Words

Many times, there are words in certain verses, phrases, quotes, sayings, speeches and sermons that shine an interesting light on our “walk with God,” as we may call it. However, opposite their intention, sometimes, one pushes another away with the very words that are being used to try to attract that person to the likes of our Heavenly Father and a life devoted to Him. These kinds of words have been cast into a box and turned either black or white, and one-dimensional, therefore, they can be misleading in the event of a discussion with someone while the “Christ-like life” is being spoken for in your favor, and this is when your very words start to work against you and your intentions. Hence, when we are representing God and His love for us with these words that have been held captive in the binds of a shallow and wrongly perceived definition, we then, consequently, mislead by painting a picture of Christ with vernacular that’s being looked at from the wrong angle. And because we are blinded of the fact that they were completely thrown off by what was said or the way it was said, we hold up our pretty canvas of “Christianity,” and wonder why we get a “Thanks. But no thanks.”

For example, FEAR, we often quickly and mindlessly recognize the word fear as an unpleasant emotion of terror, anxiety, and nervousness. So if one were to say to another, “wisdom starts with the fear of God,” one might, and rightfully so, greatly misinterpret this verse. Or to use a less specific example, being, the whole idea that we should fear God at all. One could wonder, “What kind of so called ‘loving’ God would want His own children to fear Him?” Because when you look at it while defining fear by the words used above, it seems as though God would prefer if His children would cower before Him, not humbly, but paralyzed with fright. And with that one could assume that He would like to force us into loving and serving, all driven by this sense of “fear” we’re supposed to be feeling and showing Him. Though this could go without saying, that kind of relationship between God and man would be frowned upon and completely avoided. Fortunately, our God is quite different than a god of that sort.

Another word that is often deeply misunderstood is OBEDIENCE. The act of obedience goes hand in hand with rules and restrictions. If there are not rules and restrictions, then there isn’t anything to obey or disobey; needless to say…we then have no need for obedience. But rules, restrictions, and limitations are another set of words that often have a negative connotation. They hold us back, they restrict us, and they leave us starving for more. They also challenge us, which is why so many “rebel” against requirements when they are laid down before us. They say “you can’t”…and we respond with, “Wanna bet? Watch me.” However, with God and obedience, once we begin to experience, not hear about, but actually encounter, first hand, His deep and unfathomable love for us, we realize that this, not instruction, but suggestion for obedience is strictly because His view of things is much greater than ours. And the love He has for us will try to guide us in the direction that would fulfill us deeper than we could even comprehend. And often in order to gain this deeper fulfillment and satisfaction, we have to take a road that looks like it would do the opposite of God’s intention, like it would strip us of our happiness that we do have and we don’t see a way that we’d find happiness again. So instead, we stay put, we stay safe and conclude that we’d rather be safe than sorry. For us, as educated human beings, we take 1+1 and it always equals 2. So when God tells us to take 1+1 and He will make it equal 10…our first reaction is disbelief, it's just not possible to take 1+1 and get anything but 2. We trust our own knowledge opposed to the Master of the Universe…the one who created knowledge itself. But that’s our human nature. And it will, at times, get the best of us. But we must learn that in obedience to Christ, it will call us, as He himself clearly preordained, that our obedience will not only cause struggle, pain and sometimes even great conflict, He does have the power to give us precisely the strength and endurance we lack to get us through to the other side. And the only thing we have to do while sailing through the ominous storm is trust him. When we discover God in the way that we see Him as a loving Father or a great protector and friend, we then gain a DESIRE to be obedient to Him because we have seen that His favor is on our behalf and we have experienced Him coming through for us, we’ve experienced the abundance of His power. Oswald Chambers said, “The Lord does not give me rules, He makes His standard very clear, and if my relationship to Him is that of love, I will do what He says without hesitation. If I hesitate, it is because I love someone else in competition with Him, viz., myself.”

Growing up, especially as teenagers, we have this attitude that is with us through every argument, decision and conversation we ever are a part of. The attitude is driven from a belief that we conjure up in our minds that we know every thing. As we mature, this fades (in some cases…I can not speak for everyone). We not only realize that we don’t have all the answers, we become more aware of the fact that our parents have a much greater knowledge for life than we thought. And usually only in retrospect we truly appreciate the love that our parents had for us and see that when they didn’t let us go to that certain party or whatever the case may have been, we now see that it wasn’t for any of the absurd, childish reasons we’d believed it to be when we were young. They were not out to ruin our happiness or spoil our teenage fun or to control our lives completely…it was entirely because they knew a little bit more about life and the way things are than we did. And for the same noble reasons that our parents wanted our obedience, God wants our obedience.

