If you are a regular reader of my blogs then you know by now that I enjoy reflecting. Really, I just like seeing how God moved in that situation, and then He gives me a cool perspective while I write.
Last summer I sat with my mentor on her living room floor and she helped me build my testimony story. We titled it "My Day of Grace." August 19th, 1999, Jesus took my Daddy to be with Him in Heaven. The events that followed that day were to be the cause of what made me, me.
I would soon deal with struggles far beyond my years. I would become independent with what my single mom provided me. I would struggle in school and do the absolute bare minimum. I would be bullied and misunderstood. I would gain perspective and understanding. And, I would gain wisdom and a sense of knowledge that I didn't quite know what to do with.
In all of these things, it crafted me into who God needed me to be, and then He began chiseling away.
Instead of just independent, He made me strong. Instead of just a bad student, He made me teachable to His Spirit. Instead of just bullied and misunderstood, He made me encouraging and passionate for serving others.
I might have been fatherless on Earth, but He was teaching me as a Father teaches His child. I would 'fall' and He was still there waiting for me to ask for His help.
One day I finally accepted Him as more than my Father, but as my best friend and Lord of my heart. He then followed that event with a mentor. He was still chiseling away at my heart. She would poke and prod and stare into my soul waiting for me to pick up the wisdom she knew I had and use it. I started to learn what family was.
Years went by and I grew more into my spiritual clothing. One day came that I met this "servant of God" to the states and I learned about this life where you could travel the world and tell people about Jesus. Every bell in my heart rang!!! Traveling! Jesus! Send me, Father! I'll go! Two years later at kids camp God knocked on the door of my heart again... "Children's Ministry!" Yes, Lord! Send me! I'll go!
One month and a half later, in the summer of 2010... I was dating my husband... that I met at that camp.
Oh the places we would go, ministering to different teens! God had called my husband to minister to youth and so we served there. I waited for my moment. I knew it was coming. I would see the day that I got to be "crazy Mrs. Jenn who teaches us about Jesus!"
2015... the call came. Go to Bethlehem. Some of them haven't heard and they need YOU.
Okay, God! Send us, we'll go!! A total of four bags, and an eighteen hour trip later... hello Bethlehem!
We served, worked, prayed, worshipped, got frustrated, cried, made friends, traveled, and God still beckons our hearts for this land.
2017... we are still here. We still love it. And on my "Day of Grace" I get to start my dream job as the Children's Pastor. How does that even happen?!
Yesterday I sat with a friend and shared about how today was THAT day, as in it's THAT sad day as I mourn what my father and I lost, but it's also THAT day that changed my life for the better! I was asked how do I feel about it and I responded with mixed feelings. "I don't really have time tomorrow to just mourn and do nothing.........wait a minute......*looks to heaven*, Okay God, now THAT is funny!!" It was in that moment that I realized what God had just done. He is good, guys.
All the struggle, pain, the days where God overwhelms, and also the days where it seems as He has broken our hearts... it's all for a purpose. Thank You, Jesus.
2 Corinthians 4:16-17
Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.
