It's a Tuesday night during my last week of class at Ouachita. I fly to Houston for a study visa appointment on Thursday and everything around the dorm is winding down as we are preparing for finals week. The semester is closing and tonight my heart is feeling like it needs to share a little about how God has just tucked me in His presence the last few days.
I was driving back to Ouachita on Sunday and as the sun was setting a plane caught my attention. Immediately I felt the Holy Spirit bring peace over my heart. I will be in one of those in a few short days, I thought. There has been so many little moments as I have been gathering paperwork or been working on other to-dos that God has reminded me of His soveriengty. He is in control. He has gone before me. His hand is so firm and strong- He is holding me and this whole situation. He has called me to go. I can trust Him with the details.
A verse that has constantly come to mind again and again (even as I am falling asleep some nights) is Joshua 1:5,
No man will be able to stand before you all the days of your life.
Although I am not Joshua and God is not calling me to lead a people in taking hold of a promise of land, this verse has provided comfort in many different ways over the past few months.
It has reminded me that God is greater than all- greater than any lie or fear Satan could try to use to discourage me. It has brought me back to the truth that no one can stand against God's children because His power indwells us.
This verse has also reminded me that God goes before us. He whispers courage and strength over our hearts as we get ready to take a step in obedience- even an action that may seem as trivial as stepping onto a plane and attending a Consulate appointment.
I'm just thankful for God's Word. His plan. His strength and the way He breathes courage and boldness into our hearts so that we can follow and obey Him.
God is moving in my heart and mind, drawing me near as I start stepping closer to going to Italy. I am thankful for His might. Thankful for the way He prepares His children so gently, yet so mightily. And that was another word that came to mind as I watched that plane on my drive home- prepared. Not perfect, but prepared.
In the same moment I saw the plane and was comforted in God's peace, I also thought "Goodness. I want to soak up this preparation time with joy, gladness, and excitement. Just like I would if it were the days leading up to my wedding day." Why wouldn't I?
It seems like society can put so much stock and pressure on the excitement leading up to marriage and I am sure it is rightfully so in many ways, but who is to say you cannot carry that same joy and anticipation as you think about stepping into other seasons in obedience to the Lord? I don't want to dim the excitement in my heart over this seaon. I don't want to be thinking in the back of my mind, "Oh, but I wonder when this season will happen" as I am getting ready for Italy.
No, for now I just am really thankful for this. Thankful for the life of following Jesus and drawing near to Him and seeing how He is preparing and fortifying me in His truth. And that is something that isn't just bottled up in one season- it is the call of a lifetime no matter the circumstance.
Jesus, have all the seasons and every part of my heart- whether it is Italy... the US... college, the workforce, or at home. Help me watch Your face continually and follow Your footsteps. Thank You for the ways You speak peace into our hearts and for the times of preparation.
"Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous! Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the Lord you God is with you wherever you go." Joshua 1:9
for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure. Philipians 2:13
Then he said to me, "This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel saying, 'Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,' says the Lord os hosts. Zechariah 4:6
Hi, sweet blog that brings back so many fond memories of stretching, growing, and just learning who Jesus is.
It's been awhile. These past few years have kind of been confusing and I kind of stopped feeling like I had anything to share- especially on here. But oh how things are shifting. How God is bringing this blog and those years back to mind.
My last post was written as I wrapped up my junior year of high school and now I am wrapping up the Fall semester of my junior year of college. I re-read it just now and it still gripped my heart. Yep- that quote of my brokenness "being a better bridge than my pretend wholeness ever was" still runs through my mind. That wasn't a lesson learned just one morning in my quiet time as a 16 year old- it kind of has been a theme for the past four years in a sense. Let me just be really vulnerable for a minute and my hope is that this post is full of light, truth, and comfort because I know God is present and moving and He always has been and will continue to be.
As I wrapped up my senior year of high school and began my college years at Ouachita Baptist University, I found myself in a continual season of the desert and confusion and just defeat when it came to my relationship with Christ. It started out as just feeling like a desert (junior-senior year of high school), but somewhere along the way (senior year-college) I let darts from the enemy steal my confidence in the Lord and His promises. I became defeated and my perspective was just not centered on the truth of Scripture anymore. I was still having quiet times in the morning, but I think I just stopped truly listening and relying on Jesus when it really came down to it. And I was just confused. Confused where my heart and mind had landed. Confused why I did not feel confident in my purpose for Christ and where my passion for a life spent with Him had gone. I missed being a light. I missed having daily joy. Yet I continued my time at OBU blending in with everyone else. Just walking day by day, shoving all of this down and not giving it attention. Still having quiet times, listening to sermons, even leading a discipleship group.... and I think deep down I hoped it would all make sense at some point. So I just kept doing the things I knew to do for the time being. I just kept walking as my mom says...
But then this summer came.