Over the past couple days I’ve been troubling myself with wondering what exactly I’ve been trying to say through all of this. And I urge you, take from it what you will. But I suppose I realized that we should be mindful about not only giving words, but also receiving them just as well. Remember always to seek further into words than just what is on the surface. I have a fervent aching in my bones for those who are missing out on the greatest of all truths because God can be so misunderstood. It’s like when someone sees a trailer for a movie and decides they don’t want to see it because the previews just didn’t strike their fancy enough to get them to their feet, or judging a book by its cover and never knowing the wonder that the pages hold deep inside.

So for those of us who’ve understood, it is our designated responsibility to make sure that every one has a chance to know the truth. No matter the lengths we must go to reveal it.

Come fire or flood, I will not lose heart

I just came back from visiting home for a month; while I was there I fell in love again with everything I had left behind when I moved. Which made it that much harder to leave again. At first, when I got home I noticed myself enjoying things, but shortly after I’d be disheartened because I knew it would all come to an end shortly. The reality lurked in the back of my mind that I wasn't there permanently and I'd have to leave it all behind once more when the beginning of the year came. And after a while that "one foot on the ground" mentality faded away because I seemed to be there for such a long time, trying to ignore the date each day, and it began to feel as though the time to leave would never come.

But it came, and I was heartbroken and unprepared. Even more so than the first time. I felt no peace. No comfort. I felt that part of my very being was ripped away from me the second I sat down at my first gate, realizing I was about to get on a series of airplanes that would take me to the complete opposite side of the world from everyone who makes me who I am. Needless to say, I did not want to go. But I KNEW that this is where I needed to be for these next two months and that if I let this temporary discomfort stop me from chasing after God's voice, I would be failing Him; and I refused to ignore His voice. So although my insides wanted to dig my heals into the ground and hold on tightly to the nearest railing or door that would stop my body from walking onto that plane, my hands and legs seemed to be perfectly sane, because I found my legs were walking me to my assigned seat and my hands buckling myself in.

Last night, was my second night here. And I've still been struggling. My emotions are intensified and I feel so much going on in my heart and in my head that I can't even begin sort it out to make sense of it all. I'm feeling extra sensitive and something someone said just seemed to hit me the wrong way and I broke down a little. I wondered what in the world I'm doing here and why would I put myself through something that seems to be so heartbreaking. Or even better, how could God possibly stand to give someone a calling that inflicts so much pain upon him or her? So looking for comfort I opened a book that Charlie's mom let me borrow called My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers. His hands were on mine as I flipped to the page He wanted me to see and God spoke to my heart just as I needed Him to.

The page talked about how God will set a vision in our hearts, and too often, before that vision can even be brought to reality, we lose patience and give up. And that occurs most while He is in the process of bending and breaking us to make us into exactly what we need to be in order to make that vision come alive. It says this:

"God gives us the vision, then He takes us down to the valley to batter us into the shape of the vision, and it is in the valley that so many of us faint and give way. Every vision will be made real if we will have the patience. Think of the enormous leisure of God! He is never in a hurry. We are always in a frantic hurry. In the light of the glory of the vision we go forth to do things, but the vision is not real in us yet; and God has to take us into the valley, and put us through fires and floods to batter us into shape, until we get to the place where he can trust us in the veritable reality. Ever since we had the vision God has been at work, getting us into shape of the ideal, and over and over again we escape from His hand and try to batter ourselves into our own shape."

So, come fire or flood, I will not lose heart. I have first hand seen the beauty of the promises of God. I would not be here if I didn't believe it would be worth it in the end.

I know His plans are magnificent, even more so than I find my own, even though at time’s that’s hard for me to swallow.

