Love so amazing...do you want it?

Tonight we had a Missions Dessert night at our church. I had not attended this for several years.

Go back ten years: My hubby and I were set to go out on missions. After years of financial sacrifice, he had graduated from seminary finally. That door closed suddenly, leaving us numb. In that one year, I had lost my job and my husband went on to lose 4 jobs in succession, we had nowhere to call home, I suffered a miscarriage, and worst of all, we were left questioning God's voice in our lives. In the years to follow, depression reigned as I stifled my pain to deal with just surviving with a new baby and chronic back pain. In the past, I could always have a getaway to quiet my heart and process my pain through Jesus. I now found myself with no money for a getaway and a tiny apartment where I felt claustrophobic. Worst of all, for an introvert and contemplative like myself, there was nowhere to be alone, to be silent-completely. I became disconnected from my heart and became a shell.

Well, God introduced me a couple of years ago to a woman named Beth Moore. Do you know her? Well, I did her Breaking Free study, then her Believing God, and recently her A Woman's Heart, God's Dwelling Place. These studies allowed me to look inside myself and look into God's Word and heart and have been life-changing. [Thank you, Beth!.] God also used other 'safe' godly friendships to gently walk with me. Most recently, I was able to share with someone that ten-year-old pain I just spoke about and she said she would pray that God would once more ignite my heart for missions in our next missions conference. I just let that fall aside.

Ten years later, today: during the morning service, I had sudden flashes of a youth camp I attended as a child in Trinidad and Tobago, memories of being a camp counsellor, and a sudden yearning to be there. I do not know exactly what it was about, so I've asked God to show me. I believe that God is starting a heart reconnection with His purpose for me.

Then tonight at the dessert evening, a young couple converted from another faith spoke. She had been married at 14, he was 16. They had fallen in love and were happy, until his father pulled him aside and told him that he had to be a man and show his wife he had control. Soon she found herself being beaten, and waking up at 5:00 a.m. each morning to cook and wash and clean for the 15 people in the household. She became so distraught that she contemplated suicide but because she had 2 children by then, she could not. God even saved her when a stray bullet from fighting outside her home hit her. One night she cried out to God and had a dream of being led to a room where she encountered the Presence of God. When she told her religious aunt about it, she was told that she had to repent of such notions. She soon put that out of her mind. The god of the faith that was practiced around her allowed no notions of love and grace.

However, circumstances in their country led to them fleeing to another country where a 3-yr-old neighbour came to play with a gospel tract in his pocket. That tract led them to a church where the gospel was being preached and they encountered Jesus and embraced His love and mercy wholeheartedly. [Strangely enough, the husband had great reservations about attending the church because the preacher in his own religion taught that Christians practiced lifestyles like Madonna and Michael Jackson. ] That church was eventually closed down when it was discovered it was converting people to Christianity. This couple then started a home church and discipled over 65 people. When this man's family heard that he had become a Christian, he was beaten severely. Later, they got asylum in Canada and are still involved with their children in actively sharing their faith, even with risk to their own lives.

I sat looking at this couple, radiant and passionate. They experienced many more hardships than I can share now, but here they were, giving and giving, to a people who would kill them easily. The visiting speaker earlier in the day spoke about Stephen being stoned for his faith. When the average person is faced with injustice, we immediately are filled with rage and thoughts of revenge. What was it about Stephen that said I am willing to sacrifice my life so that that person can have relief from his sins? What is it about this couple willing to give their lives for their own people who want to kill them? What is it about Jesus that made Him stay on that Cross? What is it about God that made Him turn His back on His own Son laden with my sin?

It is love. For me. For you. Offered unconditionally. A free gift. You can't work for it. Just so you and God can be reconciled. Love so amazing. He wants you to take it. Will you?

"For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life."
John 3:16 (NIV Version)

Father, thank You for the power of your Word, thank You for Your saving grace and the way You work in different cultures to reveal Yourself.
Father, help me to grieve for the same things that grieve Your Spirit. Break my heart with what breaks Yours.
Father, I offer myself to You as a living sacrifice. Cleanse me with Your blood spilled for me to pay for my sins. Fill my cup with the water of Life, Your Spirit and may I overflow to reveal You to hungry hearts.
Father, reveal to me the next step.
In Jesus' Name, I pray. Amen.