Plans of the heart - part 1

I should go to sleep but I am wide awake - so blown away by the ways that God is working in my life.

And I can't just leave it in my journal - I need to testify out in the open of God's faithfulness and amazing character.

"The plans of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the LORD. All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, but the LORD weighs the spirit. Commit your work to the LORD, and your plans will be established." - Proverbs 16:1-2

I just can't get over God's amazingness. I am not liberty to share the most recent thing God is orchestrating but I hope to be able to share it by next week. But He has revealed so much to me in the past week that I have plenty to share regardless.

Last week I wrote a blog about having kidney stone pain. Reading back on it, it seems quite dramatic and yet I assure you, I meant every word.

Last wednesday I was taken by ambulance to Edmonton. Thursday night I was back in Slave Lake hospital, with a kidney stent installed and on a high dosage of morphine. In spite of the morphine, I literally felt like I was battered - like someone had kicked me over and over in the ribs and back. The stent was to relieve that pain and yet it took a bit to kick in. I actually had to wait for the morphine to wear off so that I could get different pain meds because the morphine wasn't enough. I was hallucinating like crazy and talking out loud - Jay probably would have laughed a lot , had the situation not seemed so serious. I thought to myself - there's no way I'll get to go to the National Young Life conference in BC this weekend. It just didn't seem possible .

I tell you the extreme pain I was in because I want to testify of God's faithfulness. Literally, Thursday morning came and I felt like a different person. I still had pain but I felt like I could actually get up. And I did. Jay picked me up, we went home and packed our suitcases. Jay went back to work and I rested. By Thursday night, we found ourselves driving down to Edmonton to stay the night at a friend's. Friday morning we were up at 5:30am, and by 6:30am we were on a bus headed down to BC for the conference.

As if this wasn't miraculous enough - I kid you not - I had no pain the entire weekend. I went from being on 7 different medications to taking one pain medication along with my antibiotics and other pills. It was just incredible. Here I was at a camp in the middle of the mountains, walking all over camp, up and down the gravel paths to my cabin and I was pain-free. I just couldn't believe God's grace. I was able to attend every worship/teaching session. I was fully able to engage in all the different aspects of the conference. It was incredible.

the truth. plain and simple.

It's a startling realization - our fragility. That with a flip of a switch, I find myself trembling and pain-stricken at the mercy of strangers in a hospital.

That nothing I can do can change the pain I'm feeling. I am completely helpless. It is perhaps one of the most frightening feelings out there.

You go into the bathroom and the person staring back at you is a ghost. Pale, dark circles under eyes. You move around in a daze - numb to anything but the awareness of your pain. You can't think beyond it.

The other patient in the room was an older man. By himself. I am so scared of the inevitability of being old and sick and quite possibly alone. It's bound to happen. I'm only 25 and I have a kidney stone already.

Being sick, the hardest thing has been the absence of my family, especially my mum. She has a way of telling me everything will be fine and I choose to believe her because she can say it so convincingly.

The realization that I don't want to have kids in Slave Lake hits me hard in this moment. I need my mum close for that. And I wonder how long God will call us to Slave Lake. I do desire to follow Him and so that is the main factor.

When you're in pain you feel as though you are far away from everyone else. Walking in circles - a current that takes you around and around and you can't stop it. People drop suggestions, opinions, medications at your feet and you take it in blindly, barely caring.

Your appetite is gone. You get viciously sick of drinking water as every medication reads 'take with plenty of water.' You want to crawl into a hole and wish it all away.

Waiting on God is the hardest thing. He has done so much already - giving me the ultrasound Monday when someone cancelled so I wouldn't have to wait a week. Giving me medication that does work. Giving me friends by my side when I break down crying in church because it feels so hopeless. Giving me Jay to just hold me when I feel so fragile and empty.

But it's still hard. I will continue to praise Him - I do continue to praise Him. But it's still hard.

I don't know how Job did it. I don't know how people with chronic pain or cancer or other painful diseases do it. In fact, I don't know how anyone can do it without God to believe in - to give you hope.

Trying to remember scripture.

You , O Lord, give a perfect peace to those who hope and put their trust in You. Isaiah 26:3
Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight. Proverbs 3

These are the mantras I cling to. When my sleep is interrupted every hour by dreams that wake me up to pain, I say these over and over.

