Since January I have wrestled through the feelings of it is too hard you should just go home, everyone else has a sending agency but you are all alone, and who do you think you are to do this? Sometimes the sounds of isolation are almost deafening - but I'm still here!
Now it is time to lift my head up for the next couple of weeks before summer school starts and do some evaluating. I have been asking God the last couple of days if I am still on the path He has designed for me, am I doing what He wants and investing my time wisely. Through that discussion I have made some adjustments.
I won't be going back to French school for this next session and I will be writing my first book. I have almost twenty pages written and I am very excited and apprehensive all at the same time. I have never written a book before so this is a whole other first for me. There are many things that I want to say and I know that there are more books to come. So as I am writing I am also studying how to put together and publish a book.
On another front, God has been unpacking the whole area of finances with me this past couple of months. He is showing me my trust on some levels and but my lack of trust in others. He loves that I am willing to blindly go if I think He says go and now He wants to expand on that. I have always been a person who could take care of herself. If money was tight I could always find a job - always even when other people could not. This time I am in France. I do not have a work visa so I cannot go to work here. I am completely dependent on God. In the past I have thought that I was depending on Him, and on a certain level of understanding I was. I always depended on Him to find me that job and He did. I feel like now He wants me to go deeper and is really establish some deeper foundations of trust in Him alone.
Having said all that, the reality is I do not have rent money for this month or money to pay for my classes for the last month. I have never been here before. I am at a place where I am completely dependent on God. I know that He is working things out of me in the area of finances and complete trust in Him. I have such confident trust in Him in so many areas. I have cried many tears over what He is showing me. I have asked and asked why this one area is so hard. Some of it has to do with how I was brought up and some of it to do with my past, some of it is just my own "stinkin thinkin" as Joyce Meyers says. I think we all struggle in some areas more than others, but God in His mercy will teach us if we will let Him take us through the hard places of our own wrong thinking.
There have been weeks when I had no money to buy groceries and He wanted to know if I could be thankful and praise Him anyway. I didn't have money for the bus, could I praise Him anyway. My feet and legs hurt from walking so much, can I praise Him anyway? My couch is broken and has a big sink hole in the middle where I sit and sleep - can I praise Him anyway? Other missionaries got cars and bikes, could I praise Him anyway? He continues to strip more and more attitudes, opinions, perceptions and strongholds out of me.
A few years ago I had some prophetic words spoken over me several times over a period of about three years. Each time it was exactly the same words spoken by women from different countries "pack your bags, don't unpack your bags." I am still not sure what they all mean, but I think now He is stripping more out of me so that I can travel light in the spirit.
I feel like He keeps telling me not to worry that He's got this. In my heart there is peace, it is keeping my head out of it that is the problem. Thank you to my precious family and friends who have prayed for me, encouraged me and sent your finances to help fill in the gaps. Thanks for letting me share and for all of you who are reading along with me as I continue to journey. You will be able to read more about the journey in the books that follow. It will be interesting to see how God works this out as my trust goes even deeper in Him. I am forever thankful that He not only loves me as I am, but that He loves me too much to leave me as I am.
This was my devotional study this morning and I was reminded that God always knows right where we are and what we are going through. He gives us sweet promises to encourage us to move on with Him. But the godly will flourish like palm trees and grow strong like the cedars of Lebanon. For they are transplanted into the Lord's own house. They flourish in the courts of our God. Even in old age they will still produce fruit; they will remain vital and green. They will declare, "The Lord is just! He is my rock! There is nothing but goodness in Him!" Psalm 92:12-15
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