Sometimes God just makes me laugh

So, remember my post from yesterday? The one where I was frustrated because God didn't answer my question and it confused me. Well, He answered me this morning. As I sat down with my Bible and the cute, new journal from the weekend, I said "well, are we going to work on this today?" He said, "wait, weren't we already working on something before?" And then I "remembered" that we had started studying through a couple of behavior issues I need to deal with....mainly anger and discipline. We have been looking at scripture every day concerning anger and how to discipline my children. No, I'm kind of done with that I think....no actually what I thought was...oh, can't we just work on that later, after we do the fun, cute little journal? No. Anger. Discipline. It's what we are working on.

So that's why He didn't answer that question yesterday. Because I was supposed to be doing something else.

Oh, He just makes me laugh sometimes!

God just confuses me sometimes

Oh, I'm sure I'm not the only one who has ever thought that. But really, sometimes I have to wonder about stuff with God.

This weekend I went on a great women's retreat to connect with God. And we did! We connected. He talked to me, I talked to Him, we had fun, we sang, we danced, we cried, we laughed. I'm thankful that I can have a relationship with God that is open enough to do all of those things.

So, this morning, I sat down with my Bible to read, pray and talk to God. We were given a follow-up journal to the weekend study we did on the retreat. It was an AMAZING study by Beth Moore that really arrested my heart and shook me up quite a bit. So I was really looking forward to working through the journal over the next few weeks to dig into the subject a lot more and grow from what I learned. I sat down all ready to attack the 1st page of that journal. I prayed that God would speak to me, that He would examine my heart and I would have Godly wisdom as I studied. I go to the 1st question and ask God what the real answer is. You see, I can answer it in my own mind and what I think...but that's not what I want...I want God to show me the truth in my heart. I know full well that I can deceive myself....so I want, I need God to show me the answer. So I ask. I wait, full expecting God to speak to my heart and I hear...... ummm, I hear....... hummmmm, I hear...... NOTHING, CRICKETS, NOTHING!!!

Seriously? Nothing? And this is where I get confused. I understand that sometimes I pray with a physical need....and I don't hear or receive an answer right away. I just feel like if I'm really sitting and asking God to examine my heart and show me where I am spiritually about a spiritual concept like "loving others"....I kind of expect Him to answer me! I can answer it myself but somehow I'm not quite sure if I can safely, correctly assess my ability to truly love others the way God requires. So I wanted Him to give me a little insight. And I'm still waiting.

And I'm not going on to question #2 until I get an answer. So there!

This post really isn't going anywhere specific...no neatly tied up answer or revelation. Just sort of sharing my frustration and confusion.

Stories from Peru

"The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet."

Frederick Buechner

*****

That quote really sums up my recent week in Peru. I was there on a short term mission trip. This was my 3rd trip to Peru and it will not be my last. God really stirred up a deep passion in my heart for the country of Peru. I love the people, so full of love and kindness. I love the worship, lively, exciting and reverent all at the same time. I love the children, precious little faces full of hopes and dreams. I know that God has called me there and I only want to be where He calls me, so that is very exciting to me!

*****

Deep hunger..... I saw deep hunger in every sense of the word. Physical hunger on the faces of children and their parents, people hungry enough to dig through trash to find scraps to eat. I saw eyes filled with hunger, a hungry soul knowing that somehow, someway there has to be more out there. I felt the hungry hugs of women desperate to feel worthy and lovable. I heard the hungry cries of lonely children whose parents have abandoned them to the streets. I heard the hungry pleas of Pastors praying for God to move and bring relief to the country of Peru. I saw and felt the hungry spirits of everyone around me. Hungry for God to move, hungry for more of God, hungry to know Him more, to serve Him more, to know more of the freedom He gives. And that's the best place to be because in Matthew 5:6 the Bible tells us that those who hunger and thirst for righteousness will be filled.

*****

And fill us, He did!!!

*****

Here are just a few highlights of the week:

• 
  
  85 people were saved, accepting Jesus as their Lord and Savior!


