Willing?

I wish I had the gift of eloquent writing.  I don't.  In fact, I had to look that word up to make sure I was using it correctly.  :)  So please bear with me.  I hope this isn't too hard to follow. 

It's been over 6 months since I first felt God calling me to go to Kenya.  It happened when our church showed a video from one of the previous trips.  I got chill bumps during the video and started to cry.  I wasn't exactly sure why I was crying except that my heart was breaking for these people and I wanted to help in any way I could.  That night I laid in bed for hours unable to sleep and unable to get the faces shown on the video out of my mind.  I knew then that God was calling me to go.  I came up with many reason I couldn't go and God came up with even more why I should.  I got up around 3 that morning and had a personal bible study/prayer time.  I guess technically 11-3 was also a 'quiet time' with God.  I then got up and went online to send in my paperwork for the missions trip.  I knew that I had done all I could at the time and that I had obeyed God.  Fast forward several months...

September 5th, 2012 I received an email letting me know I was selected to go on the March Missions trip (our church will be going on 6 trips to Kenya this year).  I was SO EXCITED... it didn't take long for me to allow myself to forget about the prior 'argument' I'd given God about this trip.  Or the fact that God had already won said argument.  I had doubts. I had fears.  There are many uncertainties regarding any trip of this nature or really any trip at all.  "How will I raise the money?",  "How will this affect my health", "Am I strong enough for this?", "What will family/friends think?"  The list goes on and on. The two biggest questions for me were regarding my health and raising the money.  When I went with our youth to Daytona this summer, I had a really bad episode of edema.  I was particularly worried about this especially with the long flight to and from Kenya.

September  7th (isn't it amazing how quickly God addresses our concerns sometimes?) our small group bible study was titled  Next & Now. ~  What can we do now to to get to what is next?  Immediately I knew God was going to speak to me through this lesson.  I did not realize how clearly.  The very last verse we read that night was Deuteronomy 8:4.

Your clothes did not wear out and your feet did not swell during these forty years.

Okay, God.  Got it.  Loud and clear.  Thank you.  I mean, come on.  He couldn't have simplified it much more for little old doubting me, could he?  The issue of raising the funds has been of concern to many.  I posted about it earlier, here.  I've simply turned it over to the Lord. 

There are some who think what I am doing doesn't make sense,  some who think it is impossible, and some who think both.  I read the below in Kisses from Katie by Katie Davis.  You should read it.

I marveled with God at the "impossible" things that happen in my life.  And I realized, when have you ever read a story of God's great work that made a lot of sense, a story that didn't seem a little over the top, a little impossible?  Not often.  Radical, extraordinary love just doesn't make sense in a fallen world; that doesn't mean it can't happen.  But it is the very nature of God.   

Moses parted the Red Sea, and I bet people thought, "No way this is happening!"  Noah spent 120 years building an ark and I bet people thought he was crazy.  Joshua went to Jericho, God told him to march around the city once each day for six days and seven times on the seventh day with seven priests blowing trumpets made of rams' horns.  I bet Joshua didn't think that made much sense.  I bet Abraham didn't think it made a whole lot of sense when God asked him to kill the son through whom he had promised to send nations.  Jesus told his disciples to pass out five loaves of bread and two fishes to over five thousand people and I bet they looked at Him like He was crazy!  Later, Jesus told Peter to walk to Him on the water through a storm and I know that Peter was afraid. 

We read these stories and think they are awesome examples of God's amazing power and love and yet sometimes we don't really believe they could still be possible.  We think that maybe Moses, Abraham, Joshua, Noah, or the disciples had something we don't.  But I don't think that is true; God is the same yesterday, today, and always.  And we are all created in His image.  This means that all these impossible things could just as easily happen for us too!  Radical, different, extraordinary. . . They still exist!

Here is the thing:  I want big things from God.  We want big things from God and then think it's strange when he asks us to build an ark, or feed five thousand, or march around a building for seven days with seven priests blowing trumpets made from rams' horns.  I am asking for big things from God...  I serve the God who used Moses, a murderer, to part the Red Sea; a God who let Peter, who would deny Him, walk on water.  A God who looks at me, in all my fallen weakness and says, "You can do the impossible."

I'm not a doctor, a teacher, or a preacher. I'm not a writer, a great photographer, or bilingual.

I am a daughter of the King who has been called to be the hands and feet of Jesus.  I can love anyone.  In any language.  And I am willing.  

Photograph by Christina Morrison