Post Thoughts...

I still don't really understand what God was doing in my life this past year. I followed Him, even developed a stronger spiritual discipline and I still couldn't escape the pain that presented itself to me. I can understand the pain that comes from my own selfishness and sin, the kind that I can't avoid because I walked myself into it. How could life continue to be difficult as I dug deep to know Him as my everything?

And then it happened...

After Nepal and the events that occurred while I was there, I recognized that I had been prepared for what God had in store. I stood in front of a Nepali man and professed who Jesus was to me. I recounted the moments that were painful, confusing and lonely from the past few years and I told him the truth that I didn't know I actually believed. "I've never once been left alone, or ever fallen into the pit. There has never been a moment that I couldn't run to my Father and feel His love. Instead, my relationship with Jesus enables me to fight to choose love, grace and forgiveness. Life is hard sometimes, but I'm never without the steady guide of the all knowing, loving and sovereign God. He has been my constant strength, anchor, comforter and friend during all of my storms. And He continues to guide me through the twist and turns of my life..."

The Nepali man listened to the conviction in my voice and related to the pain that unites all of us as the human race. He understood that I really believed in a Savior who loved me enough to die for me. He saw it "in my eyes" and wanted to have "whatever it was that I had".

Even without my own sin, I still live in a fallen world that needs to know the grace and hope of the cross. I haven't found all the answers to this past year, but I can't doubt God's Sovereignty and plan in it. A "ruined year" in my eyes and a weary heart ended up providing the words that brought one Hindu man to faith in Christ. Without a doubt the Holy Spirit orchestrated the entire 2 hour meeting and guided me through sharing my faith. God used the very brokenness in me I resented to tell His story of redemption and grace.

So I say fight to feel everything, sit through the pain, patiently wait on the Lord and know that you are becoming a living witness of a life transformed by Christ. He doesn't waste our pain and like Elisabeth Elliot says, "Of one thing I am perfectly sure: God's story never ends with ashes".