Friday, May 27, 2011

Oh, well good luck with that

I feel like every day someone asks me what I do for a job. I say substitute and they ask what subject. I tell them math and they always say I won't have any trouble finding a job next year. I offer a thank you and explain that I have chosen to move to Haiti to be a missionary instead of finding a job. Then the same thing always happens....they say, "Oh......well good luck with that." I even had a coach at a local high school call me because he heard I got a job at his school. He was very sad to hear my explanation and then the same thing. "Oh, well good luck with that. Bye." click.

I always wonder what they are thinking when I tell them that I am moving to Haiti. Some are excited but most can't grasp why I would give up everything and move there, even for a year. Just yesterday I was thinking...is this the right thing? And then God gave me a HUGE push that I am doing the right thing. It's not like he isn't ever giving me small nudges that I am doing the right thing but yesterday he wanted to push me down on my knees. In the blog before last, I talked about how God was putting on my heart to love Him and love others. Coincidentally, the Reeves family (the family I will be helping in Haiti) have the same agenda. Here is an part of their last post:

"The scriptures come alive as we see why Jesus said forget everything else and Love your God and Love others.  True religion.  Love God...Love others.  In America and on the mission field we make it so complicated.  We have to remember that we feed, educate, train, house, and heal BECAUSE we love.  We don't do it to get the right to share the gospel of Jesus.  We don't do it because we feel sorry for them.  We don't do it because we are trying to earn God's favor.  We do it because GOD has placed a love in our hearts for our people.  BECAUSE we love them, of course we share the truth of the Bible and the Living God.  We could never say we truly love them if we did not care about their greatest need... to know God and Love HIM.

...We all need and want the same thing... to know the answer to "why am I here and how do I make my life count".  All the answers are made available to us in God's word but we spend our lives WORKING and STRIVING and often miss the opportunities to just love people and find our place. "

I talked about the people around me and my friends in my blog. Thanks to God for wrapping up Haiti in it too :-)  There is such confirmation in our blogs matching up that my heart is in the right place right now, lined up with the people I will be living out the Gospel with in a little more than 3 months. Today I smiled and thanked them with a joyous heart when I heard, "Oh...good luck with that."

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Lacking

So I feel like I talk about the same things every week but at the same time its what I am dealing with right now. Sorry I couldn't come up with some great thing to talk about this week. I always wish I could write a better blog than I do. So here is what I am struggling with right now. I'm looking for some advice because I lack self control. I've been doing well with my food problem/diet. I've been eating better, working out, and feeling great. A few weeks ago I realized that I needed to cut out sweets to remove some compulsion tendencies that I was dealing with. I am doing so much better now on a day to day basis but then I come to the end of the week and I have one day or meal where I blow the whole week. Sometimes I just can't say no  :-(  I know I am on my way to be totally healthy and remove all the tendencies I have but it is just frustrating. Does anyone have any encouragement or advice to help me out? I would love to hear what to have to say. And I would love it if you can pray for me. Love you guys!

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Eagerly Wanting

I SOOO eagerly want to be like Jesus. If you haven't already started The Life You've Always Wanted, you need to now. I am only 3 chapters in and it is speaking so much truth into my life already. I wanted to share some of it with you 1. to get you interested if you haven't started it and 2. because I had already been pondering this theme in my life, how can I be like Jesus so that other people notice.

I want God to encompass my entire life and radiate from me. I want to be like Jesus in the fact that his "response was simply, "Love God, love people."" (Ortberg, p. 32) Jesus was one to attract people to him, not make people run away from like the other rabbi. He was so full of love that people couldn't get enough of him. I've been thinking about this with my friends and acquaintances. Do I love them unconditionally...no matter what? Right now, I can't say that I do. I always come up with an excuse not to hang out with some or give attitude when things don't go the way I planned. I have friends who only want to hang out if I drive to them (I don't want to! Why can't it be 50/50? Gas prices are killing me right now!) but that doesn't mean I just write them off. I don't think Jesus would have done that.

I want to pour into my friends the love of Christ, Christian or non-Christian, and have an effect on them. I want to make sure that they know I love them and will do anything for them. What a saying that most of us say but don't act on. It all takes more effort but I feel like my relationship with them and Christ will be stronger. We are richly blessed by God and each other here in Circles and I feel like it is our job to show how much God can change our lives by the simple things we do each week together. I am so grateful for everyone. Thank you for changing my life to be more like Jesus every day :-)