On A Shelf You Can Hardly Reach

I just laid down to go sleep, and I laid there and it only took me about 2 seconds to realize I’d just gone my entire day, and was about to end it, with out speaking to God once. Without recognizing Him even in the slightest! And I kind of laughed at myself because it’s been almost every day lately that has been like this. This is my prime example of how I too often use these temporary crutches to get me through my days, even if they’re not bad. Then, what happens is, we set God aside. You and I, we set Him high up on a shelf we can hardly reach, along with old papers we’ve been looking for for months and over due library books. Where He sits and waits as we carry on and temporarily forget about Him. But we tend to stray down this ignorant, repetitive path only when we are feeling fine and peachy. Then comes a bad day and we suddenly need Him. Next thing we know, quicker than we ever thought we could, we desperately run to that shelf once again, like we do so often. We stand on our tippy-toes, grunt with our whole bodies stretched out tall, reaching desperately for that Jesus we didn’t intentionally mean to neglect, but nevertheless, walked by every day without giving him even the shyest glance. We grab Him, quickly dust Him off and cry, “WHY AREN’T YOU WORKING FOR ME RIGHT NOW?! I DON’T DESERVE THIS! WHY AREN’T YOU HELPING ME AND COMFORTING ME LIKE YOU PROMISED? WHY AREN’T YOU COMING THROUGH FOR ME?”

(On a side note: Not to confuse you, I do not believe that everything “bad” that happens in our lives is because we weren’t focused on God. I believe even some of the most tragic, frightful and horrendous of experiences will happen even as we walk blamelessly in His footsteps. But if I were to start talking about this it would divert the point I’m trying to make…so I’ll leave that at that and carry on.)

I don’t think that God demands from us a certain amount of time everyday. I think what He truly wants, is a heart to strive after Him deeply…as He longs for us. He cares for us and loves us more than we can even fathom, we truly could not ever understand in our earthly bodies how He loves. It’s nothing we ourselves know or can wrap our minds around. But He does know that when we are walking closely with Him, with our hearts open pouring into His and allowing His to pour into our own, that is when our greatest strength comes and our deepest knowledge and our truest love. I don’t think it makes life easier, because it doesn’t put a wall up against temptations or hardships or tragedies from happening, they will still all continue to be apart of our lives. But I believe, in the midst of anything, when we are ready to allow Him, and only then, He will grow us. He will open our hearts and our minds to thing’s we’ve never seen or known before, He will bless us far beyond earthly desires even, far beyond what we could sum up in our minds.

But when we set God aside, we ARE distancing ourselves from Him. Even though, I believe a lot of the time it’s unintentional. But when the distance begins to creep in…we start to depend on ourselves more and more and on Him less and less. We become more. And He becomes less.

I want to end on a little piece of something I wrote earlier this year; I think it could apply nicely.

“Help me to trust You, God. I want more than anything to have the ceaseless faith that they speak of. The faith to cast the mountains into the sea. I want that more than anything but I don't believe it's easy to maintain. I feel some days, despite my hearts contrary desire, that I cannot find my own faith. And some days I can't find where it's not. But I want to strengthen the weakest doubts of my heart into firm confidence that You WILL.

Some say it doesn't matter if we believe or not, because at the end of the day, You are God and whether we truly are sure of that or not does not even begin to shake the truth of the matter, being, You are. But You have told us, through your word, that we must have faith other wise You will not deliver, that if we ask with complete confidence and truly believe that You will permit our pleas, then You will. But how does one convince oneself of a promise that big? No matter the struggle of desire. How do we begin to be fully convinced of something that massive and great? What are we to hold onto?

I think to this...

That He is large. He is the creator. We do not even understand the completeness of the exact definition of "large" as we define our Creator, the truth cannot be contained in one earthly word, He is not earthly Himself. Hence, to describe Him exactly with words only we, ourselves can muster, would fall disappointingly behind measure. He has created the galaxies themselves. And stars and moon and day in after day out, continually keeps the earth spinning on its precise axis. WHILE ALSO, seeing to each and every one of us with His utter and full attention. He is completely captivated by EACH one of us and longs for us all deeply...yet, we do not depend on Him to follow through for us. As much as He loves us, and as much as we claim to love Him, we STILL cannot trust Him enough to deliver. As much as He has done, is doing, and has yet to do, we still do not trust that He has is under control. We think we can probably do it better. It's a bride on her wedding day that refuses to put her trust in the best man with the rings. Instead she keeps them safely with her because she KNOWS that as long as she's in control of them, she doesn't have to worry about being completely unsatisfied and disheartened if on the altar the best man ends up forgetting them. Our flawed minds truly believe that we, mere human beings, could outsmart our creator. It truly is humorous.

You bring up the moon every single night since the beginning of time and speak the sun into place each morning, that is how constant Your love is. That is a perfect example of exactly how reliable and dependable You are...and still...we hesitate to give you our burdens and our problems. You're not loud and in our faces, You're a soft voice. A gentle whisper. And we tend to be too distracted by everything that can grab our attention with it's noise. We truly are prone to wander.”

