Decisions, Decisions

I do want to evangelize and I do want to bless others. I feel like there's this wall separating me from surrendering my whole being to God. Yeah, it's there. It's called selfishness. And unselfishness, but mostly the former. I am afraid that if I deny myself for Him that He will take away what I love and care about. That's what's holding me back.

The verse keeps coming to mind that goes, "For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it." (Matt 16:25)

This "wall", I believe, has been around all my life. I have NEVER totally submitted to Him...I think that it has just become much more evident in my current situation. I mean, I've always known that I've never actually given Him my ALL. But now it's like God is tired of me lolling around, wasting time, and wants me to make a decision-->will I lose my life for Him or not? Am I going to be a half-assed Christian this whole lifetime, or will I ever decide to be a whole-hearted follower?? I feel like I am being faced with this head-on, blatant decision where I have to make a choice. Maybe this is a "now or never" thing; maybe it could be later. But come on. It's so clear that He wants me to make a decision.

This is it.

This is the true test.

What's it gonna be?

I know He's sick of me living this comfortable, uncommited life but saying I am living for Him. Bull crap! I am living for myself.

I know that stinkin' devil would love for me to choose selfishly, superficially, and fleshly.

Neil wants to use every ounce of his being for the Kingdom. He feels like the cross he bears is made of styrofoam. That's how mine feels. There's something wrong with that picture.

So the choice is mine. Only once I make it in His favor can He actually start to use me the way He made me to be used.

So, here we are.

THE GAME.

You thought you just lost, but you really didn't.

The game has been won.

It's over.

CoNfUsIoN

Well, we are back at Hosanna. I knew those two weeks at home would fly, but I did try to cherish every moment of it. It was a good time. I felt like Mom and I were able to spend some good, quality time with each other. And I'm glad I was able to be with my grandpa and tell him I love him. People have been warning my mother that a lot of times when someone dies who has been married as long as my grandparents, their spouse passes away within 6 months of their death. I hope and pray to God that's not going to be the case. But I am glad I got to spend that time with him.

Neil and I have such good families and friends. I keep thinking we don't deserve all this love that surrounds us, so I don't want to take them for granted. I know we are incredibly blessed and not everyone has what we have.

Here's my confusion:

I struggle with discerning what the order of my priorities should be. I'm talking about mission work and my loved ones. Where people's souls are headed is of the utmost importance. But aren't family members supposed to be there for each other, especially in times of need? I feel like I should be at home, being there for my family, (for longer than 2 weeks). But if we didn't come back here soon, we wouldn't have our jobs here. And this is where we feel God has lead us. But maybe He's put this longing in my heart to be with my family for a reason. But Neil also has a longing in his heart--to be here working on this ministry. Maybe the longing in my heart is there because I love my family and I don't want to see them hurting. I want to fix their pain, or at least try to lessen it. But maybe that doesn't mean that God is telling me I need to physically be there with them right now. Though, it sure seems to me that I could be the most help if I was there in the flesh. I just never thought that mission work would mean that I'd have to neglect my family. How do people do it? I know missionaries that are gone from their families for years at a time. How do any of them stand that? I guess it's possible that I'm not necessarily neglecting them just because I am not there in the flesh. As long as we communicate. I don't know. A hug can sometimes do a lot more than words.

I know the solution to my confusion:

I need to draw close to God. I haven't been getting into the Word much lately. So I think I need to lean on Him for guidance about this. I KNOW I need to lean on Him. I need Him to come into my heart and change me to be more open about what He wants me to do with my life. Anyone out there reading this, please pray for me to have a different attitude. To be more God-focused. And again, please don't anyone think that I am here against my will. Neil is not dragging me around. I choose to be here. Though I feel like I choose it for Neil, not for God. But see, something I've brought up before is that maybe God put me with Neil because He wanted me to be here and knew I would never do it without Neil. So I guess that's the attitude change I'm really talking about. And I know, I need to make the decision myself. Maybe I need to work on my perspective first. Then attitude.

