Plans of the heart - part 3

Grant - May 19th Sat teaching session

Luke 5  - Simon Peter and Jesus met
-not by chance, but so that Jesus could get in the boat of Peter

Peter really struggled to trust Jesus when Jesus asked him to fish. See Peter was a fisherman - he knew all about fishing, when the best time to fish was and Jesus was a carpenter, not a fisherman. But Peter humoured Jesus' request regardless.

Challenge:
Do I trust God with the things in Young Life I have no idea about?
Do I trust God with the things in Young Life that I know a lot about?

Grant gave an example of Apple. They are so good at creating all of their software to go together. Lots of companies boast that you can pick and choose different pieces to go together. And yet, Apple specifically created their products to work together.

Likewise, God has created everything to work together. So often, we want to pick and choose what we want to trust God with. "Well God, you can have this, but I need to be in control of this..."
How incredible when we just trust God with everything - the things we are sure of and the things we aren't sure of...

Plans of the heart - part 2

    God is just incredible. I just can't express to you how incredible He is. Words just won't describe. I went to the National Young Life conference, hoping for God to reveal His purpose, to confirm the plans in my heart for starting Young Life in Slave Lake. I hoped that through this conference - I would grow closer to Him, that I would become even more attuned to His heart for Slave Lake and that He would show me a clearer picture of what it takes to start Young Life in a new area.

One of the most stretching things that I encountered on this weekend was something that Jay and I had to process together. We had come to the conference with the Edmonton crowd - a great group of people who love God and love Young Life ministry. We came, excited to reconnect with Ontario Young Lifers - as it had only been 6 months since our time with them.

What we came to realize quickly is that we weren't really part of either of those groups - neither Edmonton nor Ontario. It hit us both quite hard and it was a pretty difficult realization. To go from being part of a team of leaders, of that support group, to this kind of pioneering adventure we have found ourselves on, kind of put us in a different category. Suddenly we realized, we were no longer 'Ontario' leaders. We were 'Slave Lake' leaders - just the two of us. There was no team of leaders, no fellow volunteers to give us that sense of community. We were starting essentially from scratch - just us two.

On one sense it was an emotionally draining feeling. I had to go out onto the balcony at one point because I just didn't want to cry in front of everyone. And yet, in the midst of the tough stuff, God was caring for us and drawing Jay and I closer. In that moment when I left to go outside, Jay knew exactly why I'd left. He understood exactly where I was coming from.

I gave myself a moment and then walked back inside, trying to hold back the tears.
I had just walked in the door, when I glanced over and saw Bonnie Rawling - a woman whom I had connected with during camp week last August. She asked if I was ok and I immediately indicated that I needed to go outside. When she asked what was wrong I began to explain to her that Jay and I were trying to start Young Life in Slave Lake and that we felt so alone in it all - that we just felt overwhelmed.

As soon as I mentioned Slave Lake, Bonnie's eyes lit up and she said, "Wait a minute! That's you guys? You're the ones starting Young Life in Slave Lake?!!"

Turns out a family friend of ours - Richard Muir - had contacted Bonnie a few months ago and asked her to contact us, to encourage us in our endeavours in SL. Bonnie had been quite busy with things and hadn't got around to it. She had never made the connection of who we were.

In that moment as we realized how perfectly God had orchestrated this moment - we were just blown away. Just then, Jay walked out to the balcony to join us. We shared with him what'd we just discovered and it was so incredible to see God so blatantly caring for us in His perfect timing. Jay and I talked some more with Bonnie about where we were at and she prayed with us and then we went back inside.

It was an emotional thing - this feeling that Jay and I were going through . And yet - God turned it around. He showed me how Jay and I understood each other in where we were at and what we were struggling with. He showed me Jay's strengths and how his strengths compliment my weaknesses and vice versa. I came away from this weekend so convinced that I was part of a good solid team - of Jay and I and that God knew exactly what He was doing in His perfect timing.

As hard as it is to grasp, we aren't a part of Young Life Ontario anymore. We surely have their support, their prayers, their encouragement and that truly means the world. But this desire - these plans that God has laid on our hearts to start Young Life in Slave Lake is a new path that we alone have to walk. We aren't a part of Young Life Edmonton either. We hope to be involved as much as we can, in being connected with their community, and learning from their examples, and yet starting  YL in a small town like Slave Lake is an entirely different venture.

What I am convinced of is this - that God knows the ins and outs of Slave Lake. He knows the youth intimately - he knows their hearts and what they think of him. He knows just what'll it'll take to reach these kids and introduce them to Jesus. Jay and I may feel as though we are floundering on our own sometimes, but I know as long as we are surrendered to God - He will make incredible things happen. He is making incredible things happen in just the short time we've been here. And I just can't wait to see more!

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.