I am so flawed. Still You’ll wait patiently, and you have yet to fail at doing so…

As My Eyes Grow

I just got home from being in Mawanga for 7 days. It was the most eye-opening week thus far. In different ways than I’ve been expecting my eyes to be opened. I’m going to struggle my way through explaining how it is here. It just isn’t something you can portray for someone else…it’s something you have to experience yourself. Everyone who comes has their own way of taking it all in. Everyone absorbs differently. According to our personality, passions, strengths and weaknesses, interests, awareness’s. So it is hard to try and put to name to what I’ve seen and how I’ve digested it all. 

I had this huge thing typed up and then realized I need to use these words instead, so this is all i'm going to say about it: 

I am tired of people pitying Africans. Pity your neighbor. Pity your boss. Pity anyone but them. Care about them, and love them. But do not say, "Aw, poor African people. They have it so rough. If only I could give them some money and get them new some things, then maybe life would be better." 

Yes, sometimes. Money makes life EASIER, I don't know about better. But they are so strong, they aren't like helpless babies being tortured. They can stand their own. And they do. So they don't need your pity. Or guilt, guilt won't get anyone anywhere. They are only different. People think that we have it all together and our lives are so much better. No. 

Everyone everywhere pain, heartache, suffering, issues, difficulties, worries and struggles. But they're different different struggles. We aren't better, wiser or happier than them. We are one thing and one thing only..and that is DIFFERENT. From an outsiders view, it may look as though life is terrible for the average African. But things that seem gross or sad or hard to us is normal to them. I only say all this because I once thought in the exact mind set that i'm trying to per-sway you to flee from. Just pray for them. They need it, just as we do. 

While I was in the village I worked in the clinic. I didn’t know what I’d be doing, I just knew they needed some help. So I packed up and went on my way. But the first day I was there, my friend Judith (who is a nurse in the clinic and the girl that I stayed with while was there) walked towards me with a silver tray full of things that looked very important, dangerous, and complicated. None of which I knew what to do with. She handed me the tray and said, “You’re going to give an I.V. Do you want gloves?” I didn’t really take it to seriously, but I put on gloves anyway and followed her into the ward, (Side note to Charlie: the word WARD reminded me the whole time of Hospital Hymns J haaa) which was really just a small room full of sick people lying down on beds. I sat the tray down on the bed of the girl I was going to be treating, Judith sort of walked me through what I was supposed to do and told me to go! It was crazy. I could NOT believe I was giving someone an INJECTION with a needle! But I did, the whole time I worked there for those 7 days. I treated people.

 

ALSO: one more thing I wanted to say..

There were five demon-possessed girls at the overnight in Mwanga. THAT IS MY BIGGEST FEAR! Demons…and thankfully we left at 3am, and it happened sometime after that, but we could hear them shrieking all the way from where we were sleeping. I’m so glad I wasn’t there. I just KNOW that while I’m here though I’m going to have to face that. Because it’s my absolute biggest fear and witchcraft and demonic possession is such a common thing here. So I know it’s comin for me! I’ll be fine though. When I think about it enough, deep down, there is no need to fear anything.

I’m done rambling for today. Hope you enjoyed. Love you all, miss you. 53 days until I come home…whoot whoot!

 Until next time…

 

 

I'm Just Along For the Ride

I'm here! Obviously. 

I got here safely. Thankfully. Though while I was waiting in Amsterdam, a man did beg me to go get coffee with him and talk to him. He asked if I was alone and wanted to take pictures with me. He literally begged me more than 5 times to go get coffee and sit down with him. He would NOT take a hint...even as my tone got less and less friendly. I finally told him that I was very young, he looked like he could've been in his late 40's. He was from Egypt. And he was very sneaky..he kissed me on my cheek twice. It was interesting. And a little scary. Because I kept thinking, as he was talking to me about his job and other things I couldn't understand due to his heave accent, what if he doesn't ever leave, I have 6 HOURS HERE! Other than that...

The flights went very smoothly though, that was the part I was nervous about, flying internationally by myself. When I had NO idea what I'm doing when it comes to customs and finding terminals and blah blah. Though it was surprisingly simple. I'm a pro now'a days :) 

Alright so my first couple weeks were pretty slow. I worked some at this school called Kasubi. I painted some rooms and also did some paper work organizing for Children of Promise. Which I actually enjoyed, because I love to organize. So that was simple, but they needed it done, so it was nice to be able to accomplish something for them when they needed the help.

