God has been convicting me of a lot of things lately. I originally was going to post multiple blogs for each conviction. Then I decided it would probably be better to put them all together.
Complaining;
I have been convicted of complaining lately. I complain way to much! I always think that what I'm complaining about is worth it. Usually its about my health or how things in my life aren't going the way I had planned. I think we all get that "it's just not fair" syndrome from time to time. We, as Americans, get this mindset of how are lives should be and if they aren't perfect and if things aren't going smoothly and they are not living up to our expectations, we complain about it. I was reading another girls blog the other day when God convicted me of this. Her
name is Katie, she is living in Uganda. She was talking about how she wants her heart to break for God's people the way His heart breaks for His people. She told two stories of people near her. One is a older woman who is blind and lives in a 4ft by 4ft shack by herself. She has no
one to even get her food! This story not only made me incredibly sad, it convicted me. I have nothing to complain about! I have a loving Savior that has blessed me with more than I could ever need! Thank you God for loving me and sending Your Son to be my redeemer and to save
me through His death on the cross from my own death in sin! If any of you want to look at that blog the URL is kissesfromkatie.blogspot.com. She has been very inspiring to me!
Pride;
Why is it that so often I am prideful? God has been convicting me ofmy pride lately as well. I hate to be prideful and yet my flesh loves it somuch! Pride gets in the way of so many things. First of all, it becomes a barrier between me and God. Second, it becomes a barrier between me and others. I don't show Gods love to others because of the barrier between me and God. And finally, it separates me from my joy and peace because I'm no longer doing Gods will.
Humility is something I long for! I ask God to give me humility all the time and usually right after I pray for it a little thought pops in my head saying, "that was good of you to pray for that". There's that pride again!!!!!! God help me to not be prideful! I desire to be humble in everything I do so that it will be bring you glory! Help me to remember Micah 6:8 "He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God." Help me to walk humbly with you, O Lord!
Material possessions;
I am very tired of all of the "things" that we have in this world. Certain things seem good but truly aren't, they cause us to not trust God. Yes, I am glad for some of our medical technology and I probably would have died without them, but honestly we put our trust in all of these things
or idols instead of God. God was the one that saved me after Guatemala not the doctors or the medical things! We know that we can do it with all of our technology and we feel like we don't need God. This season, has really convicted me of all of the idols in my life, all of the things that I think I need. I told my mom the other day that I just wanted to sell all of my things because they get in the way of my relationship with Christ. I hope that this Christmas we can remember that Christmas is not about our gifts it's about God's gift to us, His Son Jesus Christ!
I pray that you all have a wonderful Christmas remembering not only Jesus' birth, but also His death on the cross and His resurrection three days later that gave life to those who believe in Him!
In Christ's Love,
Julie
Friday, December 18, 2009
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Words
Words are something I have struggled with my whole life. No I'm not talking about bad language, I'm talking about choice of words. I always seem to pick the wrong choice of words when speaking or I just can't come up with the word I want to use. This is one of my worries with going into missions. I have always felt like people who go into missions are really good speakers, I am not! I often have to rehearse conversations in my head a lot before I actually talk to someone. And with going to a foreign country where I don't speak their language very well scares me! I can't speak English well, let alone another language! While thinking and praying about this fear of mine, God reminded me of when Moses was speaking to God in Exodus 4 and Moses told Him that he was not eloquent and he was slow of speech and tongue. God tells Moses that He made man's mouth and He will be with him and teach him what to say. And look at what God did through Moses! He delivered His people from slavery!! This just reminds me that God can do anything through anyone. I know that God will be able to use me and give me the words. Honestly, when I was in Costa Rica and Nicaragua we used charades more than words and I love charades. :-)
There is a Christmas song that's been playing on WCIC that talks about how we think that God needs us, but maybe what God really needs is for us to get of out of the way so He can do His work. So often we get this mindset the He needs us, but truly our controlling way of life gets in the way. I am not saying that we shouldn't do anything, I'm saying that we need to release our control to God! When God tells me that He wants me to do something I often take that thing and run with it, as if someone has given me a project to do. This isn't what He wants us to do. He wants to use us in these situations and He can't do that if we take control. I need to step out of the way and let Him take over! This is truly way more rewarding!