I had an internship with a coffee company that was tied to a school project I had worked on all of sophomore year. In fact I hadn't just worked on it- I was highly invested. The goal of the summer was to write an entire business plan that would allow the OBU school project and this coffee company to merge and for me to get more experience in the coffee world. I am a business major and love coffee. I should have been as fit as a fiddle... but I wasn't. I was weary. I was broken. I was tired and getting nowhere with this project that I had so highly invested in for the past year. I thought I would continue to lead it through my senior year of college and that maybe this would be the direction I would follow career-wise, but all of this weariness began to surface. And I mean SURFACE.
God began revealing to me in my quiet times that I was not trusting Him. I was not considering His ways, but instead promoting and plotting my own proposals and that I was out of His will if I continued on the path I was headed. This came as an abrupt truth, but deep down I was so thankful because God is gentle and comforting in calling and leading us, and I knew it was time to repent and turn to Him instead of continue working as a busy body that was getting nowhere. I confessed that, asked for forgiveness, and surrendered the internship and my plans at His feet. I think this realization with my summer internship and my time with this school project was just an avenue to reveal the all of the underlying currents of my spiritual life that I first shared with you concerning spiritual defeat and confusion. So with this confession and prayer deep down my heart began to cry,
" Lord, take it all. Anything to get me back to You and Your presence, peace, and joy."
So the rest of the summer was wading through that and for the first time in a really long time I felt the Lord near- but not because I was doing all of this work to seek Him or try to fix myself spiritually and do better- instead because I finally had no choice but to just be honest and broken before the Lord and let Him heal, lead, and guide.
Oh goodness. The lesson.
So this was a theme for the second-half of my summer and the first few weeks of this fall semester. A theme of being broken and honest and seeing God restore and move through that. And I began to realize that that was all God ever needed of me- to just be broken before Him. And it was because of me hiding and not wanting to deal with that part of my heart that a desert season turned into a confusing and defeated season where the enemy was winning in my heart and mind.
BUT the point here isn't to just end on the lesson of brokenness. No- there is a much greater theme. God's sovereignty.
You see I did not know what would come after this. Everything was surrendered. My schedule had been cleared as far as extra-curriculars were concerned for the Fall 2019 semester and I was just waiting to see what God's reasoning for that clearing of my schedule might be. Maybe He was just calling me to rest for a semester. I didn't know. I was just thankful for the peaceful fruit that had come from wading through this summer of brokenness with the Lord.
Little did I know there was such goodness and an even deeper truth to be revealed ahead.
Studying abroad had come to mind during that last month of summer as I began processing and asking the Lord what He would have my next two years of college to look like since I was called away from working on this school project. And my mind went to Italy because I had studied the language the previous two semesters and loved it.
But as I got about a month into this semester the Lord began revealing that He was indeed pulling my heart to go study abroad in Italy.... in the Spring... aka like soon. It felt crazy and fast and insane. But I knew that He was calling me. Italy has less than 1% of believers in the country and I felt the call to go be a light on the college campus there. Deep down I felt the same strong mission that I had in high school and that made me stinking excited and teary-eyed at the same time. The joy and peace and purpose was back. The desert season was over. So I applied and was accepted and weeks of doing a little bit of this and that has turned into a confirmed plan ticket, housing arrangements, and paid deposits.
I'm going. It's happening. So much has shifted. The Lord has for me to go to Italy. What.
So the Lord has been moving greatly in my heart and mind these last two months. After all, in less than 10 weeks I will step onto a plane that will take me countries away from friends and family and everything familiar.
But I am looking up this November, looking back at these last few years, recalling the years in which I even had this blog and realizing that the Lord has been sovereign all along. His hand was over my seasons and now He is calling my back, whispering "We are not finished yet." and assuring me, "My hand is so in all of this."
The truth of all of this rambling and sharing is that I have been so assured this month as I look back on everything that all that my Type 1, never want to do wrong or get off track type of a heart feared kind of happened. I did get a little off track. I did become defeated. My eyes did kind of stop watching Jesus.
BUT He is so sovereign and in control and faithful. He allowed it because He needed me to learn that even in my disobedience, He is Sovereign and will always get my attention and lead me home. I can rest assured of it.
It was all ultimately for my good, for my growth in learning repentance and brokenness (the truth of the gospel hits deeper now than it ever did in high school).
And overall my Heavenly Father is whispering, "Daughter, I am not finished with you. I was never finished with you. This was all part of the ultimate plan even if it took you awhile to learn the lesson. I am in the midst of this."
And so I am leaving for Italy in 10 fast weeks. And I am coming back to this little blog to declare all the ways God is preparing my heart and writing the story of this season. Oh, that feels good to say. Lord, I am so excited.
My heart is back home and letting Jesus lead and standing on the truth that He has been the same all along. Which gives me the strength and courage to say,
"Hello, sweet blog. It's been awhile. But I am here to declare I am still a daughter of the King of Kings and this is just the beginning so lets get going again. God has good work for us to do."
Hebrews 13:8
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
Hebrews 12:11
All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.
Psalm 34:20
He keeps all his bones, not one of them is broken.
Psalm 103:19
The Lord has established His throne in the heavens, and His sovereignty rules over all.
Zechariah 4:6
Then he said to me, "This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel saying, 'Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,' says the Lord of hosts.