To See the Glory of God...

I wrote this at the beginning of 2006 and never finished it....

Well, Happy New Year everyone. Seems I haven't had quite as much time to sit and write as I did when we were having our Christmas break.

I have spent alot of time thinking and praying. I'm wondering what this year will bring. And I've been reflecting on the past two years - horrible in one sense - magnificent in another. I lost one of my precious nephews. Despite living for only 7 weeks, he touched the lives of our whole family in a way some people never do - he pulled us all closer together - closer to the Lord. The loss, at the time, was overwhelming and beautiful too because God was beautiful TO us despite our sadness. And then my dad, only 59 and healthy as all get out, suddenly found out he had a vicious tumor growing in his leg, eating his bone and depositing cancer in his body. Despite removal of his leg, he only stayed with us 10 more months. I miss him soooo.....

But I'm beginning to understand as never before, that you need to come to the end of yourself to really find God. I've been a Christian for 18 years and tried to stay in control of any hardship or sorrow that came my way, but I was liberated and swept away by the love of God when I learned to let go and let Him hold me and hide me.

I'm reading an incredible book called More than Enough. It is the story of missionaries, Heidi and Rolland Baker whom the Lord called to start caring for the orphaned and abandoned children living in the dumps in Mozambique. They have absolutely nothing and they find God in such an incredible, powerful way. They experience the reality of God. Miracles are common, everyday events in their lives because they need Him SO much. In America, we just don't need Him enough.

I know I don't. Except now I don't have an earthly Father and I DO need my Heavenly Father to be my Father here and He's promised He will be a Father to the fatherless, but I'm talking about needing him and wanting him more than anything else this world has to offer. I look at myself and see so much of me and I want people to see God - not Me.

And now here I am...2007....

To see the glory of God and not ourselves. Isn't that our hearts cry? I know many people passionately pursuing the glory of God in their lives and it is so inspiring. I feel blessed to be surrounded by many. But isn't it necessary if we are going to make a difference in this world? We need to be different and separate, otherwise who will see God?

This summer Hannah and I have the opportunity to go to San Pedro, Honduras for our first missions trip. I'm excited for both of us, but mostly for Hannah who feels the Lord may be calling her to full-time missions work one day, especially with orphans. Recently she had a vision of Jesus with children of all races hiding behind his robe looking at her. They brought flowers and put them in her hair and sat on her lap. This is MY daughter at the age of 15 experiencing God more powerfully than I ever have. I am overwhelmed.

Yesterday, I was working on our support letter and explaining all we would be doing in Honduras. I was very excited while I was writing, I was thinking of Heidi Baker at the time. One of our outreaches will be in the Bordo, an area where 30,000 children live in a trash dump. We'll pass out food, candy and hygiene products, but also pray for the children, believing the Lord to heal and deliver many. It is beyond my imagining right now. I have never in my life seen poverty like that.

Yesterday afternoon it hit me. I was walking by a man that smelled like....well....urine. And it struck me that I will be holding children that are sick and filthy and smell horrible. Suddenly I was scared to death. I am afraid I won't be able to do anything but cry. I've heard that Heidi Baker holds her babies and cries over their sick, diseased and dying bodies for hours and the Lord heals them, so that may not be the worst thing. What if I can't hold them or love them because I'm too scared or repulsed? What if I want to turn my back on them, so I just don't have to see how horrible life is for these little children. What if I can't do it?

In fact, I realized suddenly that I couldn't.

You see that word up there? I. This is what I'm talking about. I can't do it. I know I can't, but I do know that God would not be sending me there if He did not think I was ready to let Him be sufficient for me. He doesn't even want me to have the strength to do this, because His Glory and Grace can't be compared to our own feeble attempts. When He loves and moves through me, I will be one step closer to my heart's cry of all of Him and none of me.

Sometimes prayers aren't answered like you'd hoped or God doesn't show up like you'd imagined. The worst thing I can think of would be to pray for an orphaned, sick child and not see God move. That's the other thought creeping around in the back of my head, but really, I know it's a lie. God doesn't hold out on us. At the very least, what God has done in my life this past year is I know His character and I trust that He is always good and loving and reaching out to us constantly pulling us towards Him. We take one small step of faith and He comes bounding toward us. Ephesians says, "I pray that you will begin to understand how incredibly great his power is to help those who believe him. It is the same mighty power that raised Christ from the dead and seated him at the place of honor at God's right hand in heaven...and God has put all things under his feet and made him the supreme Head of the church - which is his body, filled with Himself, the Author and Giver of everything everywhere." Amen!

One year later...

Can it be?? It's been almost a whole year since I was here writing folks. Not that anyone is reading this probably. Mostly I just do it for my own amusement. I was thinking about what I said about Mr. and Mrs. Grump last year. I was thinking that I was too hard on them and not being a nice person and that I should delete my post, but it just cracks me up everytime I read it. (snort!) Mr. Grump did confirm the other day that we have very different gardening styles when he suggested I spraypaint my beautifully aged birthbath. He also told my husband that we needed to "do something" about the "overgrown" rosebush in that bed outside his garage. (in our yard though) It's a climber that has nothing to climb on and I've left it alone since we moved in and it's now a gorgeous spreading bush. In another month, it will be a waterfall of red blooms. He hates it.

I finally realized he may not like what I'm doing over here after all. I had this "you wait and see" attitude that he would eventually appreciate all the flowers, but maybe not. Maybe he'll see it as an overgrown weedy mess. This makes me thankful we finally got the ligustrum hedge planted in the backyard. In about 5 years, he won't see over here anymore and he'll have to find something else to criticize. You can talk about me, but don't talk about my flowers!