Be devoted to one another in love.

We have been digging into the book of Romans this fall with our Wednesday night Bible studies. It's been great for me to hear our students talking about the verses we've been challenging them with. I love that scripture is the root of these Wednesdays together. Tonight, with the 5th-6th grade students we are going to focus on Romans 12:9-10. In my study Bible the topic header for these verses reads: "Love in Action." As I have prepared this lesson over the past week, my mind continues to settle on the people in my life who have been living examples of how this scripture calls us to be love in action to one another. "Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves." When I think of these faces, I praise God for the ways He is changing hearts to look more like His love, what a blessing it is to be on the receiving end of the obedience and faithfullness of these disciples & to experience the unity of brothers and sisters in Christ with our eyes on Him. Here are just a few of the faces in my life that are living examples of love in action.

Love from Guatemala.

Agradecido.

If I've been studying my Spanish correctly...which is questionable, the word for thankful or grateful in spanish is agradecido. Now, we'll see if anyone really reads this blog if I am corrected or given confirmation. :)

Tomorrow morning, I am heading to Guatemala with a small team from CUMC. It seems pretty surreal. In the past 6 months God has blessed me with the opportunity to serve overseas, not once but twice. He has opened doors and given me peace at times that seemed shaky. Kenya & Guatemala in the span of 4 months. What God is stirring in my heart through these opportunities I am still waiting and praying over--but with every ounce of my heart I am thankful.

I am thankful for friends who fill my e-mail inbox with affirmation and encouragement in my calling to serve others in this way. I am thankful for my parent's & grandmother who want to have dinner with me tonight before we leave tomorrow. I am thankful for an incredibly supportive group of students & parents whom I am blessed to serve here at CUMC who have said to me over and over again..."We are so excited for you--we are praying for your time in Guatemala." I am thankful for an assistant youth director who understands my heart for missions and who will help keep things running smoothly the week I am away. I am thankful for a staff and church leadership that are standing behind their youth ministry and children's ministry directors so that we can sharpen our faith and learn more about God's Kingdom in this next week so that we may return back to CUMC renewed in the ways we are blessed to be His hands and feet to the youth and children of this body of Christ. I'm thankful for the friends who have prayed silently and out loud with me over this opportunity. I am thankful.

When my alarm went off this morning, I spent a couple of moments enjoying the comfort of my own bed. I started to think about how often I tend to lean towards comfort in my life...and my heart started to stir. I don't want to be okay being comfortable...I want God to stretch me and break my spirit and life to look less like the things that make me comfortable and more like a heart that looks more like Him. I am praying that the next week in Guatemala will be a time where I can allow God to mold me anew. It may mean hard work, it may mean being out of my comfort zone, it may mean keeping my mouth shut and listening. I pray it will all be used for His glory.

Declare His glory among the nations, His marvelous works among all peoples.
1 Chronicles 16: 24

Shiny & Bright

I can't seem to stop thinking about this sweet little face. This is the face of one of the children I met during my time in Kenya. Before I left for Africa I thought that once I had gone & spent time there upon my return home I'd change a lot of things in my life. I'm not sure if I thought I'd give away everything I own or adopt three more Compassion International children or what it would look like to live differently post Africa. Is this missions opportunity suppose to serve as a wake up call? Honestly, from the outside looking in my life probably doesn't look too different from the way it was before I went to Kenya. I'm still processing what my experience and journey was like there. I'm still sorting through the many ways God tugged on my heart those 15 days.

The truth is that my days are different now because of a change on the inside...my heart is not the same. There aren't many mornings that my thoughts don't turn quickly to the faces of the children. I was blessed to have met hundreds of those faces. I saw them sing, dance, play and worship. I was able to learn some of their names...but mostly it was just the faces. They all held one thing in common--amazing smiles.

Smiles so shiny and bright sometimes it would take my breathe away when they were all surrounding me to get a spot on my lap or to touch my hair or to look at my camera. Beautiful smiles so shiny and bright. Some mornings as I pray for them a saddness washes over me because I feel so far away from those shiny and bright little faces. In Psalm 82 there is a short piece of verse 6 that says: "Children of the Most High, all of you." When I read that this morning my mind turned back to those shiny and bright smiles. The comfort and joy in being unified together as God's children. When I think about the kids back in Kenya I'm reminded also of one of my favorite passages from Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis,

"Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favourite wishes everyday and eath of your whole body in the end: submit with every fibre of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given will be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and your find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in."

I am thanking God extra today for those little faces that remind me to continue to look to Christ first and formeost. They remind me that sometimes the greatest gift you can offer to others is a smile that shines the light of Jesus.