changing my life one page at a time…

I came across this book while browsing on Amazon.  I read the ‘look inside’ excerpt and then next thing I knew it was in my shopping cart about the be purchased.

The inside cover reads, “A beautifully practical guide to living a life of joy, One Thousand Gifts invites you to wake up to God’s everyday blessings. As Voskamp discovered, in giving thanks for the life she already had, she found the life she’d always wanted.” This book is SO good… you should get it.

Have you ever seen the book, 1000 Places To See Before You Die? Honesly, I’d love to go see each one of those places, but for what? To say that I have traveled across the ocean and experienced wonder? To say that I’ve seen beauty in a far away place? Why can’t I find beauty right here… right now… at 6:53am as I sit at the kitchen table and write this?

But how do I find beauty and joy in the midst of the daunting pile of clothes in the other room, or the bags that need to be packed, or the lingering “what’s next?” question that is stressing me out, or just the normal day-to-day routine? What is God providing here and now?

Eucharisteo.

It’s Greek and it means thanksgiving. The derivative of the word is chara, which means joy. Every time Jesus was faced with lack, He gave thanks. Even on the night before his death when he was betrayed, he broke bread and gave thanks. But for what? What is there to be thankful for when I’m lacking?

But wait. Am I really lacking or am I just failing to look at the abundance?

The reason this book jumped out at me is because I’m guilty of the later. Failing to look at the abundance in my life has become second nature. It’s a habit that I never knew was at the root of my dissatisfaction, frustration and discontent. So what now?

“A nail is drive out by another nail; habit is overcome by habit” said Erasmus, contemporary and admirer of Martin Luther {from: Treasure of Spiritual Wisdom}. And so, I dare you to join me. Join me in what Ann Voskamp calls, “a dare to live fully right where you are”. With our pen as the hammer to drive out the nails of discontent, let’s list 1000 gifts. 1000 things to be thankful for. And I’m not talking about broad, vague things like: my house, food, my family… ect,  but things that have been overlooked and gulped up and glanced over. Things like mail in the mailbox, the beautiful color of the peaches piled high in my bowl, the delicious hot mug of hazelnut coffee, clean sheets smelling like wind… you get the idea. It’s so simple, yet life changing. I’ve been doing this for a few days and it’s changed my perspective so drastically I wish I had done it sooner.  I find that I wake up looking for the abundance instead of focusing on the lack. I also got to buy a new journal. I love journals.

So, get this book. It’s amazing. And check out the author’s blog. It’s also amazing.

prison break

I want to share a pretty incredible story. For this person’s safety, I can’t say the name or the country where this happened, but nevertheless, the story is amazing. And I got to meet this person yesterday!

A pastor was in prison for preaching the gospel and for leading a huge, growing church. One night, the pastor was praying and doors to the jail cell swung open and none of the guards were around! The pastor had a friend in prison who’s legs were so badly beaten, that he couldn’t walk. Miraculously, that night, they both walked out the open cell door and escaped. When they got outside it was raining. God spoke to them and told them he sent the storm to cover their scent so the dogs couldn’t track them. And now they are free!

Isn’t that amazing?! It is such a perfect picture of the powerful God that we serve. And it inspires me to pray, even more, for persecuted Christians around the world.

We’ll soon be sending out an update with more details about what we’ll be doing in Cambodia. We’re 26 days away from our departure and there is a lot that needs to get done before then. Please pray for us, even now, that we would have wisdom in the planning process, we would be able to get our vaccinations and visas easily and God will keep us safe and healthy {it will be monsoon season which means there will be lots of disease carrying mosquitoes}. Please pray for unity among our teams and wisdom for our leaders. Please pray for courage and confidence as we prepare to share Jesus with the people of Cambodia… pray that God would prepare the people’s hearts even now. Also pray for humility and love as we adjust to the Cambodian culture. And please pray for protection and growth in our own relationship.

Since we are volunteers with YWAM, this trip is made possible by the financial gifts and generosity of others. We still need $ 3,887 to make this trip a reality. If you would like to partner with us, you can donate right here on our blog. We are so humbled and honored by the generosity we have already received and would like to thank you for investing in our lives as we train for missions, and also investing in the Kingdom of God. Thank you for your support, prayers and encouragement!

waves

We gave the blog a little facelift for three reasons.

1. When I was learning to surf, I usually wiped out. A lot. I’m a professional wiper outer. It didn’t take long to learn that when I fell off the surfboard into the churning wave, it hurt less if I just went with the flow. It’s not good fight the current and waste energy trying to find which way is up… especially since the way up changes every second when you’re underwater. I have found, by experience, that just going with the flow, despite my own will to breathe and not wanting to have a bathing suit filled with sand, I come to the surface faster if I don’t fight. And that’s how we want to live our lives. Going with the flow of what GOD has for us instead of fighting it because it doesn’t seem “right” in our finite eyes.

2. Waves have the power to change the shoreline. We hope that our lives will help shape others and inspire and invite them to an amazing life of freedom in Christ as we go serve them… whether that be in a medical clinic in the Amazon jungle, rebuilding in Haiti or teaching English in China. We want our lives to make a difference and help shape the shoreline for Eternity.

