Friends are awesome!

Aren't friends awesome!  And I don't mean just your everyday, run of the mill acquaintence type friends...they're great too, but I'm talking about the 'there through thick and thin, tell you when you're being an idiot, let you cry and complain about silly stuff and listen intently all the while, call at 2am if you need them, get each other without saying a word' friends!!  I am blessed in my life to have a few of these awesome friends and a couple of them just happen to be family too!  The last couple weeks I had really been struggling trying to figure out if this trip is really part of God's will for me and wondering where the funds would come from if it is, and once again my awesome friends came to the rescue!  I am so grateful for those friends!!  After talking to a couple of them this week I have realized I have been focusing on the wrong thing!  My worrying about this trip and raising funds provided that sneaky devil a tiny little opening to plant a seed of doubt and once it started to bloom it just continued to eat away at my faith and trust.  Thanks to a little heart to heart with a couple of my dear friends they helped me see what was happening and I know without a shadow of a doubt that this trip is God's will for me!  I still may not know where the funds will come from, but I'm not worried!  I have full faith that God will provide! 

Boasting in my weakness!!

I am weak!  Oh boy am I ever weak!!  I'll say it again...I AM WEAK!!  I try daily to put my full trust and faith in God and his plans for my life, but I fail so often.  I'm so glad Heaven and God's Grace are not based on single elimination because I would have been out a very long time ago!!  I want to do God's will for my life, but sometimes I really struggle with how to know what that is.  If God could just send a letter in the mail, or write it in the sky, or speak in an audible voice it would be so much easier!  However, that's not really the case, these days anyway, so we must rely on other methods of knowing God's Will for our lives.  I have not mastered those methods yet.  I have been struggling the last few days wondering if I misread something.  My trip to Uganda is something I was sure was in God's will for me!  I've started having second thoughts though....not about actually going, but that maybe it wasn't part of His will after all.  The financial piece is not coming together for me like I thought it would.  Am I not trusting enough, or am I just not supposed to go?  I don't know!  I still really believe God called me to this trip, but how do I know for sure?  I have the Jesus Calling app (based on the book by Sarah Young) and the title of yesterdays was "Do Not Worry About Tomorrow!".  Here is an excerpt that really spoke to me: "Anxious thoughts meander about and crisscross in your brain, but trusting Me brings you directly into My Presence.  As you thus affirm your faith, shackles of worry fall off instantly.  Enjoy My Presence continually by trusting Me at all times."  I realized that by worrying about the financial aspect of this trip and worrying about it not being part of God's will that I am taking my focus off what really matters!  If God really has called me to this trip (and I still really believe He has), He WILL provide the funds for me to get there!  I just have to trust Him!  One of the verses at the end of the devotion was 2 Corinthians 12:9 "But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me."  So...here I am boasting in my weakness!  How easily I become distracted and lack faith.  How easily I forget about the power of my God!  He can move mountains!!  Of course he can provide funds for this trip!!  So boast I will!  In His power I WILL go to Uganda!!