"God I give you control. I am trusting you to give me the words to say and to use me as your mouth piece!"
There is a Christmas song that's been playing on WCIC that talks about how we think that God needs us, but maybe what God really needs is for us to get of out of the way so He can do His work. So often we get this mindset the He needs us, but truly our controlling way of life gets in the way. I am not saying that we shouldn't do anything, I'm saying that we need to release our control to God! When God tells me that He wants me to do something I often take that thing and run with it, as if someone has given me a project to do. This isn't what He wants us to do. He wants to use us in these situations and He can't do that if we take control. I need to step out of the way and let Him take over! This is truly way more rewarding!
"God I give you control. I am trusting you to give me the words to say and to use me as your mouth piece!"
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
The Preperation Begins
So as many of you know, over the last year God has been revealing to me that His will for my life is to go into medical missions. He started giving me this desire in October '08. It was just a few months after I had been in the hospital. My mom and I had gone down to Arizona to visit our family. One morning I was reading in Isaiah, in Isaiah 6:8 God asks Isaiah "whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" and he replies "here am I, send me". As I read those words I heard God saying that I needed to be willing to go because he wanted to send me. So as I sat there in my grandparents office I told God, "here am I, send me"! I had always thought that I was not cut out for missions. I don't feel like I'm bold enough to go to another country and share the gospel, but I knew God had a specific plan for me and I need to trust Him. So I relinquished control and learned that I'm going to be a missionary the one thing I thought I would never do, well that and be a garbage man. :-) anyways... I had no clue what God was going to do with this. Many questions kept coming up from myself and from those that I talked to about what God had called me to do. Where are you going to go? What are you going to do? And when do you think you will go? This last one was a big question of mine because of all my health issues! Will I ever be able to get off all these meds and IgG treatments so I can go?
For about 10 months there was not a lot of direction. At first I was just trusting God and I knew it wasn't time yet. And then around August I started getting really fruserated and a little depressed because I still didn't know exactly God was doing and what He wanted me to do, I tend to like having control over these things. ugh.. that fleshly desire gets in the way all to often!!! :-) My heart was still desiring to go somewhere and serve for His glory, but nothing was happening. All I knew was that I wanted to work with orphans because I LOVE children! God has definitely given me the gift of loving other peoples kids as if they are my own. Sometime in this year process I started getting more interested in the medical field. I've been involved in the medical field for so long I started realizing this could be a good career for me. At first, I thought about just getting my LPN, but as I was sitting in a delivery room with Carrie R, all of her nurses kept encouraging me to get my RN. As I prayed about this, God placed on my heart that He wanted me to go into medical missions with a focus on orphan care and that I need my RN to do this. I'm very excited about it and I can definitely see how God has been preparing me for this my whole life! I recently joined the orphan care ministry at our church and I'm helping with the adoption of an International orphanage. Our church is hoping to adopt an orphange and help support them and send teams to help do whatever they need help with. God has really been doing a big work with this already! I'm very excited to see what all God is going to do!
Since September, I can also so how He has been answering my big questions of "how do I do this with my health". Some of my friends were encouraging me to go see Dr. Bowars, a homeopathic doctor in town. They thought he would probably be able to help me more than some of the doctors I was seeing. I finally decided in August that I was going to go see him because the other doctors next step was to stick a scope down my throat! I thought to myself absolutely not!! I told my mom that I wanted to go see Dr. Bowars. I wasn't sure if she would be willing to pay for it because he is not covered by our insurance since he is a chiropractor. Trust me it's well worth the extra money to go see him! Within the first 10 minutes he knew one of the big problems that had been going on in my body. I have candida! The only way regular doctors can figure this out is to stick a scope down your throat. All he had to do was touch my stomach and have me stick out my toungue. Soooo much better!! He has also figured out that my adrenals don't work and I have small gallstones(or sludge in my gallbladder). The reason my immune system isn't working is because of my adrenals and the candida. So needless to say, I'm really excited. I have already had a vast improvement since September. I definitely see how God is using him to help me get better so I can do missions. With all of this natural treatment we are hoping that I will be able to get off my IgG(The stuff that helps build my immune system and costs thousands of dollars a month) sooner than was expected. They were thinking that it might take 4 or 5 years. Hopefully we will be able to cut that down a little bit.
