Another Year

This year has gone by extremely fast.  So fast in fact, Christmas and New Years really sort of snuck up on me.  Christmas was a whirlwind of putting up the few decorations we have, buying last minute gifts, christmas parties, wrapping presents, special church services, cooking christmas treats and trying to find creative places to hide an elf named Jingle Bells.  There was not much time for anything else, especially time for reflecting on the past year.  The writing of resolutions or the vows to do better, be better and save the world just simply didn't happen.  It's amazing how many things no longer happen with two little ones in tow.  

I spent a few nostalgic days feeling pretty homesick...missing my old traditions, food, family and Christmas in the States.  I worked hard to make some new memories with my sweet little family of four and I whispered a few quiet prayers to God while sitting out on my balcony long after everyone else was asleep.  

Being completely transparent, the past three years have been difficult for me.  They've been good years, but not easy ones.   For the last few years, I have been shaken.  As a person, as a wife, as a mother and as a believer.   My life has been a series of changes and transition.  Everything I've ever known or have ever been has been rocked.  These past few years have definitely caused some "settling" to take place in my heart.  The loose, crumbling and weak areas have been exposed.   There has been demolition, tearing, renovating taking place.  As a result, there are cracks, scars and stretch marks that are still healing and recuperating from the shock that change and transition almost always brings.   

The other night, as I sat out on my balcony feeling the balmy breeze blowing my hair, I felt the Lord gently reminding me of a few verses I'd read a few nights earlier in the book of Jeremiah.  (Jeremiah 1:4-10)

The word of the Lord came to me, saying, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”

 “Alas, Sovereign Lord,” I said, “I do not know how to speak; I am too young.”

 But the Lord said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am too young.’ You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you.  Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you,” declares the Lord.

 Then the Lord reached out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me, “I have put my words in your mouth.  See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uprootand tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant.”

These verses were like balm for those weak and raw places in my heart.  They gently touched and began to fill every single crack, hole and space in my tired and weary soul.  They answered things I've spent the last three years asking and questioning God about.  They seemed to confirm the very things I had been crying out to Him about.

First, He knows me and He has set me apart.  I struggle greatly with this because I always think who am I that he would call me?  I am where I am for a reason and a purpose.  I am called for such a time as this.  There is a reason that I packed up everything, left behind all I've ever known, to be here... in Colombia.  Whether I see and understand the whole picture all at one time or whether the real purpose is made clear to me a little at a time.  I'm here because of a calling.  Amy Carmichael said it best when she stated, "Often His call is to follow in paths we would not have chosen".  Please let me tell you, I have wrestled with this call.  I've struggled, I've fought, I've wept.  I've wanted to run away from it.  I've wanted to quit.  I've wanted to go home.  But I have always known, even in those dark moments, my purpose hasn't been completed here yet and I need to stay put until it has been. 

Secondly, God is with us.  He tells us not to fear... many, many times throughout the Bible.  Not only does He tell us to not fear but that He will be with us.  He will support us, protect us, and back us up!  For a person who is an anxious, worrisome person... I cannot be reminded of this enough.  Throwing a person like myself into this type of turmoil and uncertainty goes against everything in me.  BUT God promises to be with us in the midst of the storm... He holds the power to speak to it and calm the waves.

Thirdly, God continued to reiterate to me that it's time to set aside the excuses.  Jeremiah was clearly being called by God, yet the first response to this calling was an excuse.  I'm too young, I don't know how to speak.  Sad to say, there have been numerous moments that I've allowed my own excuses to keep me from being obedient... they've kept me from fully accepting the call that God has placed upon my life.  

I don't speak Spanish well enough.  

People will make fun of me if I make a mistake.  

I'm not a good speaker.  

I have two little kids.  I don't have time.  

Who am I to share with people about anything?  

I don't know how to be a pastor's wife.  

Those are just a few of my most popular and commonly used excuses.  God has been showing me lately, just how many imperfect, flawed, and incompetent people God chose to use.  Every single person used by God had a disability and an excuse and not a single one of them was in the "right" moment or stage of life to do it.  

Whenever Jeremiah responded to God with an excuse, God called him out on it.  Just like he's been calling me out.  He basically said, stop making excuses.  I've called you.  You just be obedient and I'll take care of the details.  And He did.  He literally touched Jeremiah's mouth and gave him the words... but most importantly gave him his purpose.  I feel that God has been doing the same for me.

Finally, I believe for myself that this will be a year of uprooting, destroying, and overthrowing the lies, traps, and destiny that the enemy has wanted me to walk in.  I believe that this year is a year of building and planting.   

I believe the same for your life as well.  In risk of sounding like a TV evangelist or a toupee wearing prophet, I believe that this is the year to walk in confidence of the calling God has placed on your life and to know that we've all been appointed to the nations and kingdoms. Whether that means you literally go into the nations or if you minister to the nations that are so many times right in your own backyard.  

This year, I am choosing to stop making excuses.  What about you?