Utterly Changed for Him - 10 months later

Its almost 2 am. I am so pumped about EVERYTHING. Yes it sounds like I just had coffee and no I didn't. I just finished writing thank you letters to people I love, and supporting a child's christmas in Africa. If I was ever going to be an evangelistic Christian... it would be right now!

This must be what people feel like when they are shouting about the love of Jesus on a street corner.

Okay, so right now... I have a Jesus high, but its amazing how someone can change through trials and time. The last time I blogged I had just joined HPSM and finished my orientation week where David Wray at Healing Place Church, smoked us on giving it all and being ruined for God.

I was praying at the alter with such trepidation about the next few months of my life. I couldn't get excited about it and then I got prayed for by a prayer warrior...I'd rather refer to her as a prayer hero.

So as my prayer Hero was tearing down fear, I was bracing myself for this next ten months. Im now on the other side of it, oh and let me tell you........... it was hard. Probably, emotionally, the hardest ten months of my Jesus lovin life. Separation, insecurity, healing, depression, compression, failure, victories, sifting, helplessness, hopefulness and in the end - Peace.

Words can not fully contain the change and the peace in my heart. Risking vulnerability and allowing people to walk through the battles with you, confronts the very things your afraid of. And you Heal. Instead of my head swimming with I can't, my head is swimming with "How in the world can I be this peaceful, restful, speechless?

Three words baby, Love Of Christ.

Utterly Ruined for Him

Ruined... its the only work I can think of to describe brokenness. To be so messed up by something that your aren't suitable for another purpose. That's my definition.

Today I had the opportunity to spend time serving a family. This dwelling housed apparently over 2o people under one roof. By circumstances of misfortune and lack, life is being lived like this in our neighborhoods.

What touched my heart most today was that some of the adults living in this residence seemed to be disabled or challenged in some way. They were being taken care of in an environment that couldn't take care of its self in today's 'American' standard. Bathrooms had no doors, bedrooms had no space and dishes saw no hot water.

I thought, Lord, what drives people to hopelessness, destitution, depression? I saw one man in a moment of an embarrassing situation, hold his hands over his eyes as if hiding. It took hours for my heart to weep as I thought of how numb you have to become to overcome situations that your never thought you'd be in.

No one grows up and says, I want to be poor. No one grows up and says, I want to starve today, be exposed, abandoned or abused today. So when it happens, you hide. You hide inside yourself every time shame arrives and before long...the expressions on your face are not your own. They are constructed of years of hiding or finding a place to cope with what you feel you cannot change. And then maybe... you never try to leave that place because now, its your life and dreams aren't achievable, hope is deferred and healing is not in your vocabulary. Then, there's Jesus.

How does He heal the hurting? I'm not sure, but I know He does... one day, one action and one moment of grace at a time.

To me... Ruined for the world leaves your stranded and useless. Ruined for Him means the world cant use you alone, but He can and He can use you to change the world.