In August, when I was frustrated and felt like nothing was happening, I started asking God to prepare me spiritually and mentally to do missions. Even though I know that I won't be going for at least 3 and a half years, I know He can use this time in between to prepare me and use me. I have a hard time living my life one day at a time. I always want to look to the future and wait impatiently for whatever to happen. God started convicting me of this and I started realizing He can use me now, not just as a missionary. I need to be living my life for Him now, not just in the future. And since ever since I've changed my mindset to that, I have definitely seen how God is starting to prepare me for missions. He's starting to get a few of my questions answered and He is preparing me spiritually to do His work. I am hoping to use this blog as a way of watching how God answers my questions and gets me ready for what lies ahead. I'm also hoping to use it more than my last blog. ;-) I hope that you are all encouraged as much as I am through watching God work!
Love you all!!!
For about 10 months there was not a lot of direction. At first I was just trusting God and I knew it wasn't time yet. And then around August I started getting really fruserated and a little depressed because I still didn't know exactly God was doing and what He wanted me to do, I tend to like having control over these things. ugh.. that fleshly desire gets in the way all to often!!! :-) My heart was still desiring to go somewhere and serve for His glory, but nothing was happening. All I knew was that I wanted to work with orphans because I LOVE children! God has definitely given me the gift of loving other peoples kids as if they are my own. Sometime in this year process I started getting more interested in the medical field. I've been involved in the medical field for so long I started realizing this could be a good career for me. At first, I thought about just getting my LPN, but as I was sitting in a delivery room with Carrie R, all of her nurses kept encouraging me to get my RN. As I prayed about this, God placed on my heart that He wanted me to go into medical missions with a focus on orphan care and that I need my RN to do this. I'm very excited about it and I can definitely see how God has been preparing me for this my whole life! I recently joined the orphan care ministry at our church and I'm helping with the adoption of an International orphanage. Our church is hoping to adopt an orphange and help support them and send teams to help do whatever they need help with. God has really been doing a big work with this already! I'm very excited to see what all God is going to do!
Since September, I can also so how He has been answering my big questions of "how do I do this with my health". Some of my friends were encouraging me to go see Dr. Bowars, a homeopathic doctor in town. They thought he would probably be able to help me more than some of the doctors I was seeing. I finally decided in August that I was going to go see him because the other doctors next step was to stick a scope down my throat! I thought to myself absolutely not!! I told my mom that I wanted to go see Dr. Bowars. I wasn't sure if she would be willing to pay for it because he is not covered by our insurance since he is a chiropractor. Trust me it's well worth the extra money to go see him! Within the first 10 minutes he knew one of the big problems that had been going on in my body. I have candida! The only way regular doctors can figure this out is to stick a scope down your throat. All he had to do was touch my stomach and have me stick out my toungue. Soooo much better!! He has also figured out that my adrenals don't work and I have small gallstones(or sludge in my gallbladder). The reason my immune system isn't working is because of my adrenals and the candida. So needless to say, I'm really excited. I have already had a vast improvement since September. I definitely see how God is using him to help me get better so I can do missions. With all of this natural treatment we are hoping that I will be able to get off my IgG(The stuff that helps build my immune system and costs thousands of dollars a month) sooner than was expected. They were thinking that it might take 4 or 5 years. Hopefully we will be able to cut that down a little bit.
In August, when I was frustrated and felt like nothing was happening, I started asking God to prepare me spiritually and mentally to do missions. Even though I know that I won't be going for at least 3 and a half years, I know He can use this time in between to prepare me and use me. I have a hard time living my life one day at a time. I always want to look to the future and wait impatiently for whatever to happen. God started convicting me of this and I started realizing He can use me now, not just as a missionary. I need to be living my life for Him now, not just in the future. And since ever since I've changed my mindset to that, I have definitely seen how God is starting to prepare me for missions. He's starting to get a few of my questions answered and He is preparing me spiritually to do His work. I am hoping to use this blog as a way of watching how God answers my questions and gets me ready for what lies ahead. I'm also hoping to use it more than my last blog. ;-) I hope that you are all encouraged as much as I am through watching God work!
Love you all!!!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)