"Hannah, TRUST ME!!!"

I am at a place where I am so stripped, bare, have nothing. Nothing but my Jesus, which is everything. So I should still be full of joy and rejoicing right?.... I probably should. I am currently not so joy filled. God keeps reminding me that He is faithful and basically (it feels like) He’s screaming “TRUST ME!!!!” so why am I having so much trouble?! The concept, the idea, the thought… of having so much faith you would kill your son because you know God can raise the dead (Abraham – Hebrews 11:17-19, and Romans 4:16-25, 2 of my favorite) is a lot more romantic, beautiful, and seems somehow courageously easy. Until your at that empty place, most in the world end up depressed when they feel this kind of emptiness. God empties so that He can fill. “God is always trying to give good things to us, but our hands are too full to receive them.” He is our jealous lover. He wants our very all, no less. So once were at the bottom, empty, we must chose to seek Him. Desperately. With no less than my all. I find it hard to be motivated to do anything here in this nothingness place… but the second I listen to His beautiful voice, I turn my heart towards Him, seek Him, read His words… I find hope, peace, trust, joy… the kind that you can never get from the perfect circumstances, but only from your creator, Daddy God, lover of your soul, the one who is always watching you, seeing all, and excitedly waiting for you to turn your gaze to Him, to look upon His face and feel the love radiating upon you, and to love Him back in such a way – I will do anything for Him, He loves me so much! God showed me a picture which I hope to paint really soon, it was of Jesus, and a girl (maybe me ☺) He held my face in His hands, the hill, the cross in the back ground, He kissed my forehead and said “For you.” Such passionate, sacrificial, true, deep, lasting love that He would give up Himself for my life, that He would get to see me again someday after this whole fallen, wicked, hurtful world is over. It wasn’t easy for Him! He tried to find another way – “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death… My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will but as you will… My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.” (Matthew 26:38-42). And with this amazing, passionate, jealous, sacrificial, better than life love, we still seek satisfaction elsewhere.
It is a very difficult balance of knowing that God did give you the desires of your heart (yet He says to delight in Him and then He will give you the desires of your heart), yet He doesn’t want you to cling to them. He gave them to me, but He wants me to give them back, out of supreme love for Him. To lay them down, give them up, release and just seek Him, love on Him, take time for intimacy with Him… then once He has you securely in His will, He will give those desires back. He wants you to have them, but not if your not ready for them. Not if you are going to put them ahead of Him and forget about the One who loves you… your first love. So I have to learn to have open hands with the desires He has given me, and not try to control them. To trust Him, thank Him for what He has given me, and trust Him to bring it all to pass in His perfect time, and not by attempting to control my life, because that has NEVER worked out in a pleasant way for me, my old ways die hard though! Not the quickest at learning my lessons! Jesus please help me to be patient, wait for your best and not try to control my life, to have faith, trust, extreme, passionate, radical love for you, and for your lost! Keep me in your hands, in your will, help me overcome my unbelief! And dont forget to praise Him! "Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him, my Savior and my God." Psalm 41

Different

Okay, I left off before bush bush outreach ☺. Bush bush was an amazing experience, of traveling (quite bumpily and ummm sometimes more painfully than others) on terrible dirt roads through Mozambique on a “camion” which is a huge truck. At some times we had as many as 30 people crammed (and I mean crammed, no wiggle room) back there! We drove 10 hours the first day, 6 the next, and 3 the next. Most nights when we camped somewhere (in a remote village) we went out set up the screen, danced with the people and children to awesome Mozambican Christian songs (I couldn’t understand, but had faith were really full of great spiritual content), showed the “Jesus film” to the people in their language (also couldn’t understand, but had faith!), shared testimonies, preached, and prayed for the people! Prayed for healings, salvations, and whatever else they wanted prayer for! Amazing to see God work! To see Him save, heal, to touch and to change these peoples lives! I had the opportunity to do many amazing things on this trip! From share my testimony and preach to a village, visit/pray for an old man who cant see and get to know his amazing (very poor) family, hold a woman as her foot is operated on and feel her pain as if it were my own, dance with beautiful village children, as I was stretched more and more into the woman God created me to be. I came back utterly thankful for EVERY blessing! Toilets, wow my best friend! “Latrines” holes in the ground you squat over to “go”, I call them poo holes, are not so fun every day for 10 days…. Especially when the flies swarming out of them ummmm… scare you… almost as much as the giant cockroaches climbing out of the “latrine” you are so lowly squatted over. I am thankful to the max for all the yummy foods my Mom, Panera, and Joshua (mainly amazing Kettle corn ;)) have put in front of me! I keep saying over and over, this is sooo good, wow! I don’t even mean to, I am just that thankful for delicious food! And oh my bed… so thankful for that guy, the pillows, the comforter, the cold weather (I’m usually thankful for that, and if I am not I just remind myself of how I was sweaty, ALL the time and then I am thankful!)!

The joys of seeing everyone again, I cant put into words. Hunter, prayers, didn’t know me ☹ getting better as I continually feed him sugary things he shouldn’t have… cake, ice cream, chocolate ☺ Oh yeah he’s liking me more and more… too bad he doesn’t remember all the times I wraseled him down while changing his poopy diapers, took him with me to run errands no matter how difficult that was (as everyone thought he was my child ☺), wraseled him to sleep at nap time during that cute fight it stage… and many other bonding moments for the first 9 months of his life… ha ha I guess we will have to start over and this time his memory is a little more mature hopefully!

The only real re-entry or culture shock I have experienced has been with the people… and the feminine products isle. In the airport an extremely angry lady yelled at me (while i had the headache of my life, felt like i was going to fall over, possibly dead... ha) and told me to take weight out of my suitcase and put it in my backpack.... so huge african drum in hand (kinda annoyed at it in this moment!) i walked onto my plane shocked that people are just simply.... NOT all happy, NOT all filled with Holy Spirit... hahahah! oh no!!! haha but after that things were better because my God is sooooo GOOD! wow, and i had a small stunned moment in the tampon/pads isle, wow why in the world so many.... no good reason thats for sure.

Gods Santa example – I walked into the room while someone (I think my brother and/or sister) was watching one of the Santa Clause movies, I believe the 3rd one… and it was at the part where Santa is at a super boring Christmas party with a lady he is trying to impress… and suddenly he jumps on stage in this gym and declares that there are presents for everyone back stage! They are all like – no there aren’t I’ve been back there and there are no presents… he boldly states that there are, my guess is he isn’t sure if there will be or not, but he takes that risk, because if not it was simply going to be another boring terrible work Christmas party. He doesn’t care if he isn’t fitting in, seeming normal… he does something crazy. He is not afraid of them, their thoughts about him, his reputation, how he looks… being insane, he goes for it. God simply said to me – if no one ever does anything different, crazy, and radical, nothing will ever change, nothing good, exciting, life changing will ever happen – that impacted me because I have been learning this but the Santa example wasn’t the normal way to see it! Ha but it is so true! After Santa gets the presents and starts passing them out, they aren’t just any ole Christmas presents – they are things that these men and women have wanted since they were little children and never received… the joy they get from those gifts, the healing that happens when they finally get what they always wanted and were so disappointed not to have received earlier… it’s a beautiful picture of what can happen when we are willing to risk for Jesus and care about what God thinks and not what men think… we can bring beauty, joy and healing to Gods lost ones! Simply by listening to the Holy Spirit and doing whatever He tells us to do, no matter what it is. The out of the ordinary things, make the difference, in peoples lives.