Changes.

Everything about the way this next year will be lived out is so vastly different from the way in which my life has been spent for the last many years. Extreme simplicity. Minimal possessions. No vehicle. Infinitely more time to focus and concentrate. Something other than logging hours at a job for 40-65 hours a week. It's enough change to shock me and make me want to sob with a strange mix of emotions & almost feels like I'm in another country or something.

I'm very excited. Excited to pull myself far from the several very strong factors that contributed to severe overwork, clouded views of myself and life, and too much stress. (Sometimes there are things that just pull you too far in the wrong direction and instead of exhaustedly standing there trying to fight it the best thing you can do is physically walk away). I'm happy to be much more simple with much less technology. I'm practically shaking with anticipation over getting to be still and listen to the voice of my King rather than hit the ground running by 4:15 every morning. And I can't wait to listen to the Spirit as a job description and practice functioning in my gifts with my co-workers.

The best way to move towards being as dynamic and powerful for the Kingdom as possible is to remove what's in the way.

Too scared NOT to.

You would think after years of short term missions trips I would understand that God loves to provide. However, the last few weeks I have been finding myself terrified numerous times everyday. Obviously this is pointing out that I have some serious faith issues. It's not the giving up of my things or car or leaving home that bothers me. Its the fact that I have to fully trust God to provide for me financially every day. I have never been in a situation that requires this much trust before. On one hand, I want to say "No" to living like this. On the other, I am catching just a glimpse of who Jesus is and what it means to ignore Him when He calls you to go or do in utter blind faith. It means insulting Him. Telling Him He can't or doesn't care enough to handle it. It also means missing out on something that could possibly be more incredible than anything you'd imagined.

I've been reading George Meuller's writings a lot lately. I want half the faith this man had! He started that orphanage on nothing. He'd tell the kids to sit and pray for their meal, while having nothing to give them. Then He would thank God for the food He was about to provide. And every time, a bread or milk truck would break down right outside. Or someone would show up.

I keep going back to the concept of not seeing God do the impossible on a daily basis because we're too scared to live in a way that ALLOWS for it. As scared as I am to step into this new way of living in trust, I'm beginning to be more scared of saying no.

"How do you expect to strengthen your faith without allowing opportunities for your faith to be tried? It's in the trying of your faith that it becomes stronger." -George Mueller

Texas (Part 2)

I've talked for years about wanting to live in Texas. I have a thing about the south. So I'm okay with moving. With getting rid of many of my possessions and just going. With not having a car. With not knowing anybody there. It's a bit stretching, but I'm okay. The part I really struggle with is finances. You see, you have to raise support while you're an apprentice. You're living missionally. And THAT terrifies me. 

Since I was 14, I've worked. Always. I can't remember a time more than a few months long where I didn't have a job. I've worked too much and too hard if I'm just bluntly honest. I was taught the mentality of over-working being what there is to life and I still haven't fully unlearned it. (For the past 3 years, I've gotten up by 4:00am on a majority of my mornings. And I am WORN. Hey, I'm broken and Jesus is working on me, okay?)

The thought that I should raise $2500 in the next two weeks and around $900/month support for living and ministry expenses is mind-numbing. Like...I can't actually get my mind around it. Never have I lived life like this. Never. Moving everything I have alone to another part of the country on trust that God will prompt supporters for me to sustain?! So THIS is what it's like. I always wondered what my missionary friends felt. I don't know about them, but I've been breaking down all week. Fear is absolutely trying to paralyze me and take me over. I'm wrestling with God in a way I never have before. But here's two beautiful parts of that.....

1. I'm wrestling with God. Wrestling. Hmmm. Thinking about the act of wrestling. It's quite intimate, really. So maybe-just maybe-God is allowing me to go through this stage of wrestling because He wants intimacy with me. He wants to get all twisted and jumbled and close and personal. Hmmmm....

2. The Spirit prompted me the other day to remember being a younger child. When I was young, I didn't think about finances. That wasn't my concern. That was Daddy's job. I just hung out with him. Went where he went. Lived where he told me to. Rode along. Shopped when he shopped. Ate where he wanted to go eat. And it was my dad's job to take care of the money. Even to this day- I have never once doubted when he said he'd take care of it. And my father is just a guy. A flawed guy. So if I trust HIM so much, how much more can I trust that father GOD will provide?! It's not like He doesn't own it all, anyway! Yet here I am, worried and freaking out about providers. HE is the provider. HE has called me. I have to go hang out where he says. And trust he'll take care of the rest. I don't know about you, but I found that to be pretty cool! 

Texas (part 1)

It's one thing to rant and rave about being audacious and just jumping into an unknown adventure with Jesus rather than choosing to stay and have a life of "knowns" IN a place you know.

And we could spend all day talking about the fact that perhaps the reason we don't seem to witness the God of constant miracles and defiance of the impossible like in the "old days" is because we are choosing to live such a self-sufficient lifestyle that we aren't ALLOWING for it. 

But we could talk all day and it doesn't mean a thing. Even going on several trips half-way across the world doesn't mean THAT much when I know I'm coming home to a job and income and the ability to fend for myself. I THOUGHT I'd grasped trusting God to provide. But this week I'm finding out I haven't even begun to get the picture. 

On Monday I received a phone call that I'm accepted as an apprentice with an awesome organization called Center for Student Missions (CSM). They specialize in urban ministry/missions in larger cities throughout the U.S. And I get to enter a very cool program of training and learning about leadership in ministry/missions. 

So in two weeks, I will be on a plane moving to Houston, Texas. Not sure of what the next year holds or the adventures to be had. Simultaneously ecstatic and terrified about this new chapter filled with new everything.