Available…for His glory.

So Struggle.  We
all say that we struggle with things. 
I would list some of them here but I am sure you can create your own
list so I will save you the reading…

But I reluctantly say that I have struggled recently like I
have never struggled before.  Here
is my sharing of that, however random and illogical it is.  I share to let you see life isn’t all
roses and rainbows and that is ok. 
I share to let you see the chinks in my armor.  I share to ask you to pray.

 

I shared in my last few blog posts how I felt beat up.  Attacked and run over.  Physically bruised and whopped.  But until last week I didn’t realize
how completely attacked and run over I felt in my heart. 

 

Let me back up for a second.  I am planning to move to Uganda.  For those of you who are unaware (it’s not something I have
shouted from the rooftops yet) I am not planning to go back to school.  When I left the Arbor that was my
plan.  But AUM’s delays and my
uncertainty that I wanted to try to find the money to drive to Montgomery and
pay for school and books and what have you when I can barely pay for my bills
as it is lead me to evaluate what God really might want.  See, I said I would teach and then in
the summers go overseas to do whatever, wherever.  That was the easy way out.  Let me have my nice American life full of friends and family
I love, football in the fall, trips to Stone Mountain with my fam, and
randomness galore with my village. 
But that was too easy.  Too
unradical.  Not what in my heart I
felt God wanted me to do with my life.

 

While I invest in people and things around me a lot I felt
that in my singleness perhaps I had more to give.  Everything.  So
I told my Dad on his birthday that I wasn’t planning to go back to school, but
possibly move to Uganda.  I talked
a little more with a bible college literally down the street from Buloba
community Church that I know so well and plan to go in October to visit while
school is in session.  It is
possibly the plan for me to go there, live and teach.  And I don’t know what else.  I have tried to talk with a couple of other possibilities
but it just hasn’t worked out.  So
I am viewing those things as closed doors. 

 

I bought my ticket to go to Uganda for my visit two weeks
ago.  And that is when the trouble
took a new turn. 

 

I may look all confident and ready to tackle the world, but
I am not.  I am a scared little kid
who often wonders why I was even picked to be on the team.  I don’t like to fail.  I like to know details and itinerary
and agenda.  And this situation
lends itself to NONE of that.  I am
embarking on a trip that I cannot pay for alone.  To travel across the world alone.  To a place I love. 
To uncertainty at this point. 

 

And I think it is just where God wants me.  And it is overwhelming. 

 

Which brings me back to the struggle part- Last Wednesday
night my heart was overwhelmed.  I
did not know why.  I couldn’t voice
the frustration and the fear I felt. 
I knew that I needed to ask for help.  I felt literally like I was being attacked.  So I texted a few villagers and asked
them to pray.  One of them texted
me back and the dam broke.  I spent
quite a time on my face crying out to God to help me.  To take the doubt, the ugly, the scared and fearful from
me.  To rescue me from me.  To get me in a place that I didn’t simply
say I trusted but to actually trust. 
It was messy.  Tears and not
being able to breathe and cries from my heart. 

And then there was empty.  An empty in my heart of all the ugly junk I had been
holding.  The fear that had clamped
on my heart for I don’t know how long. 
A quiet trust. 

 

I don’t like to blame things on Satan.  I know the Lord allows whatever may
come into my path.  I don’t know
how to sort out what spiritual warfare looks like sometimes.  But I definitely feel like lately I am
in the midst of war. I want to quit. 
I want to just get a “normal” job so I can make good money again and
have what I want.  It’s just
easier. 

 

But then I have friends who speak truth into my life.  Like Sunday morning on the way to
church a verse.  And a prayer-
something simple.  But something I
just simply don’t know how to pray for myself.  And then that afternoon that same verse comes up no less
than 4 different times.  In the
span of 3 hours.  Jermiah
29:11  ¹¹ For
I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord,
“plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

And let me just add in the next
part because we often fail to read it- ¹² Then
you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. ¹³ You will seek me and find me when you
seek me with all your heart.

 

Ok Lord.  I hear you.  My
stubborn heart that sees your truth daily but doesn’t always embrace it like I
should, believe it for myself… I hear you.  Grateful for friends who speak truth into my life and pray
for me.

 

Then today I read in Jennie
Allen’s book “Anything” (and I think I have highlighted half of this book. )

 

“We are at war with a ruthless
enemy who is trying to destroy us if we are living surrendered to Jesus…  I grew up thinking it was not very
Christian to talk about the devil too much.  What the heck? 
I think it matters.  I think
when evil dark forces are fighting you…it is good to at least have a heads up.

It changes the way you live, it
changes the way you fight.  Maybe
it makes you need God.  I needed my
God… The devil knows if I feel alone, unsafe with people in our church, unsafe
at home, I quickly unravel.”

 

But God has bigger purposes in
allowing us to suffer, bigger than just winning.  He allows us to suffer because we change through
suffering.  We hurt with others
better.  We become humble.  We want Him more.  “Count it all joy, my brothers, when
you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith
produces steadfastness.  James
1:2-3 

 

As I listened to the song “God is
bigger” Sunday night on the way to church because I know it is true- “God is
bigger than the boogeyman.”  I am
called to trust.  To pick up my
armor (Ephesians 6) and run into the battle He has called me to. 

Struggle is not optional.  It will come.  But my response to that struggle is where the gold or the
opposite happens.  I pray that I
will be reminded that He fights for me. 
His truth is my sword.  And
I will be unafraid. 

 

I beg for your prayers.  For my trip Sept 29-Oct 11.  I feel more unsure about this trip than
any trip I have ever taken with a team around the country or the world.  Please pray.  And If you chose to give I would gladly accept whatever you
chose to give.  Either way I would
love to hear from you- encouragement through truth and support is heartbreaking
and building. 

 

At the end of the day Christ is
victorious.  We sit at the foot of
the cross together. For that I am thankful.  May we soldier and struggle on.  And be reminded that heaven is gonna be a great, wonderful
place.  Let’s do what we can to do
the work to have the Lord fill it up with as many as we can.