I'm in a very odd place of life... the place in between my most recent home and family, and now transitioning back into my real home and family, but in the effort to transition out of that home and family into another home and family. (does that all make sense?) I'd like to say it's complicated, but it's really not if I don't allow it to be. For me it has just been my life for the last few years. Transition and flexibility... transition and flexibility.
For the past three years I've been involved with an organization called Youth With A Mission in Denver, CO. As a staff member I was not only able to spend a lot of time with our students and other staff challenging each others growth in Christ and also in life, but I was also given amazing opportunities to be a part of and also lead outreaches around the states and the world. I was able to as a student and staff member, travel doing "ministry" to Thailand, Haiti, Brasil, San Francisco and Las Vegas. There's no way to even explain in a blog entry all of the AMAZING things that God did in my life during these last three years.
Aside from traveling and doing "ministry," the last three years was just an awesome time of drawing closer to God. I did my DTS in the spring of 2008. So I went from this place of "knowing" who God was, to really being in a living and active relationship with him, then into growing like a child, and now it feels as if I'm in this teenage mode sometimes... I yell at God and wonder why I can't do what "I" want, but then he also gives me these freedoms that I feel I don't know what to do with. So I yell at him for that too. haha He's a great father and friend though, and he's so faithful to be with us always, and then to show us in the end what has been going on.
A big thing I feel I've learned (and still learning daily) in the last few years with God is that yes, he loves for me to ask him what should I do or what do you want? But that he then says, thank you for asking, but what do you want and love? What are you passionate about? Where is your heart burning? You know my heart and my character, now be free. To steal a quote from William Wallace's father on Braveheart, "Your heart is free. Have the courage to follow it."
One of the things God has really highlighted in the last couple years was different issues of injustice going on around the world. Isaiah 58 has basically become my life chapter. vs 6. starts with this:
6 “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?
7 Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
8 Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness[a] will go before you,
and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard.
9 Then you will call, and the LORD will answer;
you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.
“If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
with the pointing finger and malicious talk,
10 and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
and your night will become like the noonday.
11 The LORD will guide you always;
he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
and will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
like a spring whose waters never fail.
12 Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins
and will raise up the age-old foundations;
you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls,
Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.
I have decided to give my life for Jesus and to spend myself on behalf of the hungry and to satisfy the needs of the oppressed in hope that the light will rise in the darkness...