And when the pain is gone, when the meds have kicked in, you pretend you are a normal healthy person. That it was all just a nightmare. That it was in your imagination. You feel liberated and yet you are not perfectly pain free. Your muscles ache from the intense chills. Your head throbs from tense shoulders. You are still hovering on the edge of the nightmare. Enough to stand it. Enough to smile , but enough to sense that the pain will come back around.

I write this because as I lay in bed in agony, these words started jumping around in my head. Writing is a good release. I don't write this to ignite a pity party or to make it seem like my life is unbearable. I just write the truth for myself. So that when this is all over, I will look back and not take health for granted.

Because we do take our health for granted. Like we have the right to be healthy and yet it is by God's grace that we are given that gift. And when our health is shaky, by His grace He gives us the strength to get through it.

and that's the truth. plain and simple.

overwhelmed by God's perfect plan

"One life totally devoted to God is of more value to Him than one hundred lives which have been simply awakened by His Spirit." - Oswald Chambers


I love this quote. It totally resonates with where my heart is at - with Young Life and the things that God is teaching me in my own walk with Him. 


I jumped feet first into this 'starting Young Life in Slave Lake' thing - eager to see things happen. You know those verses in Psalms that talk about waiting on God. Well - it's very easy to say "I'll wait on God" but it's a whole lot harder to do it. 


I kept seeing potential Young Life people and I would excitedly share my heart expecting that they would just jump in with me. But things weren't going as I'd thought they would and it took someone challenging me to pray a different prayer - "God, who do you want on this team?" Once I stepped back and started praying that - my agenda was irrelevant. Suddenly the pressure was no longer there - the pressure to give an awesome sales pitch and get this person to jump on the YL bandwagon. Suddenly it became about what God was doing and how He is moving in all of this and not about me talking to the 'right' people and doing the 'right' things to get people on board. 


I tell ya - it is incredibly comforting to let go of the reins and give stuff up to God. Technically, I never had control of the reins in the first place - I had just convinced myself that the burden was on me to shoulder the load and so I had to do whatever I had to. But God has been challenging me - through Oswald Chambers - My Utmost for His Highest & through the book - "Breaking Intimidation" by John Bevere. Both sources have been pulling me towards God, towards scripture and the power of prayer - all things that are essential in starting a ministry in a town. 


And I think with starting a ministry that the beauty is that there will continue to be times of God opening doors - BAM BAM BAM - just like that. There will also be times of discouragement. There will be times of just waiting....and waiting...and waiting...for God to move, to direct my steps. And those times of waiting are just as vital as the times of opening doors and confirming my decisions. Those are the times that stretch me and mould me into what God would want in someone he wants to use in ministry. 


Even in the midst of opening doors there are things up ahead that still look impossible but I truly believe that God will resolve and do incredible things - but it will be in His perfect timing and on his agenda - not mine. 


I just wanted to write this to give Him praise for all the amazing things that are happening in Slave Lake - opportunities to get into the high schools, conversations with kids that have been so eye-opening and challenging me to go to scripture for answers, people that are interested in the ministry of Young Life and see potential for it in Slave Lake. 


There have already been blunders on my part, miscommunications, and struggles. I feel often that I am floundering around - desiring to do what God has laid on my heart and yet feeling so ill-equipped and discouraged at the times I get in the way of what God wants to do. And yet there have also been times of forgiveness, of trusting and building of relationships - of encouragement and reminders to keep focused and stay attuned to God's heart. 


That's what gives me hope- that in spite of the messed up sinner that I am - quick to anger, quick to impatience, worrying, trying to take control, saying things I shouldn't, ignoring God at times, putting myself and my needs over God, the list goes on and on.. In spite of those things - God wants to use me - me of all people for a ministry that could get totally messed up by the things I struggle with. And yet as I learn daily to surrender that stuff to God - I am reminder that 'I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me' - that "He who has begun a good work in me will bring it to completion" - that "He so loved the world (and me) that he gave His one and only Son - that whosoever believes in Him will receive eternal life." 


It's craziness - that the God of the universe would offer to us what He does - that He would give us a second chance, and a third chance, and a tenth, and a 100th - that He cares about every detail of our lives and His greatest desire is for us to know Him intimately and know His love and to glorify Him the way we were created to. That in spite of our junk and our messed up selves - He would give himself up on a cross - as Jesus - to save our measly little lives. Just ridiculousness. I can't express how amazing it is. 


Read a tattoo today that a guy just got - "Every saint has a past, every sinner has a future." Not sure what his interpretation of it was but I just see it as a hopeful statement - a reminder of our humanity and yet the hope that we have a future in Christ. So cool. 


