A Journey

I love to write and share pictures on my blog.  If you are reading this you know that I don't often talk about anything serious other than how seriously cute my little girl is!  And let me get one thing straight... I'm not really a writer!  Yet here I am unable to sleep because God has so profoundly touched my heart this weekend.  Don't tune out yet!!!  I challenge you to read a little about this journey. 

For the past few years I have helped plan a retreat for the women of my church.  Now while I want this to be an awesome and uplifting experience I don't want to gloss over the hard stuff in life.    Sometimes as a person who loves Jesus, it's easier to focus on all the good in life.  Yet, this weekend we (these poor unsuspecting women) got to hear about the hard stuff.

The weekend's theme was Strength for the Journey.  What journey? The journey of finding Jesus and deciding to walk with him on the road of life.  I want things to be easy.  But as I reflect on my life, I don't have to depend on God when things are easy.  It's when I go through the trials in my life where I can see God changing me to be more like him.  If I'm honest, it's usually not willingly.  Yet as I look back, I wouldn't change it.  The medical challenges I faced as a kid and my anorexia in my teens have helped me to be more compassionate and give me to opportunity to encourage people. 

Still, I have to tell you that I want my journey to be a simple rolling walk through the country side.  Give me a quiet stream to follow, nice grass, wildflowers and 75 degree temperatures and that's where I want to be following Jesus.  Sometimes without realizing it, I think I'm entitled to that.  Why?  Because I love Jesus.  Yet if you read the Bible, Jesus never promises us that type of journey.  In the book of John he tells us "In this world you will have trouble.  But take heart, I have overcome the world."

Blah...I watched loved ones lose a mom who was way too young to breast cancer.  I've seen the sorrow that comes from losing a family member to colon cancer.  I see three year olds diagnosed with cancer in my office where I'm a PA.  I have friends diagnosed with diseases like MS and Niemann Pick.  I hear about 4 year old girls who have been sold into sex trafficking in India.  How do I trust that Jesus will overcome the world?  Now my trials seem so trivial in comparison.

Why does God allow bad stuff to happen to good people?  I wish I had a answer that would make sense to everyone.  What I can tell you is that this world is a broken place and it's not what Jesus intended.  Because of the brokenness there is disease.  There are warlords in Africa.  There is slavery.  But He also didn't want a world world where He forced people to make the decision to love Him.  He gave us free will and that has brought some pretty sad things into this world.  Yet because God loved us so much He sent His one and only son to die for us.  He paid the price for our mistakes when He died on the cross.  It doesn't matter what we have done (or what we will do) but if we chose to love God and follow him, we have the promise to spend eternity in heaven.  A place that will be perfect and not broken.  The suffering that people endure will be gone and never return.  "Take heart, I have overcome the world"

Here's where I get to the heart of the matter.  I want to forget about some of the things I saw this weekend because it's hard to think about.  We live in a world where slavery is very much alive.  Even here in the states there is human trafficking.  But it is a colossal problem in other parts of the world.  Children as young as 4 are sold into sex trafficking.  I'm grateful that there are organizations that work tirelessly to abolish this modern day slavery.  In fact I have put links on the right side of the blog if you want to more information. 

What is God calling me to do?  I'm unsure...this is a journey, remember?  Right now I'm not by my nice stream with wild flowers surrounding me.  I feel like I'm wading in the Colorado River after spring runoff!  Not really, but I am out of my comfort zone.  I can always give money (in fact I think I'm going to support a woman in Cambodia who is extremely poor and at risk of being trafficked...check out www.worldhope.org/adelphe) but what's next?  I can commit to praying that slavery can be abolished.  I can continue to bring awareness to the issue.  But what else?  For now I keep moving forward.  I don't have all the answers and it is almost midnight.  Not my best thinking time.  I encourage you to check out this topic.  Become aware.  Tell your friends.

What does God want from me? To act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with Him. (Micah 6:8).

Thanks for walking with me tonight.