided to listen to a sermon by Francis Chan.  Chan talked about Daniel 4.  He shared that King Nebuchadnezzar understood God’s power and sovereignty to a deep level, and we need to grow in our understanding of this as well.  We cannot be elevated or brought low without God’s hand in it.  God’s will for us endures above all else.  The entire world can disagree with God, even the angels can disagree with God and yet He prevails. 

Daniel 4:34-35, “…I blessed the Most High and praised and honored Him who lives forever; for His dominion is an everlasting dominion, and His kingdom endures from generation to generation. All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, but He does according to His will in the host of heaven and among the in habitants of earth; and no one can ward off his hand or say to Him, ‘What have You done?’”

But, it goes beyond that.  While God has this power, He still chose to come to earth.  He still chose to humble Himself to death on a cross.  Not because He had to but because He wanted to.  Chan shared that in our own lives we, as Christians, should be imitators of Christ in this.  He talked about giving up everything: comfort, social norms, reputation, even his church, to live for Christ.  Not because we have to, but because nothing else should matter in our lives but making disciples of all the nations, baptizing them….     

I have to admit, the past few weeks I have been sucked in by materialism.  I have wasted time looking at and pursuing things that fade.  My list of “needs” before I return to Australia continued to grow at an alarming rate.  I started making ‘wish lists’ for clothes and other things.  I haven’t had the resources to actually purchase anything but in my heart I was compiling all these treasures and clinging to them.  I have wasted hours looking, coveting. 

Less than a year ago, I spent 3 of the best weeks of my life in East Timor living in a shed on a cot with 4 t-shirts, 2 pairs of pants, and little food or resources.   I was so content and happy.  I also had more than anyone else in the village and all I had fit into a backpack. 

I have repented, but, admittedly, I am still struggling wanting more.  God didn’t call me into missions to elevate me. He isn’t even necessarily going to bless me.  All I have is only because He chose to give it to me.  It is more than I need.  In the process of support coming in, I have to stop believing any of it is by my efforts.  I cannot trust in my own ability.  God is the one who is providing.  He is the one putting people in my path to support me.  My job is to be a good steward of what He has entrusted me with.  My job is to live for God and point people to Him.   

King Nebuchadnezzar was the ruler of the greatest kingdom on earth at the time.  He had more power and wealth than anyone else could even imagine. Yet, God humbled him, stripping him of even his sanity.   Who am I to expect anything from God? 

Prayer and Praise:
-I am currently at about $960 in monthly support!  Leaving about $500 a month to still come in. (4.5 more weeks!)   
-Visa is in process, they contacted me wanting more support information before accepting or denying it.  
-Pray for continued focus to be Christ centered and not “me” centered.
-Thanks to the Neely’s for having provided room and board to me over the past 6 months, allowing me resources to prepare for missions. 

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

What My Parents Taught Me


As I get older I recognize and uncover so many frustrations and struggles I have with my parents.  I love them and I know they love me, but one of the biggest hindrances has been being who God created me to be and not who my parents think I am or should be.  There is a huge gap in this.  I don't think they are necessarily disappointed in who I am; I just don't think they realize who I am.  Not completely anyway.  

For example.  I hear over and over again from my family that they are so happy I want to remain single, never have kids and serve the Lord.  I literally have no idea where they got that.  I look forward to being married one day.  I look forward to having chubby, curly-headed toddlers who grow into amazing men and women of God.  Just because I'm not out pursuing it like society tells us to and my identity and focus are not based on marriage and a family, doesn't mean I don't long for it. 

It's so easy to focus on the brokenness in our relationships, however.  A friend of mine illuminated my thinking with a similar issue with her mother.  "She is hurt because she thinks if I am not like her then I am insinuating she wasn't a good enough mother or that she failed somehow.  I think she was a wonderful mother; I'm just not her."  

It was an "a-ha" moment if ever there was.  Maybe while my parents are proud of me, every time I step out and break the mold they are thinking, "Why doesn't she want to do it our way? Weren't we good enough?"  

While I want to maintain sensitivity to them, I don't want to be them.  Not because they were horrible, but because I am not them.  With that, I do want to focus on some of the amazingly positive things my parents taught me. 

My dad gardens a lot.  He tore up their entire backyard and turned it into a mass garden.  Almost every place we have ever lived, he has something growing.  My parents also have fixed up every place we have ever lived.  I can't even begin to tell you the skill in home renovation I have.  How many hours of my life have been spent painting? Building? Planting? Weeding? 

My family has always sat around or below the poverty level in the U.S.  We've never had much.  Yet, we always had one of the nicest homes in our neighborhood.  Usually when we moved in our home was the bane of the area.  People cringed when they drove past.  Even after a few months, the changes would become clear.  By the end of a year, no one would ever know we had the fixer-upper.  

I love it.  

Part of the reason I became an artist is because I love beauty.  I love to make beautiful things and I love to take beautiful things I see and put them in a format people can appreciate.  

My parents taught me that.  Not in words but in deed.  I learned from an early age it should be our goal to leave every place better than when we came.  I know they meant that in a physical sense but I also believe it true in a spiritual sense.  

Every place I go, I want to make more beautiful, cleaner, better.  But, every person I come into contact with I also want to leave in a better place than when I met them.  I want to build them up, love them, make their life just a little bit easier and brighter.  And, more than anything, show them Christ because He can transform them and make them new.