Words

They say that a picture is worth a thousand words... 

and I have thousands of pictures from my time in Peru this summer.

So what do I do with these words?

I can hold them inside of me, caught within my heart, protected and safe, ready to relive whenever I want to escape the present for a moment in the past.

I can write them upon my mind, reliving each experience through mental narratives that never leave the walls of my mind, forming a dusty bookshelf of unspoken books.

I can speak them from my lips-- the sweetness of God's love story for his children

being poured out for all who will listen.

All of us live life, and whether or not we have pictures, there are words that we are given to speak.   Instead of the saying "a picture is worth a thousand words," I believe God is calling us to live a life in which He is saying "Your life is worth never ceasing to speak words."

Our lives are testimonies of God's protection, love, grace, provision, discipline, and guidance.  We are to speak, not because of all that we have accomplished and can brag about but rather because God is the Author of each of our lives.  He desires that we put our stories out there, allowing our lives to be "read" --

spoken as hope to the hopeless,

told as grace to the struggling,

released as a second chance to the lost,

published as peace to the brokenhearted.

We cannot hold or trap what He has written in us, for if we do even the rocks will cry out.

So what does this mean for you?  

Well, for me, it means sharing the chapters of my life that I have deemed unworthy of sharing, opening up the sections that I have dismissed as absent of God's pen, and releasing the clips and glue that hold some pages stuck together.  For me, I am to speak of all that God has done, is doing, and will do, but I am not to do this for any other reason than that the Author has chosen to write it and therefore I am responsible to give the story away.

Allow your life to be a collection of words that is read by many, highlighted for the depth of God's truth within it and faded from being over-read by those going through the same thing.

Allow your life to be a book that screams of God's penmanship and presence, especially through the most difficult times, for when those who do not know the Author read of it, they will find Him and not just a next best-seller. 

This is my story, this is my song, praising my Savior all the day long...

Do you trust God enough to surprise you?

That was one of those questions that I said but knew it wasn't really me saying it.  I had been talking with one of the short term team leaders, sharing about life and what God has been teaching me over my 11 weeks in Peru.  She had just shared how God had been faithful but unexpected in how He had completely changed her and her husband's lives in the past few years.  "Do you trust God enough to surprise you?"  I asked it of her but knew that God was really asking it to me.  

 Do you trust Me enough to surprise you, Heather?

I am now back in Nyack, New York, enjoying the first day of preseason and being back "home," but to be completely honest, not much about this summer turned out the way I had expected or planned it to turn out.  As I packed for 11 weeks in South America, both my mom and my grandma were sent to an oncologist.  I was told neither had cancer, until I was in Peru and received an email saying my grandma did have cancer and email updates only spoke of flatline results.  Why would God call me to Peru if my grandma, and other relatives, were having medical issues?  I wanted to be home to support them and care for them and be with them.

I was reading over my journal, and in one of the first entries from the trip, I remember telling God, "You can do whatever you want, just don't touch this.  I am ok with whatever happening this summer, but You're not allowed to take this away from me."  I guess that's God language for take this away, because He did.  I'm not saying that I'm happy He took it away from me, and I definitely am not at the point where I can say I'm thankful, but this I do know: The Bible is really straightforward when it says

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge (or submit) to Him, and He will direct your path.  (Proverbs 3:5-6)

Trust.  It's one word with so much power, for not only do you hand over of control but you also give control to someone else.  Now, that may sound repetitive, but not only am I relinquishing the ability to design and plan and enact something; I am also giving someone else the ability to do that.  Control doesn't hang in empty space when I let go of it.  Control goes directly to someone else's hands, or should I say Someone Else's hands.  Trust not only says I'll let go; it also designates who I give it to.

This summer, I realized that I didn't trust God, simply by the fact that I was still clenching some things in my hands and wouldn't submit control of them to Him.  It sounds hard to say that I didn't trust God, because I did with some things...but can you trust with only somethings and still be trusting?  This summer, God stripped me of a lot, and while there's a lot more stripping to do, I trust Him.  I trust my Creator, Father, and Lover to know my heart better than I do and to plan my future better than I can.

So now, can I ask you one question?

Do you trust God enough to surprise you?  To throw all your plans and expectations and habits out the window and to replace them with his plans and will and discipline?

At the end of the summer, I can say this one thing, even amidst not understanding and all the pain:

There is no one better to have control and my trust than God.  No one.  Period.

Oswald Chambers said that "faith never knows where it is being led, but it loves the One who is leading."  That has never been more true in my life than over these past 11 weeks and even now as I transition back into being an athlete and a student (a senior, at that!).  I would even add that trust never knows where it's being led but it does love the One leading...

Check out Lamentations 3:19-26.  Despite my wandering and bitterness, I need to choose to call to mind the hope I have in Jesus because His compassions never fail, His faithfulness is great, and His love is a saving love.  This hope isn't something we see, know, or even understand.  It's something of the future, of God's will and timing, but it's something of grace and provision.  His hope is an anchor for my soul, and in that I will place my trust.