• 
  
  Service work at Hope House, a girls orphanage. We painted several rooms, doors and a ceiling. We built cement steps, a huge project that really amazed me when it was finished in 1 day!!


• 
  
  The doctor and dentist that was on our team also gave medical and dental exams to the girls at Hope House. The dentist even pulled a few teeth.


• 
  
  We spent plenty of time hanging out with the girls at Hope House. Visiting with them, giving them gifts, singing with them, playing volleyball and gave them supplies for their home. Just simply loving them.

• Visited Villa La Paz, a clinic where many children stay who are awaiting surgery and where they recuperate after surgery until their family can care for them again. Some children live there...their families can't or won't take them back. There are very few doctors in Peru, so adequate medical care is virtually nonexistent. Dr. Larraza, who runs Villa La Paz, was a professor and surgeon at Emory Hospital and University in Atlanta. He gave up his position to start Villa La Paz and now devotes his life to the children that come through the clinic. Again, we simply spent time with the children and gave them gifts and supplies for the clinic.








• 
  
  Visited Centro Shama boys home. A boys orphanage that rescues the boys that live on the streets and under the bridges of Peru who are addicted to drugs. The boys come in, get off the drugs, go to school, have chores, learn about God and are rehabilitated. These boys are precious and very talented. They are excellent dancers and singers. They have videos, CD's and perform concerts. It was so much fun spending the day with them playing soccer, seeing their rooms, watching all their great dance routines. We gave them lots of gifts(soccer balls and cleats, toys, books, Bibles) and gave many supplies for the home.







• 
  
  Made several visits to the San Pablo area. This is an extremely poor community that is served by Iglesia El Renuevo, the church we partnered with for most of the ministry time in Peru. No running water, no electricity, many of the children had no shoes when we met them, the houses are shacks made out of discarded scraps of metal and wood, some without roofs.


• 
  
  At San Pablo we fed the children a meal on Sunday morning and then ministered with a short devotion. On 2 other trips there we played soccer and volleyball with the women and children. We gave out a lot of gifts, including shoes, toys, clothes and toiletry items. As part of our team was walking through the community they came across a group of 9 young girls who were practicing a dance routine. One of our team members explained we were there to do women's conferences to tell people about Jesus and asked if they knew who Jesus was. The girls did not know. The team member went on to explain the Gospel of Jesus and all of the girls accepted Jesus as their Savior right there! Praise God!!







• 
  
  Medical clinic for the community near Iglesia El Renuevo. The medical team (which included a doctor, a dentist and several assistants) saw over 70 patients, administered minor medical care, gave out several prescription medications as well as many over the counter treatments, gave lots of toiletry items to the patients, the dentist pulled several teeth and even had to extract 1 surgically! If doctors are rare in Peru, dentists are even more rare; so this clinic was a critical need for the community. 4 people received salvation that day also. One man said this... "I just came by here and all my needs were met. I was hungry and you gave me something to eat. I was sick and you helped me. And I got my spiritual needs met too!" That still brings tears to my eyes! That's just what Jesus would have done.


• 
  
  We had a leadership conference at Iglesia El Renuevo, with teaching on what it means to be a good spiritual leader in your home, church and community.


• 
  
  One of my favorite nights of ministry was the time we spent with the women of Pat's Place. Pat's Place is a home for women and children rescued from extreme domestic violence situations. We spent time with the women and children sharing stories of our lives and the forgiveness and healing we've received from Jesus. The women also shared their stories and we were able to pray for God to come in and heal their hearts. I know that God really touched those women that night!







• 
  
  While the women were ministering at Pat's Place, the men from our team were at the church having a men's conference. One of the team members spoke from Ephesians 5, teaching that Christ commands men to love their wives as Christ loves the church. It is so amazing to me to see the scope of what God is doing in the lives of the people of Peru. At the same time in one night, God was healing the broken hearts of the women who have been so abused and mistreated and He was also teaching the men how to love their wives! God is so good!!!!


