The Past 2 Years…

Well over the past 2 years…the Lord has been working in me.  A LOT.

Let me give you a little background…

I have not really grown up, in the worlds eyes, “Rich”, my family have always seemed to struggle in the financial area.  I have grown up in a Christian home, always went to church and did church things.  In “Super Church” (5 yrs to 4th Grade)  I used to go out into the Hallway with the Kids Pastor (Thank you, Jody Kingston)  in there and get saved, every week.  I now giggle when I remember it.  But when I think about it, I have always had this desire, that I now recognize it was a hunger for the Lord, to search for God.  I loved coming on Sunday nights to church and watching people worship and the Lord move and touch people.  The earliest I can remember seeing that at church was when I was 12 or so.  It was so fascinating to me.  The hunger I had for the Lord kept growing and growing.

I think I was about 16 or 17, when the passion was just melting all my insides and dripping into everything I touched.  I was talking with a gentleman, that went to our church, about just not getting enough of the Lord and could seem to quench the desire I had.  I had gone to Acquire the Fires a  few camps and STILL the hunger was growing deeper.  This man (who was a leader in the High School class)  directed me to the book, ‘Divine Romance’…I read in a day and a half…. Now you need to know I never read, until now, but this book so captivated my heart.  The book goes through this mans perception of how the Lord loves us and how his desire for us are, like a man running all over the world to find his true mate, and he would die trying.  The Lord was growing me and growing me into someone I never thought I’d become.

Now when I would go to the Acquire the Fires and camps and youth group…they would talk always about missions.  I was so NOT into them.  I mean come on, you go to a different country and eat their food and maybe not take a shower and kind of live a week of ‘Roughing it’ per say.  Yeah you can say it, I guess I was kind of a snob, spoiled, USA-atized, whatever you wanna call it.  I NEVER wanted to be a part of missions.  The dangers that could happen as well, and besides I was comfortable in my little American home with electricity, food and water whenever I felt like it… I would say to myself that I will support people who go as far as financially, but I will never go myself.

Now….that is a little background…now to bring you to the last 2 years… The Lord is so wonderful and gracious with patience I don’t understand.  Now, I know we all go through moments of Judgment.  Like when we see someone and instantly judge them by what they look like, act like or even smell like.  Well I was one of those people sometimes.  I know that I had a hunger for the Lord no one but Him could full fill, but there was still issues in my heart I needed to deal with.  Issues with being comfortable in my life and not willing to take risks.  Funny thing, now that I think about it today, is that when you tell the Lord “NO, you aren’t going to go there and do that”, you find yourself being humbled into a lifestyle of the very thing you told Him no to.

Well, more recently my heart of Compassion has been growing and growing and growing.  I have always liked people and had compassion for them, perhaps not to the extent that the Lord has, but I still had some.  I believe WITHOUT a doubt that my growing compassion for people the Lord is working on for a specific reason, a reason perhaps unknown now…but maybe someday… ;)

….anyway, more so this year the Lord has been giving me a passion and my heart just melts when I think of Africa.  I have never been, but would like to go.  But more than that, I think that my love for people and to see people set free and loved and cared about is so strong, that I just cry when I think about it or read a book about or even hear a song about it.  Right now I am reading a book called, ‘Redeeming Love’, it is the story of Hosea, written by Francine Rivers.  The descriptions she gives of HER perception of the story line, is so powerful.  The tragedy in the story is heart wrenching and sometimes overwhelming.  The Lord has been wrecking me the past months with the things that break His.  Through the books I have been reading, through peoples lives, through music, through His heart just pouring into mine.  I would not trade a thousand years to the molding the Lord has been doing in my life.  I am forever transformed into His vessel.  I will go wherever, do whatever it takes to ALWAYS be climbing the mountain!  I hope that we all can have stories to tell one another someday of the transformation the Lord has made in us.

I love you my Jesus!!!