Well it's coming down to the last few days for me here in the US for a while and I am scrambling to get everything I need organized and ready to go along with finishing up preparations for Christmas day. I finally got my visa and all of the necessary shots for traveling. I had to get four, two in each arm so it wasn't that bad. It was probably worse for my mother whose hand I squeezed... Off... LOL, jk. She still has her hand. The past few weeks have flown by and I am now coming to the realization that I am leaving in 11 days. I am going to miss my family and friends very much, but I am so excited and so anxious to be there. I plan on cherishing the next 11 days and I want to say thank you to everyone who has been an encourager for me. I appreciate the support and love you all have showered over me. I have been praying constantly that this experience will be fulfilled through Him and that His guidance will be prevalent in my life so that I may follow. This is something completely unimaginable to me and to Him I will be forever grateful for such an opportunity. I ask for your prayers while I am traveling and would love to hear any thoughts, advice, or words of encouragement anyone may have. On another note...
Anyone ever thought you could tell God what your plans are? How has that worked out for you? Did He laugh hysterically in your face like He did in mine? Ha! Man, I love Jesus. He has such a good sense of humor. In fact, good is an understatement. He has the best sense of humor. I have tried many times to tell Him what my plans are. In fact, I still struggle with this issue now and probably always will. However, I have just recently been made aware of the extent to which I do this. Tuesday night's church service this week was right on. Preston taught on disobedience. "Dis" is a dangerous word! This week we learned three types of disobedience and our response to it versus God's response. The type that stuck out the most to me was the second one - Selfish disobedience. This is what happens when you are telling God your plans... You have all these ideas of what your life should be like, the choices you should make, how you should achieve your goals, relationships you enter into, etc, and you tell God, "I got it." God's response - "I'll let you finish." (This is another area in which His sense of humor comes into play.) And really, how funny!?! We tell the Almighty what we are going to do and how things are going to be, and although He knows better, He simply says, "I'll let you finish." That's great stuff. And we all know how the story goes... Indeed, He lets us finish. We try our best to keep Him at arms length, not letting Him get too close as to prevent Him from intervening, but He is still right there beside us the whole time. We often don't realize it though... Until we fall flat on our faces. Here is the beautiful part of the story - As we are laying face down miserably in a pool of our own tears and failures, we look up and there He is, hand extended ready to pick us up and He quietly whispers, "Let's try this again." Ahhh. Such a relief. We also have a merciful God. He just wants us to stay behind His block. You are the running back, and He is your blocker! (I am drilling this into my head every second of every day.) I believe it's something that we have to be reminded of. We must make a conscience effort daily to remind ourselves of the amazing Father we have who will take us exactly where we need to go if we just stay behind His block. I am making this my motto for the rest of my life. Praise be to God for delivering such a powerful message to me at JUST the right time. Now I feel prepared and ready to go. :)
I will probably have at least one more entry before I leave and then will start writing a lot more once I'm there. Thank you thank you thank you again to everyone who is following me and venturing out on this journey with me!!!