• 
  
  We held 3 nights of women's conferences at 2 different churches. The conferences included special music, testimonies from our team members ( I was honored to share my personal testimony twice), teaching from the Bible on understanding and walking in your destiny as a Daughter of the King. After the teaching there would be a special ministry time of prayer. Our team would pray with every single women who desired prayer for any need. We saw many tears and broken hearts. We also saw God touch many lives and heal those broken hearts. This time of prayer was always extremely powerful. God is faithful to meet those who are seeking Him!








• 
  
  We had daily team devotions each morning that turned out to be one of my favorite parts of the trip. God really ministered to me during those times, through the music and the message from my team members. God would take that time and fill my heart up with His love, peace, and joy. He would give me courage and strength and speak His love over me every morning. It was a very special time for me and the Lord.


• 
  
  We also had the privilege of praying for a house where Iglesia El Renuevo has recently started cell groups. Life groups(cell groups, small groups whatever your church calls them) are very important to me and a personal passion I have for the local church. So praying for this new direction that Pastor Jonathan is taking with his church was quite an honor for me and I loved being able to take part in that!







• 
  
  A really fun and meaningful part of our trip was right at the end. One of the girls from Hope House was having her 15th birthday. In the Spanish culture that is a really big deal! It's like a debutante party and it's called a Quinceanera. She did not want to have the party, saying that she wasn't pretty enough and that no one would want to be there. Deep down, these girls usually feel worthless and unlovable. Their parents have abandoned them and most think it's because they aren't good enough. Well, our team really showed up! One of the young men from our team escorted Maricella out into the party room that was all decorated in baby blue and white. He stood by her side while several people from our team and the house mother and father spoke words of encouragement and inspiration to her. And then he danced with her. That's when the real fun started, all the young men from our team took turns cutting in and asking for the dance! It was quite a sight to see. At the end, the young men all showered her with birthday gifts. It was a party fit for a princess!







• 
  
  We did get to have some down time too....we had a fun dinner out one night at Norky's restaurant. A popular restaurant that serves rotisserie chicken. It was delicious! We were able to shop at a fun flea market style shopping mall....lots to choose from and good deals to be found(or haggled for!). We visited a nice outdoor mall in Mira Flores that overlooks a beautiful beach and enjoyed a walk around downtown Lima.


• 
  
  But the most fun thing of all was serving God, right where He wanted me to be, right beside some amazing men and women who loved serving God too! It was such an honor and a privilege to work alongside this team in Peru, I learned so much from everyone and that takes me back to the quote.....

The place God calls me too is the place where my deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet.

*****

I know that I was created specifically for times like I just had in Peru. Introducing people to the deep, great love and freedom of Jesus Christ, sharing my story of the freedom, hope and peace Jesus has given me and being completely surrendered to the will of God brings me such deep joy and gladness that it's difficult to express but I hope one day everyone can experience it for themselves.

If you'd like to see more pictures from my trip you can follow these links to the complete album on my Facebook account:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=68448&id=1207762665&l=9f6689044a

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=72098&id=1207762665&l=77bff46372

Everyday Eternal

One of my prayers is that God will give me an eternal perspective. That I will be able to see in my life things that have eternal significance. This is a short little note of a recent moment when I believe he spoke to me about some normal, mundane thing and turned that moment into an eternal focus.


I was at an outdoor party this weekend. It was at night and I had a little jacket to keep the chill away. The jacket is pink so when my friend I was talking to said... "what is that on your arm?", I could CLEARLY see the outline of something huge and black sitting on my forearm! Those of you who know me, know exactly how I reacted. I screamed, squealed, shrieked and ripped that jacket off of me so fast and then I threw it down and ran away from it! One of the guys came over to investigate the noise and subsequent laughter. He picked up the jacket, thoroughly inspected it and said...it's okay, there's nothing on there now. Didn't matter to me at all....I refused to wear it again. It sat draped over a chair until I was ready to go home.