God I just praise you and ask for your protection over the youth of this town - over kids whose hearts are turned away from you or towards you - that you would bring these kids into a real lasting relationship with you - whether through a youth rally, or church, or youth group, or Young Life - I pray that more and more adults hearts would be motivated to invest in these kids lives - to bring encouragement where there is none and share hope with the hopeless. I just pray these things Jesus in your powerful name. Amen. 

just one strand

fragile.
like an eggshell.

already I see the cracks forming. spreading.

and I can't stop them.

transparent.

like plastic. if only I were hard as glass.

then you could not bend me.

but perhaps you'd break me.

knotted like rope.

or two small fists.

not willing to unfurl myself.

it's too vulnerable. not safe.

lost.

in this mess.

how did it get so huge?

there was just one strand.

and then another.

and another.

desperate.

can't turn my back.

at least not fully.

can't love God and abandon love.

they don't co-exist.

unless I play by my rules.

but I won't.

fill me.

my cries feel empty.

but only You can change that.

You who gave breath.

who created with a word.

who saw beauty before it existed.

You who brought light into the darkest place.

next to you, there is only light.

only You can strengthen the fragile.

affirm the transparent.

undo the knotted.

find the lost.

save the desperate.

fill me Jesus. fill me God.

I lay my burdens at Your feet.

Sun-kissed snow

I blinked my eyes. Once. Twice. 

A painting stood before me.

An explosion of blues and whites.

Light spilled out.

Shadows crept in.

The result - stunning.

Sky greeted earth like an old friend.

Meeting in that familiar way.

Different expressions.

One complimented the other.

Rays of sun played hide and seek

In amongst the trees.

Every now and then - I caught one.

I felt comfortable.

Standing tall. 

My shadow - it caught the light.

A cemetery of trees.

Cloaking an eerie silence with beauty.

Resilience stood here.

Through a fire that sought to steal its life.

A black beauty.

Solitary and yet marked by the scars a community has bourn.

These gentle giants wait for spring.

They wait.

Alas - we have left our Narnian world.

Where time stands still - but for a moment.

The road is alive. 

This land it moves.

And yet I will return to that place.

Of stillness and sun-kissed snow.

My skies will carry me there.

Soon enough.

YL Camp Promo Video

So after lots of hard work and editing and re-editing - the YL Uxbridge Rockridge Canyon Promo Video is finished. My hope is that YL Uxbridge kids who went will look back and remember that awesome week and the different ways that God met them in the midst of all the craziness. I hope that Uxbridge kids who are thinking about going this summer will be even more convinced that they want to be part of something like this.

And lastly, I hope that through showing it to adults and kids in Slave Lake, it will be used by God to bring Young Life to this town. I have been sharing left and right about Young Life and doing what I can to get involved in the youth community here. Between outreach lunches, gym nights, and trying to start up a music night for high school kids, I feel I am more and more convinced that Young Life would be an awesome tool for introducing kids to Christ in Slave Lake.

This town has been through so much with the May fire and flood and on top of all that - there is a definite spiritual battle here. I have heard several stories of adults and kids seeing spirits and there are definitely some dark battles going on that most of us don't even realize.

You have to be creative in this town and for the youth - there's just not that much to do and the main entertainment is house parties. I am really praying and hoping that God will show me how to bring Young Life, because I keep meeting kids and thinking, 'Man, I'd love to see his life changed, or her life changed, through experiencing God's love' with a relational ministry like Young Life.

I feel like Moses going up against Pharoah - ill-equipped and overwhelmed and asking God to hand the task to someone else. And yet I am certain that this is why God has called us to Slave Lake.

We got to come back to Ontario for a weekend to see our friends get married and visit family and friends. When we were on our way back to Slave Lake, I felt such a peace. I was excited to go back for the main reason that I feel like God has a purpose to play out through Jay and I and I am committed to stay here as long as He is calling us here.

It is that sense of purpose that drives me. I love that verse... "And I am confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on til completion until the day of Jesus Christ.."

and without further ado...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQPEhjxXHeg&feature=share

We got internet!!

After days and weeks of Telus saying we would get internet and then dashing our hopes to the ground, we arrived home today to find they had set it up a day earlier than they promised! Thank you Telus!

I would love to write a blog right now and update on everything that has happened but my husband would rather watch Netflix haha so I will have to set aside an hour or so tomorrow :)