Neil tells me it seems like I am just going through the motions here. I've got the action down, but the perspective and attitude, I need to work on. Like God says through Paul, "If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal." My heart is not here--it is at home with my family. So when I work here, my heart is not in it. I work hard, but others here have told me that because of my attitude they can tell my heart is somewhere else. (It's been that way since we arrived at Hosanna.) However, I think it can be 2 places at once. That's what I need to work on.

So, I'm not confused about where my focus should be. I am confused about my priorities. My focus requires the attitude change and probably a different perspective. The priorities...that discernment will come, I know, from drawing close to the Lord. God is not a god of confusion. I know He has the answers; I just need to open my ears and listen to His wisdom. And like I said, I've been neglecting Him lately. I need to get off of here and go read the Word.

Grandma

My grandmother passed away recently and it's been rather difficult to get used to that reality. I know it's real. But thinking about the fact that we will never hear her sweet voice again or see her beautiful face...that's been hard to accept. But again, I know it's reality. Neil brought up a good point the other day: death was never God's intention when He created man. Maybe that's why it's so hard to accept. It's a result of sin. So NOW it is reality.

Now I know she is no longer suffering. Her physical discomfort is gone. Her fear of facing death is gone. Her WORRIES are gone. (Grandma was the biggest worry wort I ever knew.)

Now she is at peace.

ANYONE WHO IS READING THIS: Please please please pray for my mother and grandfather. My mom and her mom were so close. And my grandpa--he is dealing with losing the person he has spent the last 65 years with. I couldn't imagine losing Neil now. But what if we were married for as long as my grandparents? That has got to be incredibly hard. I can't even begin to imagine.

So this is the first time I have dealt with losing someone close to me. I think the timing with me being on the other side of the world is what God thought would be the best. For some reason He did not what me to see her again before she died or didn't want her to see me or maybe didn't want me to be there for my family because of whatever reason. I really do trust that all things are under God's control. And since He IS love and everything He does is out of LOVE, then I know that the timing really was for the best. Anyway, I do get to see my family soon. We are flying home in less than a week, so I am looking forward to that. I want to give my family comfort. I want to receive comfort. I want more closure. I want to help my mom and grandpa in any way that I can to make things easier on them. I so longed to be there for the funeral. But again, I know that the way everything happened was a part of God's perfect plan. I am not at all bitter toward Him. I know death is now a part of life. I always knew I would eventually be dealing with it (unless I died before anyone close to me did).

So, here we are.

Satan's Stronghold Over Me

I don't at all think I have this all figured out, but I may be getting closer. This is something that I have been trying to get control of for years: my bad moods. They cause serious problems in my marriage because they bring my husband down. I bring him down. Not only that, when I submit to them I reflect that bad mood on everyone around me. No one likes that. No one wants to be around someone who is negative. I know I don't. I try to avoid those people. And I know that I become one of those people when I give in to my anger or sadness or whatever. I never got motivated to even try to get out of or resist these mood swings until Neil said something years ago before we got married. I used to get so angry at him when he would say something because it was so frustrating, trying to get out of a bad mood. And let me tell you he has said something over and over and over again. That's because I keep failing. I think it's mainly my pride that I let have me. But sometimes I think it's a matter of when I get in the bad mood I want to stay there. I don't know why. That sounds crazy. But anyway, Neil has tried to explain to me that all I have to do to get rid of the bad mood is to just stop. "Just do it", he says. And I've always said, "How do you just do it???" Usually I need to just let time do it's thing and then the bad mood leaves. But that is not a solution because in the mean time, while I am letting the bad mood do it's thing, I am bringing Neil down. And that's not right.