So, in a quiet moment this morning I thought about that whole scene and laughed again at myself. But then I heard God say to me.... that's how I want you to look at sin and this world. When sin "gets on you" or the world "gets on you". I want you to rip it off so fast and throw it down and run away from it. And don't pick it back up. I want you to be more scared of sin than you are of those creepy crawly bugs. I seriously had to think about it, because He's right you know. I seriously freak out over a bug stuck on my jacket but when I have sin creep up in my life I'm so good at explaining it away, sometimes I even sit with it a while and convince myself I'm "allowed" to sin like this because of something that happened to me in my past or because someone has hurt me or pick one of the million other reasons I(we) can justify my(our) behavior. Sin is sin...whether we like it or not. And wallowing in it cheapens the cross. Cheapens the price paid for us.


How's that for an everyday eternal moment? Dude, that's awesome, in my humble opinion! I love that God answers my prayer like that. And He used something very, very relevant in my life. Something so ordinary and mundane to make such a huge point. I totally, completely, insanely HATE bugs. And He turns it around and says....HATE sin. Not only do I hate bugs...I'm scared of them. He says, be scared of sin, Dawn. WOW!


So here's to embracing the bugs and fearing sin! Ummmm,,,,,don't know if I'm quite *there* yet...the embracing bugs part. But I sure have a new perspective on fearing and running from sin.

Breaking Free (pt. 3)

I knew I wanted to stop drinking. God had stirred it up inside of me that drinking was not serving a purpose in my life, that it wasn't good for me, that it was separating me from Him. So I struggled through 2005 with a few periods of sobriety. It was so weird to me that I could go a week(or more) without drinking to fast or a week without drinking when I went on a mission trip in the summer of 2005. But I'd always go back. No matter how much I wanted to stop drinking, I always went back.

**********
I felt like such a fraud. Such a hypocrite. Here I was going to church every Sunday, going to life group every week, even going out of the country on a mission trip! And Sunday night, I'd drink. I'd drink when I got home from life group. And I drank when I got back from that mission trip. What a fraud.

**********

I remember one time of desperation when I finally began to realize that I had a real problem with alcohol. It was late, I'm not even sure where Brian was at this point. Most likely he had already gone to bed. Anyway, it was late and I was drunk. I remember going into the bathroom and stumbling a little. And leaned against the bathroom sink to catch my balance. I looked up into the mirror and at myself. I thought, who are you? Really, who are you? Your whole life is somewhere else right now. Who you were this morning while you praying is not who you are right now, drunk and stumbling in the bathroom. Your husband and child, your family who you love is sleeping and their wife & mother is drunk and stumbling in the bathroom. It was like a slow motion movie.... I backed away from the sink, just looking at myself in the mirror, my back touched the wall behind me and I remember sliding down the wall and sitting on the floor, tears running down my face. Saying out loud, Oh God what am I going to do? I can't stop drinking. Please, God, help me stop drinking. Please, God, take this away from me. Please, take it, take it, take it. It was only a few sentences but I was tired, emotionally and physically. And I sat there. And I remember clearly hearing in my heart..... I can't take this away, you have to give it to me. WHAT? I remember shaking my head, thinking I couldn't have heard that right. God, takes things like this, He's a miracle worker, He heals people. He can make me stop drinking! Again, that still, small voice everyone talks about..... no, Dawn, this you have to give to me. Oh, God, how, how do I do that? Surrender, He said. I'll be honest and tell you that made no sense to me at the time. And really just irritated me. I thought, I don't know how to do that! And then I remembered, with great sadness, the Bible story of the guy with the thorn in his side. And I thought, crud, that's gonna be me. If I can't figure out how to surrender this, then I'm going to be walking around for the rest of my life with this big thorn sticking me in my side, hurting me forever! GREAT! JUST GREAT! I pulled myself together, got up off the floor, wiped my face and went on to bed.

**********

More short periods of sobriety came, followed by periods of drinking and ignoring my problem. I found out I was pregnant and stopped drinking the entire time. Zachery was born in 2006 and for the 1st six months or so after he was born I didn't drink at all because I was nursing.

