My one big fear of returning to the states was losing everything I had gained while being overseas. I don't recognize who I am compared to the woman that went there in the beginning of August 2015. So much growth and maturing in my heart and in my mind has taken place. My big fear only grew when my faith started to shake and I could spiritually see this mountain side getting closer and closer to us and God wasn't budging or doing anything to help us. Was I supposed to climb it when I get there, was God going to "come in like a wrecking ball" and do that amazing, miraculous thing that God does? I got anxious that He had walked away, even though that is silly. God doesn't walk away from us, but He sure knows how to let us feel like it. Or do we just not trust Him enough? Hmm.
My faith got shaken, but I still believed, but I was nervous of what He might be asking us to do, but I trusted Him, but my heart had its desires, but God had and still has a plan far greater than I could ever imagine. Every little detail is SO important to Him, when we make it known.
*Here's a new lesson I am learning -- SPEAK life into every little detail.*
He did it though, He kept His promise, He finished the work and HE met the desires of our hearts. Ephesians 3:20, Psalm 37:4
So much has gone on to get us where we are... We made it to
the states!!! We are here, visiting, catching up with friends and family,
working, and sharing about what God is doing in the area of the Middle East that we are
serving in.
Over the past few weeks I have seen God move in ways I have
never seen Him move, but ways I knew He could. I just simply haven’t seen it
done before. But as a dear friend reminded me, Luke 1:37, Nothing is impossible
with God. In that particular context God had just impregnated Mary with Jesus.
Now, you may be thinking “Yeah, so He helped her get pregnant with a baby that
would one day save the world.” Let me correct you, no, He didn’t. Mary didn’t
want to be pregnant. She was about 14 years old and lived in a culture that is
NOT accepting of pregnancies outside of marriage. Mary wasn’t married, she was
only engaged. Along with having babies outside of marriage, it was extremely
haram (meaning wrong in Arabic) to have sex outside of marriage. If you live in
America then let me just say that we as Americans do a lot of haram things
according to the Bible… biblically correct, not politically. So with all this
being said, if God can get a 14 year old girl who lives in an area where it
is culturally not acceptable to have even sex outside of marriage (because she
could be shunned and even killed) pregnant WITH THE SON OF GOD at that, who are
we to say that He can’t do the unimaginable like getting a couple of plane
tickets? My GOD can do anything He wants and He does… if we allow Him to.
God provided everything we needed and did so with a week to
get ready and we even got to bring a friend with us because God has provided
for her in amazing ways as well.
FAITH. It is so much more important than we actually think.
I look back over the last few weeks and I am in awe. If for even a second I had
let that tiny thread of faith I was holding onto so tightly go… would I be home for
5 weeks? Guys, I am serious… in this blog I try to be as transparent as
possible so you all can understand the importance of faith, but a lot of you
will never get the big picture. I have stared faith directly in the eye with it
looking at me with so much intimidation and had to choose whether to take it in
knowing God was going to water that seed, or coward out and get my one foot I
put into darkness back into the light where I can see what God is doing. Over and over again, since Christmas I
have had to make that decision, but I can tell you now that God can do
ANYTHING. He has never NOT done something that He knows we need Him to do. He
KNEW we needed to come for the summer, and not just to raise support. He
also knew we needed to be refreshed by our families and church families. He knew
we needed to see Him and also have our love for HIS holy land grow even more. I
want so bad to be back, but I know God is going to do some amazing things this
month and next as we share our journey over the past 10 months and prepare for
the kid’s camp we are going to do when we return.
The story of our plane tickets and how we got them…
We began praying in January that God would begin providing
our way home, financially speaking. We let our prayer groups know what was
going on and how they could pray. We spoke to those who had been supporting and
began setting up fundraisers. Nothing was working out. Our friends couldn’t
help us, our fundraiser fell through before it ever started, and we were not
getting anywhere with planning. It seemed as though God had long closed the
door of us coming home for the summer and it was only March. I remember telling
a few friends while still praying and trying to give it all to God and waiting
for Him to open up an opportunity that it felt as if we were in a car looking
straight ahead at this massive mountain and going at a pretty decent speed
towards it. I prayed, and read the word, and sought counsel and
encouragement because I needed to know what was I doing wrong, or least not
doing right. Why wasn’t God answering us and giving us some type of lead way
with what to do. We weren’t getting anything. He wasn't speaking to us, and that
my friend is a heart breaking feeling. My husband began having panic attacks
and I began to feel unworthy, but we still chose God, mostly because we didn’t
have anything but ourselves to choose. We were (and still are) leaning
completely on God. Let me break this down for you, ALL WE HAVE IS GOD. That is it, no materialistic items, no financial riches, no rich families or friends.... GOD, that's it.
May came and every one’s questions began to get annoying.
Family, friends, everyone was asking the same questions, “Are you
going/coming home for the summer?” “Do you have your plane tickets yet?” “What
are you guys doing for the summer?” We had begun making plans, because faith
without actions is dead. We had some churches lined up and preparing to talk
to, we had jobs ready, we had things we wanted to do and people we wanted to
see… we were ready and at this point we had given the issue completely to God
and just waiting for Him (but not so patiently).
May 27th came -- that morning Phillip went out to a grocery store to get a few items to make me a breakfast in bed, because ladies I married up. He ran into some of American teacher friends and one began to ask about our issues with getting home and before they went their separate ways the friend told Phillip to let her know if we needed help. Later that evening we got the random idea from a friend to look at tickets again, and we found some for a VERY cheap amount, round trip. We reserved them until we could pay and 30 minutes later we started the process to book the flights......... "FLIGHT FULL". We read these words and that heart sinking feeling hit but I called on God and told Him to fix it. We are this far, right here, He can't get us this far and drop the ball. Not even 10 seconds later my phone began to ring and it was the airline site calling to confess to their mistake for letting the tickets we reserved get bought. But you see, the tickets we had reserved had us leaving on June 4th, arriving to the states on June 4th, driving for almost 8 hours, getting home at midnight or later, and then speaking at our first church June 5th. God isn't crazy... He knows that would kick our butts in exhaustion.
So for $110 more... also
we asked an amount from the friend and they gave us more than we needed… or did
they? God knows!!! The tickets were purchased about 20 minutes later and we were
set to leave on June 2nd, the date we wanted to leave on the entire
time.
Every little detail,
like a date, or a cost, a time...details are so very important to God because we as humans want specific. Things have to be just right for us to be happy and our God knows this.
Job 23:10-12
"Because He knows the road on which I travel, when He had tested me, I’ll come out like gold. My feet stay where His footsteps lead; I kept on His pathway and haven’t turned aside. I haven’t wandered away from the commands that He has spoken; I’ve treasured what He has said more than my own meals.”
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