OK, I know I promised to post updates and haven't gotten around to it yet...but I will!
Right now, though, I think I need to write a brief blurb about how God has been encouraging me lately. I just read my friend Tim Kubacki's latest blog:
http://kubacki6.wordpress.com/2011/03/01/an-unexpected-encounter/ and realized God has encouraged me in a similar way and I also need to give Him glory.
First, a confession...which won't be news to my closest friends...I have had a lifelong struggle with depression. I've had lots of prayer and windows of healing, but depression seems to be my "thorn in the flesh". So although I love my work here, and am blessed by the people and the many opportunities to spread His love, I sometimes wonder if God made a mistake in sending me to Brazil. I start hearing voices in my mind that say, "Go home! You aren't a real missionary anyway! Real missionaries come from strong Christian families, their marriages endure, etc., etc."
So...in recent weeks, I've been in the midst of a familiar battle - should I just give up and go home? What good am I to the Kingdom? Life is hard here, and stress aggravates my emotions. I cried out to God, telling Him I needed to hear from Him... I'm all alone here, Lord!
And He answered...
First, my home group in Sunbury met to pray specifically for me. They lovingly took time not only to pray, but to send me messages about what God had said...such sweet, uplifting words that I so needed to hear. Words like perseverance, walking in God's plan, being a loving heart in the body of Christ, etc.
Then a dear friend sent me a quote from Fenelon, a 16th century monk whose writings always speak to my heart. Fenelon said,
"Jesus' life was full of humiliation, but we are horrified by the slightest humiliation even though we aspire to grow in humility. We feel ashamed and that our self-worth has been attacked. We don't need to seek humiliation because it finds us. But when we are crushed, we can remember the suffering and humiliation that Jesus endured. All our strength comes from God. "
My mentoring pastor sent me an encouraging word from the Gospel of Wholeness, about allowing God to bring to the surface what He wants to heal, and reminding me that we all walk with a limp.
Next, a dear friend came to spend the night with me, and we had the opportunity for extended prayer together, and both experienced the lifting of heavy burdens from our shoulders.
And finally, God Himself spoke to me in a private, intimate moment. He told me that it was Him who had been speaking through my brothers and sisters. Then he reminded me once again of Joseph (Gen. 37-50), who also came from a very dysfunctional family, yet He was able to use Joseph to bless a nation of people!
So...I've bared my soul here...do I love being the very brokenest of God's servants? No! Do I like having other people see this brokenness in me? No! But if just one person reads this and realizes that he or she is also God's beloved, "created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do" (Ephesians 2:10)...it is all worth it.
I Corinthians 12 and Psalm 139 spoke to my heart in fresh new ways...healing, reassuring, blessing my heart. I hope you will take time to read these passages prayerfully, and let God speak to you as well.
My prayer is...
"that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe." Ephesians 1:18
