Love has a hem to her garment
That reaches the very dust.
It sweeps the stains
From the streets and lanes
And because it can, it must.
~ Mother Theresa

Today was a discouraging day. Filled with horror and dismay over certain situations that were, altogether, out of my control. I have been bombarded with emotional trials, and have found little relief, outside of my few precious moments of solitude in the early mornings and the late evenings… I found myself questioning God and begging Him for understanding about the painful things in this world, and for His precious arms to wrap me in a comforting embrace. I was desperate to climb into His presence and stay there, and being so dismayed, it was not an easy task to just focus on Him. So I came home to my sweet Nana and asked her to read with me. Out of habit, I pulled out the Charles Spurgeon, “Morning and Evening,” devotional that we often read together and then sat down. My Nana, on the other hand, retrieved another devotional and pulled out an old bookmark from it, that had the Mother Theresa quote typed out onto it from years ago, and simply handed it to me.
 Sometimes, I wonder at God’s grace and mercy, and I question the things that seem unjust and unrighteous. I want to scream at the unjust things that I see and hear, I want to fight the things, the people, who misrepresent Jesus and the gospel, and I question God’s plan and His wisdom and wonder why He doesn’t strike blasphemous people down dead, and then wonder why He doesn’t strike me down for the same reason…” Seek justice, love mercy and walk humbly with your God.”  It is a simple answer. Plain enough to penetrate this simple mind of mine, and complex enough to draw me into a web of discovery. “Love has a hem to her garment that reaches the very dust. It sweeps the stains from the streets and the lanes. And because it can, it must.” BECAUSE IT CAN, IT MUST ( Mother Theresa).  Everyone was created for God, and we are born seeking life, and we continue seeking life until the day we die. There is no reasoning behind it, and most people would not know how to tell you why they seek life, other than they were created, born, to search for something deeper than themselves, and even then, some would not know to use the word created at all, because it indicates that there is some grand design, or purpose, for their lives that might be out of their control. But, because we can seek life, we must seek life. It is in our DNA, it is a part of our souls and it is our calling to be a part of something bigger than ourselves… And the biggest thing I can think to be a part of is God’s plan. I remember reading an account about George Muller once, which stood out to me because of the simplicity of his belief, and the power that God bestowed upon him for that belief.  The key sentence that stood out to me was this, “ Mr. Muller ( captain of the ship speaking) do you realize how dense the fog is?” “No.” He replied, “My eye is not on the dense fog but on the living God, who controls every circumstance of my life (Streams in the Desert. 315).” I am realizing more and more that as life gets stickier and as I become more aware of all the awful circumstances people go through in this life, that the answer George Muller gave is the response I should have, in every dense and foggy situation. It’s not about how confusing the circumstances are, or how big the issue at stake seems to be, my focus need not be on the circumstance, but rather on the one who is in complete control over all situations in this life, Jesus.  I think that if my focus remains on Jesus and who He is, then I will be less distracted and worried about the gnats that seem to loom like giants when my gaze has shifted from the Lord.  I am glad indeed, that Jesus’ hem of love reaches the dusty streets of my heart, and that He does not give up on me as He continues to carry me on towards a child-like faith in Him. I am glad that I do not walk on this path of life alone, but that Jesus is quick to send me aid in my days of trouble, guidance in my time of dismay and comfort in my time of fear….the list is endless, and I could not be more grateful to Him than I am today. I look forward to my future, knowing that He will teach me more of Himself every day and that as time moves on I will look back and continue to say, “I am more grateful to Him today, than I ever was before.”

A Spiritual Spanking

I just got back from GA yesterday, after spending a few days there for a missions conference with the folks I met down in Haiti. It was great to see them all again, but it was also really, really difficult for me. You see, God has placed in me this desire for Haiti, but He has also placed in me a "knowing" that I am not allowed to go...yet. I am waiting. I am sure you can imagine how hard it is to wait on something, when everyone around you is practically dancing down the path that you desire to be on. Yes, I learned a lot and I am happy for them and I am more than happy that I was included in the conference, but my heart got broken and tried on so many different levels. One level is a lonely level. Another level is an insecurity level. And those two combined, make a really, really, self-centered level.
I have a void in my life, and it's a void that has been there for as long as I can remember. It's a void for community, true community, and fellowship. There are not many people that I can relate to, or people that understand my heart's crazy desire to be in deeper relationship with Jesus, and I don't mean that to be a prideful statement, it's just the way it seems. The problem is that the people that do understand and share my passion, most of them live at least 2,00 miles away from me across the ocean, in some foreign country. It's hard to build relationship and community with people that live a different life, in practically a different world. So my goal is to build that kind of community around me, with the people that God has placed in my life, and it is definetly not the easiest task I have ever set out to do, but it started because of the people I met in Haiti. Anyways, all that to say, I got to this conference and because the people there have different lives and are all very close to each other spiritually, mentally and emotionally, i had a lot of trouble feeling like I fit in this time around, and most of them were so tired that they didn't seem to have them emotional reservoir they needed in order to try and invest in new relationships. Needless to say, I had a pity party and fussed a lot at God about allowing me to be there at all. I figured I could be lonely all the way in VA and I didn't need to travel 500 miles to be lonely in GA. I got an attitude adjustment pretty fast for that thought. As it turns out, I wasn't there for me at all. I was there for Jesus, and some people that He met me there with, who needed some TLC. It did take me about a day to start trying to look outside of myself, but Jesus was super patient with me and gave me scripture after scripture of encouragement, and still ( even with my bad attitude) allowed me to minister to other people in His mighty name. I am pretty humbled about that. I even met some people who felt the same way I did and we were able to all encourage each other and pray together, and it was awesome. I was even more blessed, because the ways that Jesus used me to minister to people, were by things that He has been showing me and teaching me over the past few months, through various tough situations, and it was SO totally worth, every difficult moment, to be able to offer compassion, sympathy and encouragement to other people who were going through similar situations and then to hear them praise God for His sweet compassion and grace. There are a lot of things that I am still working through.  There were some dissapointments here and there, and some hard truth's that were spoken to me, and I really don't have any idea what the big plan is for later on down the road, but I know that God has something special in store, and I can't wait to see what it is...I didn't feel courageous when I was there, I didn't feel compassionate or happy. I felt lonely, angry, scared, hurt and dissapointed, but I was still willing to be used by Jesus, even though I didn't understand what was going on, I still wanted to somehow bless Him through all of what was going on inside of me, and from that desire He blossomed a sprout of courage and from courage a bit of hope and from hope a little compassion, and so on and so forth.... His power is perfected in my weaknesses, and it  is a beautiful thing to behold him taking my wicked and dirty heart and turning into something beautiful that reflects the goodness of His being, of His nature. I was so blessed by Jesus.