My resignation
I turned it in yesterday. I can’t believe it. After 4 years of being on staff at my church, I have resigned. I have a mixture of feelings and emotions that I am not sure I can quite express. I am scared and excited at the same time! It has been an adventure to say the least. When I started working there, I had only been a Christian for about 2 1/2 years. I think back on it and laugh and ask myself, what the heck were they thinking?! They actually wanted this ex addict, recovering alcoholic, codependant Jesus freak working for one of the pastors?? What a ride it has been. I have learned so much about myself and I know I would not be the woman I am today without the last 4 years of working there.
Although I have many mixed feelings, I know it’s time to move on. It’s hard when you are on staff at a mega church because people want to stick a halo on your head. People have so many expectations of what you should look like and act. I am so glad that I don’t fit into any kind of box. I know I have alot of opinions, too many people may say, but God gave me a brain and by golly I am going to use it!
I have accepted a position at a Christian owned company that I used to work for before I took the position at church. I worked for someone at the company and not the company directly so I already know everyone there. When I went in for my interview it was like coming home. I got to see and talk to many old friends. I am looking forward to this new opportunity and am praying that I will able to make and stick to some good boundaries. One of the really cool things is I get to go to a conference in Boca Raton is April! Woohoo! One bad thing is I have to make up some continuing education courses (like 30 hours!) and that along with Bible college may kill me! Please keep me in your prayers.
If you are one of my friends or members from church and you just found out, I am sorry for not being able to share this with you personally. I am sure many emails will go out over the next 2 weeks.
Missions
Ah, my favorite subject. I love missions. I am a missions junkie. I can’t get enough of them. Praying about where to go this summer. I thought I was going back to Africa but am now praying about Thailand or Cambodia. I would love to do both. I had a vision last summer while in a worship service during leadership training at Teen Mania headquarters. Not some weird freaky vision so just calm down! We were preparing to go to Africa and on this one night, we were singing a song and one of the lines in it is:
Here I am Lord, it is I Lord? I can hear you calling in the night. I will go Lord, if You lead me. I will hold Your people in my heart.
I cannot even begin to explain the feeling in my heart when we sang this. It was like a crushing weight on my chest. I had my eyes closed and the Lord showed me what appeared to be an old black and white film rolling of pictures of children from all nations. It was like one of those old reel to reel films, not that I am old enough to remember them, I just read about them ;)
Anyways, the picture that is seared in my heart and my mind is of a little girl from Thailand (I think) with one of those hats covering her head. I can’t shake the picture from my mind, it’s like she is calling me. I know exactly how the apostle Paul felt when the man from Macedonia called him in his vision. I know it may sound weird and I assure you I have my weird moments, but I know the Lord is calling me to minister to the nations, especially vulnerable children and orphans. Please, please pray with me that God would reveal His will to me regarding my role in missions. In the next few days, I plan on writing about the sexual trafficking that is going on world-wide. It will be a hard post, but a necessary one. Awareness leads to prayer which leads to change. (Hey, I just made that up!)
I am speaking in a few days to our Awana kids at church about missions so please pray for me that they would go home and have a burden for missions and missionaries. I am going to show them a video from my Africa trip and pray that they would go home changed. What a privilege for me to get to share my passion with these little ones.
Look at these little faces, what’s not to love?! 
The Healing Begins
Thanks for all who commented on my previous post about my sad little girl and for praying for me. That was the most difficult post I have ever written because it shows my vulnerability. Growing up, I learned to never, ever let people see the real me. I hid who I was and covered my hurt by becoming an overachiever. I still am. I am exhausted. I am tired of being the “best” at everything I do. I want to know what it’s like to do something mediocre. I am in Bible college, is it good enough to get B’s, no way, gotta get straight A’s. No Magna Cum Laude for me, gotta be Summa Cum Laude. My house is immaculate, although I guess I am growing in that area as I left a cup in the sink overnight! (little doings for you, big doings for me) At work, I gotta be the best at everything too. I am overwhelmed. My boundaries have become dotted lines and in some spots, there aren’t even dotted lines. I am so “textbook” it’s not even funny!
