Just a normal Sunday

How often are we honest with each other?  No need to answer of course, just something to ponder.  Don't freak out or anything reading below here, just trying to be honest in a world where we are continually encouraged to put on a false front and hide our insecurities or problems.  Besides, this is just a personal conversation between you and me, so no worries, right? 

Honestly...I have been too busy to even contemplate blogging as of late.  Sick for almost two weeks, while a group was here (I have pictures from the group...will share those later) trying to get our presentation ready for camp while we will be in the US (four days worth), trying to figure out how we will get everything ready otherwise for our departure on the 30th, as well as how we will pack the entire house for the roof replacement that is to happen while we are gone.  It is all...more than overwhelming if I try to think of the global "everything" that must be done instead of just tackling the individual tasks.

Friday another group arrived, this time a FAME medical team.  After Saturday with half the group serving as volunteers for the day in the hospital (very interesting and enlightening...the one story that jumps immediately to mind was them giving baths to the children...but there only being one washcloth) and the other carrying on with a brigade with the Church we support in Danli. 

Today was Church, after which the group went up for lunch and I stayed for a financial meeting at Church.  After that ended (about an hour and a half later...whew!) I got a quick bite to eat and we were to head out with the group for a food distribution.  We did so...and it was, as is often the case...powerful in the experience for some of the group members, to the point of many tears flowing, as well as those we visited being very grateful.  Another really amazing example of God leading us to the right homes, at the right times, and for His reasons.

Honestly....what may not have been apparent would be my great resistance to getting up out of my chair to get going.

I felt empty...unable to summon the energy needed to wander the streets led by the Spirit for the appointments at hand.  Unable to muster the needed energy to be guide and translator, to bridge the awkwardness and find common ground, being the person that I am but in many ways is not me...outgoing, extroverted, caring, sympathetic, etc.

So I prayed.  I prayed a prayer from a song that I remember and always thought to be a dangerous prayer in a sense, but one often needed in our lives nonetheless.  A prayer I had contemplated, but not until that moment really meant it:

"Please take from me my life, when I don't have the strength, to give it away to you Jesus." 

I got up, somehow, got in the truck, and went where He led...with joy, with direction, with motivation that were most definitely not my own, yet there they were.

He took my life this afternoon, and made it His own. 

No one is continually more surprised and amazed than me....which reminds me I am not too bright if I have not figured that out yet.  Glory be to God!  We must call out to Him when those times come!  He does not leave you alone to go where He calls, because it is not in us to go to those places so much higher than we can attain...the point is to rely on and need Him! 

If we are doing only what we can do....there is so much more we have missed.