Enough...

Enough...that word has been being used in my head the last 24 hours in multiple ways.  At work last night a couple of my coworkers were questioning me as to why I didn't just pick up some extra shifts to help pay for this trip.  That of course planted a small seed of doubt and made me wonder...what if this is all my fault and I haven't tried hard enough?  Maybe I didn't do enough to try to raise the money in time.  Maybe I didn't pray hard enough.  I don't know.  Then yesterday I was given another financial blow, I won't go into details, but I just kept thinking "Enough!!  I can't take anymore!!  I have had enough!!"  Then this morning on my way home from work I heard this song for the first time ever and it had tears streaming down my face...

Here are a couple lines from the song that really stuck out to me:

This time your heart said it's had enough
Sick and tired of everything that's so messed up

And don't give up
And the dark is breaking in today
And just keep on moving through these storms

These walls around you are caving in
And your life seems like it is wearing thin
And your hope is drowning in despair
It looks like you're not going anywhere
Step inside this heart and then you'll see
Such a love that is so amazing

It does sort of seem like the walls are caving in, but I have to just keep running to the One who can rescue me and pick me up and love me in a way I can never fully understand.  It's not east when things keep piling up, but I am going to do my best to keep turning to Him.  He's the only one who can help me through it!!

Surrender...

Surrendering everything, I think, is one of the most difficult things to do in the Christian walk. As humans we want to have at least a small part in controlling the outcome of our lives and the things we do, but when you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior you are giving up that control to the One who knows all, and has an ultimate plan for our lives. This week has been a reminder over and over again, culminating tonight at my small group. The calling and burden on my heart for the children of Africa and specifically Uganda is undeniably placed there by God. What I have had to learn to let go of and surrender completely to God is this mission trip to Uganda. I am still about $900 away from my first goal payment of $2200 that is due a week from today (8/6). For the past week, and probably longer if I really think about it, I have been worrying and stressing over raising the funds for this trip and whether it was truly God's will for me to go or not. My small group that I've been led to lead is studying through Francis Chan's book "Crazy Love" and tonight part of our discussion centered around stress and anxiety and how they can be a huge distraction and even become a sin if we let them take us away from what God wants us to focus on: Him and Him alone! One of the key verses we discussed was the passage in Matthew 6:25-34 where Jesus is talking about worry. The key verse that seemed to be directly at me tonight was Matthew 6:34 "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.". Right there in the middle of our discussion, it hit me how much I've been holding onto this trip and letting my worry and anxiety take my focus off of just simply glorifying God and letting Him be in total control. The girls in my group let me share my struggle and what I'm facing with this trip and were able to help me see that I just have to surrender it and all my anxiety about it over to God and let Him control what happens. I had this idea in my head that if I don't raise the money on time and am unable to go on this trip that it means I won't ever be able to go and that I was wrong in thinking it was God's will for me to go. I had this thinking that if I don't go on this October trip to Uganda it meant that the burden on my heart for the children there was all just me misreading everything and I was wrong in trying to go. What the amazing girls in my group helped me understand tonight is that even if I am unable to go on this particular trip, that doesn't mean it's not God's will or that I won't ever go. They helped me see that this burden on my heart is absolutely God given and even if I don't go in October, God may have me going at a different time, or doing something completely different here in the U.S. as a way to help those children and in order to glorify him the way he is preparing me to do. They also reiterated that this trip may still be part of God's plan for me and He just wants me to completely trust Him to provide. I am so grateful for those girls and the way they let me share a little of my heart tonight and embraced me with encouraging words. I know that as hard as it is for me to just sit back and completely surrender this to God, and realize the possibility that I may not go on this trip, no matter what happens, God has a bigger plan! So...I SURRENDER, LORD! I SURRENDER!!

Sharing my heart....

Ok...tears are streaming down my face as I write this...I'm being vulnerable, but writing has always been almost cathartic for me so here I am putting my feelings to words.  God has placed this amazing desire and burden on my heart for orphans, adoption, and now Africa.  In May God led me to Visiting Orphans and this trip to Uganda.  Tonight my heart is breaking, but I'm not sure why.  I know I shouldn't let fear in, but I can't help but feel a little fearful that this trip may not happen.  I know a lot of it is because of the funding, and I want to have faith that God is going to provide, but I have an uneasiness in my heart that I can't explain.  I still have $1400 to raise for my first payment in 10 days.  I don't know if this uneasiness is God telling me this trip isn't His will, or if He's trying to tell me something else.  All I know is I think there is a piece of my heart in Africa already, even though I have yet set foot there, and for whatever reason that part of my heart is really being tugged on tonight.  I want nothing more than to be able to go see those children and be able to show them the kind of love they all deserve!  The only thing I think I could possibly want a little more is to be mother.  I have so much love in my heart to give and I want to share that with a child so badly I can hardly stand it.  I've started doing a little more research on adoption and spent part of my evening last night looking at some websites of some of the orphanages we will be visiting in Uganda, and my heart completely broke for those children.  Every single one of their sweet faces tugged on my heart strings.  It's becoming clear to me that God is tugging on my heart for a reason, but I'm still not sure why.  I know in time God will reveal to me what it is He is has in store, but until then I continue to feel a little uneasy.  I want to do so much more than what I'm doing in my life right now.  I know there is so much more I could be doing with my life, but I have other responsibilities in my life that I can't just drop everything without neglecting some of that.  I just really want to be doing what God wants me to be doing, but I don't know what that is!  This burden on my heart is there for a reason, I know it is!!  I know the desires in my heart are there for a reason!!  I guess I just keep seeking Him and praying for his timing for everything.  I want to ask you to come with me on this journey and pray for God's leading on my life.  I can't do this without the love and support of my friends and family!  Thank you!!

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!!