So here's what I've come up with for a solution...first of all I have to tell a short story. Yesterday, our boss told us she would like us to stay here at this hostel and work for her through the summer. That is, Australia's summer, our winter. Anyway, that's like February. When she said that it made me sad because I am homesick and I want to leave at the 3 month mark, which is in about a month from now. Plus Neil wants to travel around here before we come home, so that's another few weeks or months we will be gone. So that puts us coming home at about a year after we left home. That makes me very sad. So I was thinking about that yesterday, but instead of going ahead and getting into a bad mood over it, I caught myself before it happened. Or rather, God caught me. I started praying about it. I went over what I had just heard, and thought about my motives for wanting to go home (which are selfish). I prayed for wisdom and guidance about the matter, and thought about what I think God would want me to do. And I thought, that is to stay here for now. The only reason I thought that though, is because going home would be out of selfishness, so maybe the opposite of that decision (staying here) would be out of love. But then I thought about how I don't really feel like I am doing any good for the kingdom here. On the other hand, though, someone has to do this job to get this place running. Why not us? And once it gets running more backpackers will come and the more evangelizing that can happen.

I'm getting off topic. Before I get back on, though, I want to say something about the traveling around that I said Neil wants to do. I make it sound like only Neil wants to do it. Here's the thing: I do want to see the world. I used to fantasize about it as a child. But I am a big fat baby. I would never leave home to do that on my own. But I think God wants His people to travel and see all the variety of the nature that He created for us. Plus, I think traveling to different places and seeing different cultures will help to make us more well-rounded individuals. But I've always been too scared to attempt that. I am still scared. However, now I am with Neil, who actually has the balls to do what I would never initiate. And here's another thing: Neil knows what he wants to do with his life. I don't. And since he actually knows what he wants to do, why don't we do that and see what happens? Maybe God wanted me to end up here one day but knew I would never do it on my own so that's why He willed for me to end up marrying Neil. I think about that sometimes. So here we are. We may never come back to this side of the world again, why not take advantage of the fact that we are so close to places we want to visit. It makes sense. And if it's God's will, it will happen; if not, we'll come home when we leave Hosanna.

So anyway, I was thinking about all that stuff, and I just thought, in the midst of all of that, why not try to act like I am happy today. I don't want to deny my true feelings if it comes up; I don't think that's healthy. I just want to not take my negativity out on others. And isn't that what God wants us to do?? Act lovingly even when we don't feel like it? So I decided that I was going to do just that. I was going to act happy around Neil. And somehow, (I'm sure with God's mighty hand involved), I did it. All day long. And today, guess what Neil said to me...he said that it was as if I was a changed person yesterday. Like what I've been praying about is finally showing itself. So he was right, it's not impossible. I can just decide to not let a bad mood take me over, and then it doesn't.

Then there's the matter of getting out of a bad mood once I'm in one. I think that's a matter of swallowing my pride most of the time. I feel like I've got a bit of a handle on that. Sort of.

Believe me, I don't want to get a big head about all of this and think I have control over the issue because that's when I'll fail. I mean, I think I can have control over it, I just have to utilize that fruit of the spirit that is dwelling in me somewhere... and somehow that fruit got utilized yesterday. Above all, I know that I would never be accomplishing any of this if it weren't for God working through Neil to help me to overcome my mood swings. I think He's been working through Neil to strengthen me in all kinds of ways. He sure has blessed me with the most amazing husband who I know I don't deserve.

I Can't Think of a Title Other Than "Introduction"...I Know, it's Lame

This is my first post on my first, very own blog page. You'll have to forgive me if all this sounds more like a journal. However, that's what I kind of think of it as...a place to write down my thoughts about life, death, and everything in between (and beyond). But I realize that it needs to make sense to others since I am writing these thoughts down (or typing) on a public website that ANYONE can read. But they will still be my thoughts. My husband brought up a very good point that actually motivated me to do this: It will help us to get to know each other better. (He too has his very own blog page.) And since I'm not the greatest at expressing myself verbally, I agree that this will help. So anyone who's curious as to what's going on in my head (or at least what I choose to make known, but still is more than what I express verbally), then this will help you too, to know me better. Wow, I feel like I sound pretty self-absorbed, but I really want to use this to analyze my thoughts about some things. And it's better than writing down these thoughts in a "my eyes only" journal, not only because it will enhance my relationships, but again, like my husband brought to my attention, it will (hopefully) make me a better writer. See, like that last sentence. You can see that I need to work on my writing skills. Anyway (Neil), don't make fun of me.