3. We were inspired by Lauren Cunningham’s vision in starting YWAM. He saw waves of “young people” going onto the shores of every nation, spreading the gospel everywhere.

Well, that’s all my thoughts for now. Gotta go to work duty in the garden. Yesterday we dug out a new bed, which was mostly uncovering and pulling out huge lava rock boulders. I was telling my friend, Kyeong Shik, that it’s hard for tall people like me to keep bending down to take out the rocks. He told me “You’re lucky that you’re tall because you’re closer to heaven and can hear God’s voice better.” I like that. Guess God knew I’d need the few extra inches to get his words through my thick skull. 🙂

el lago de luz

So, I have a new show that I like to watch. It’s called “Off the Map”. It’s about these three doctors who move to a remote jungle in South America to work at a clinic. Figures my favorite show would be a medical one. 🙂 Sometimes people ask me if working in the ER is like it is on TV. NOPE. Real life ER is a lot more boring than TV. Nevertheless, I enjoy watching medical dramas because of how far-fetched and unrealistic they are. It seems like they get more far-out, interesting emergencies and medical case in the course of 1 hour than I do in one year! Anyway, this particular show reminds me of doing medical missions, so that’s another reason I like it. Plus they used a coconut for IV fluid.

Moving on. In the last episode, there was an older guy who came to the jungle to find the place where he and his wife went on their honeymoon 40 something years ago. His wife had passed away a few months back and he wanted to send off her ashes in her favorite place, el lago del luz, the lake of light. But he got into an accident (remember, it’s a medical show) and had to be airlifted to another hospital, but before he did, they took him to the lago del luz. Here’s a clip. I could try to describe it, but it’s magical to watch: (seriously, it’s worth watching and it will make all my ramblings make sense. It’s only 1 minute!)

http://www.hulu.com/embed/iuGn0ywO1bmwphTy3LxNcw/2237/2328

My favorite part about that clip is what the guy said “microscopic organisms… when they’re disturbed it causes a fire flight”. That got me thinking, what do I cause when I’m disturbed? Yesterday, when they were treating our apartment for termites, I didn’t cause a beautiful delicate, peaceful light, that’s for sure. {My “light” was more of an inward firework explosion}. So often in life, when things don’t go my way and I’m disturbed, I throw a fit. My waters turn murky and muddy instead of becoming illuminated with beauty. This illustration of the lago del luz really helps me understand what Christ meant when he said, “You are the light of the world”.  Even in the small disturbances, inconveniences, and unmet expectations of life, we are to react in such a way to cause light and point people to Christ. And because it’s easier said than done, I’m sure that God will provide plenty of opportunities for me to learn this lesson.

I worked at my dad’s office one summer during college and every morning the staff would gather together to pray. I’ll never forget the prayer that Mrs. Olsen prayed one morning, “Lord fill us to the brim with you today, so that when we’re bumped, only you spill out”. And that’s how I want to live.

Things work out for the good of those who don’t fight life’s ups and downs, but roll with them; allowing God’s purpose to be bigger than all my hopes and dreams and expectations combined. When God’s purpose is the main thing in my life, then things work out for good. Every time. {Rom 8:28 parahprase}

And because I think blog posts are boring without pictures, here’s a picture that my friend sent me:

You can never have too much yellow!

winter

This was the background to the song lyrics at church on Sunday. I leaned over to Davey and said “I feel like this tree right now. Like I’m bare and enduring a cold winter.” I’ll forewarn you, this is not one of my ‘life-is-great-look-at-our-adventures’ type post. Honestly, life is hard right now. There’s not one huge thing that’s making life hard, but a billion little things, which add up to one long, cold winter. Oh, you know, the usual, stress at work, bills, bills and more bills, planning to do missions, raising support, car repairs, being far from family, and a pending termite treatment  to our apartment that will require us to move all the furniture 16″ from all walls and remove everything out of our garage. Our garage is so full that hopefully when we open the door, all the stuff will just fall out… along with the termites. Life is life. And, like the actual season, I am enduring my own “winter” where nothing makes sense and I have no choice but to trust God and look forward for spring. To quote the song, “Every Season”:

“Even now in death, you open doors for life to enter…”

There are things in my life that seem to be dying. Chapters are closing. Sacrifices are being made. I’m trusting that God is working behind the scenes in ways we can’t see right now. It’s a hard place to be in.  I’ll summarize this by telling you that I don’t have a ‘moral to the story’, or an epiphany, or a ‘what I learned paragraph’ because I’m right in the midst of it right now. I don’t usually write  a blog post from where there at, I’m more the reflective type. But today I needed to be raw. That too, like winter, won’t last forever 🙂

p.s. I read this on another blog today and had to share. It’s from Linda Dillow’s book “Calm My Anxious Heart” (and boy does my anxious heart need some calm!)

1. Never allow yourself to complain about anything, not even the weather.

2. Never picture yourself in any other circumstance or place.

3. Never allow yourself to wish this or that had been otherwise.

4. Never compare yourself with others or their lots.

5. Never dwell on tomorrow, for it is God’s and not ours