Then on the tuesday night the 15th, I found out I was going to the islands the next morning. So I went up to my room and packed my backpack as full as I could for a six day trip to Lolwei and Buvuma Island. It was absolutely incredible. The only bad thing that happened is that my camera was destroyed by the rain, because we slept in tents. And it rained every night..like usual..because we're in our rainy season. And that was so disheartening. But it really opened my eyes. I needed to spend time enjoying in moments instead of trying so hard to capture them on film..but it was still very tough. I could've cried, but this cold-hearted, dried eyed lady wouldn't even think of that nonsense ;)

So we drove and drove and drove from about 11am to 7pm on wednesday, the 16th. And we finally got to the place where we going to camp out in this little village. The next morning we woke up and drove about 10 minutes down to the place where we got on our boat and headed on to Lolwei Island. But I kid you not..this "boat" felt more like an oversized canoe. When I say boat I mean a piece of wood with a motor tied to the back of it. We were on Lake Victoria for about..3 hours? Then when we arrived at the island of course their were a TON of children waiting for us at the shore. It was such a neat experience. We taught in some of the classes and played with the children. They love white people. So they stare at you constantly. It was funny at first, but now it's getting old. I was sick one day from being in the sun for too long without water and I had to stay in my tent and children we're surrounding me, just starting at me as I sat there with a wet wash cloth up to my head moaning and moaning my way through the sickness. 

And monday night, we were supposed to leave to go to Buvuma Island and spend the night and then go home the next day. So at about 5pm we all piled onto the boat with all of our things and started to head out. And the wind was blowing so hard the waves made you feel like you were in the middle of the ocean, It was scary at first. We pulled a tarp over the whole boat because so much water was being tossed into it, and on top of us. I remember I kept looking over the edge of the boat thinking, "i dont think the edge of the boat should be this close to the water...we are going to tip over.." It was so hard on some of the women. The lady next to me was throwing up in between her legs and the women behind me was throwing up in the bail bucket...(yes, the bail bucket, we had to have a bucket to bail water from the "floor" of the boat..even when the water was calm...)and there were women sobbing and people were praying. And at first..I was a little scared thinking, what if we really are somehow thrown into the water? We're out in the middle of this lake that is basically an ocean its so big. You could see nothing around you except water. And then, all the sudden, I had this overwhelming peace come over me and I though to myself, "I just...don't care. I have a life jacket. There is nothing I'm afraid of right now, not even death." After that I couldn't help but start laughing with this girl sitting in front of me because it was just funny. The whole thing. The tarp was slapping our faces left and right. It was just funny. There was nothing to be done but laugh. And we did, and we enjoyed ourselves as we were being tossed around Lake Victoria. So we finally turned around..back to Lolwei and when we got there we made a fire and ate a little and went to sleep. 

One more thing though..if you read anything, read this...

I have never personally experienced God's strength. And now I am experiencing it more than anything..

I told my friend Marissa that the whole time i've been here I feel like i'm on God's shoulders and he's doing all the work...and i'm just along for the ride. He has given me such an incredible strength somehow. Strength that i've never felt before in my entire life. I miss home, truly and completely. I miss my family, my precious little monster nephew and angel neice, and my Charlie, and my best friend Addie. I miss being at my house laughing with my parents, or at my brother's house waking up in the morning to my precious little nephew. I miss everything about home. But no where in me is there sadness. Nor regret. That is odd to me. It doesn't add up...for as much as I miss everyone I love..I should be full of heartache. But I feel myself being held up by a much greater strength than my own. I am at ease with everything. I know that God has called me here to grow. I would not have come here and left behind all I loved to follow an unsure calling.

 "I shall have this good at least, that until death I shall have done all that is in me to love Him." 

-Brother Lawrence

 I have bloodied my own fists trying to fight the hands who have reached to me, longing to comfort my stubborn, bitter, lost heart. I owe Him so much more than I can give Him. And still nothing I do could ever be good enough, yet He still longs for me with a passion that I could never even understand. I want to thank you for your prayers and support. You having no idea how, because of you, i'm being molded into the person i've been called to be for the rest of my life. I'm spending a year on a walk through Africa, being wooed and taught by the greatest teacher who ever walked to face of the earth. Thank you so much for making coming here possible for me. I am only a vessel. 

-Love, Alexis Victoria