**********

Bby now realized that I had a REAL problem, so I decided to go to AA. I found a meeting that was just around the corner from me. Gathered up my courage and went. Once inside, I cried and cried and cried. Walking into that 1st AA meeting was the 1st step to admitting to myself that I had a drinking problem. I sat and listened to everyone sharing their struggles....or as they say in AA, their experience, strength and hope. They talked of a Higher Power. Many people told what finally made the difference for them in their drinking problem was when they "came to believe that a power greater than themselves could restore them to sanity". Well, good for me, I thought. I know the *real* Higher Power. You can't really say Jesus in AA....God is okay, Higher Power is better. It's a program of surrender but one that doesn't require you to believe in only one God. Anyway, I sat there thinking... cool, I've got this. If all you need is a Higher Power, then I'm good to go. Because I know the real Higher Power, I'm not like these other people believing in something "out there", I have a personal relationship with Jesus. So, I didn't take any of the suggestions. I didn't get a sponsor, I only went to a few meetings a month. I compared myself to the others, to see how I *wasn't* like them, instead of trying to find the similarities. Never mind that there were people in the room with many, many years of continuous sobriety. I dabbled in and out of AA. In AA, you take chips (looks like a poker chip) to mark you time in sobriety. The white chip is the 1st one, the chip of surrender. I would take white chip after white chip after white chip....until, I didn't take anymore white chips because I was tired of taking a white chip and still drinking again. One nice person who was trying to encourage me and help me, had given me their 30 day chip and said, "give it back to me when you get your own". It took me 6 months but I finally put together 30 days in a row....just so I could give him back his chip.

**********

It would take me another 3 years to get 30 days in a row of sobriety.

**********

I eventually stopped going to AA.

**********

But, I never stopped asking God to teach me how to surrender and to give up alcohol.

(to be continued)

Amazing Grace

Did you automatically default to "how sweet the sound" after you read the title of the post?

**********

A super cool thing happened to me this morning. I was driving down I-77S here in NC, sort of zoning out on my drive, listening to the radio, bouncing all kinds of thoughts around in my head. And God showed up.

**********

I happened to look over and noticed one of those digital billboards. The word "available" was lit up across the span of the billboard, obviously indicating the space was available for advertising. As quickly as I turned my eyes back to the road, God said, "look again". So I glanced back and noticed that the logo of the advertising company was written across the top of the sign. It said, "GRACE".

**********

I read it all together.......

Grace, Available.

**********
It is you know. I heard it so clearly. Grace, it's available to you, to me, to everyone. Grace, God doing for us what we don't deserve. I don't deserve His love or friendship or kindness. But He longs to give it to me. And He longs for me to accept it.

**********

Now, that is amazing grace.

**********

And, unlike the billboard advertisement, we don't have to call a 1-800 number. God's amazing grace is always available. We simply have to call on His name. His ever present, never changing, extravagant grace is always available.

**********

Is there an issue in your life that you are afraid to face? Something that seems so terrible that you aren't sure if you'll ever get through it? Don't lose hope. God's grace, it's available. Run to it.

Betrayal

Betrayal.... ugly, ugly word. Oh and it hurts so bad, doesn't it? When someone you love dearly, trusted completely, someone you let into your most vulnerable spaces betrays you....the heartache is so real and painful.

**********

Matthew, chapter 26. In the Bible. I was so sad as I read how Judas was betraying Jesus. How could he do that, I thought. Little tears welled up in my eyes. Then, several verses later, Jesus goes away to pray in the garden. He tells his friends, the disciples, to stay and watch out for him. Actually, He says more than that.... He says, I am deeply sorrowed, please stay and watch for me. But they fall asleep.....3 TIMES! Jesus comes back and warns them twice to stay awake. The 3rd time He comes back, He asks... "still sleeping?", "still resting?". I can hear the implication.....despite my warnings you are still sleeping? --- Well, now the betrayer is here!

*********

How could they do that? How could they just fall asleep?

*********

We---I, am the same! Ignoring the warnings, brushing off the gentle nudgings of the Spirit. "Sleeping" so to speak. It's quite convicting to me to admit that I allow the betrayer to enter the gates of my life because of my selfish "sleeping".