I plan on writing through my healing because I am hoping that somewhere if someone is reading this, they may be encouraged as well. Pray for me to have the courage to get some Christian counseling and that I would stick with it. I have gone a few times and always end up quitting.
I am encouraged and know that I will not go through this alone. With your prayers and the Lord at my side (carrying me at times, albeit) I know this will be the best thing I can do for myself. I am so grateful that God is close to the broken hearted and binds us our wounds. I need binding and I need my Father. I am taking Him with me to all the broken parts of my heart. The memories are coming back, slowly, and they scare me. I feel like I am opening Pandora’s box but I know I must. Until I empty that thing, Satan will use everything that is stuck in it to keep me from being fully restored and doing what God wants me to. I know the Lord has a plan and purpose for my life. I know that I can do ALL things through Him and He will give me the strength.
Thanks again!
A Sad Little Girl
Deep inside of me there is a little girl who grew up unloved, who was never held or hugged or ever heard the words, I love you. As she grew up, she did all sorts of things to help deaden the pain so she would not feel the hurt and rejection. She did drugs, she drank heavily, she went from man to man searching for someone to love her. The more things she tried to fill her heart with, the sadder and lonelier she became.
She finally met the true Lover of her Soul, the Healer of the Broken. 6 & 1/2 years ago and lots of hard recovery work. Apparently not enough hard work though. Once in a while this little broken hearted girl comes back to haunt me and for the last several days she has been relentless. I thought I worked through all my “mommy and daddy” issues, I thought I released all the pain and hurt to the Lord, I thought I was “over” this. I guess some scars are so deep that they will never go away completely.
I have been trying to ignore it and stuff it back down to where it lays dormant until someone pushes that little button. And here I am once again. I feel like the Lord is telling me that I need to just grieve it and feel it and not deny it anymore. I don’t want or need to hear little words of wisdom from well meaning friends. I don’t want to hear about how much the Lord loves me and yada, yada, yada. I know all that and how very much He adores me. I know just about every Scripture in the Bible that tells me He loves me. Knowing is not enough. Having it penetrate deep in my heart is a whole different thing.
I was reading through some of the Psalms where David was hurting and he always cried out to God. He always asked even begged God to rescue him. Maybe that’s what I need. To just bawl my stinking eyes out and acknowledge this pain in my heart that keeps rearing its ugly head. It’s like the Lord is telling me it is time to deal with it. Weep, mourn and wail over it. I think I try to dismiss it like not being loved as a child is normal. It’s like even now I think I have to stick up for my parents and in my mind think they had their own problems, they did the best they could. It’s a defense mechanism. I know it is. It is called self preservation. The Lord doesn’t care what’s it called. He wants me to get on my face and tell Him how bad I hurt and the very thought of that brings tears to my eyes. Even as I type this, the tears roll down my cheeks. I have to remind myself that He is not like any of the 3 fathers I had. He is The Father. My Abba Daddy. Even that is hard to write, I know it, my mind knows it but my heart is so tired of being hurt and disappointed. Please pray that after church today, I will have the courage to deal with is. It is an albatross around my neck and it is suffocating me. I will never be free until I deal with this and I know that all my striving in life is directly related to this broken little girl heart inside of me. Please pray for me.
Prayer Request
The Bible says that where 2 or 3 gather, Jesus is there also. Well, I need Him and your prayers. I almost did not want to post about it because I am so frustrated I could cry. As many of you know, I have had 4 knee operations in the last 5 years. It is wearing me out. Last November, I had a partial knee replacement and it helped a little. I still have pain on and off but for some reason, the pain is now more on than off. I want to throw myself on the floor and yell and scream and kick my feet (although that would hurt my knee!) and have a full blown temper tantrum! I just want it to be healed! I thought I would be back to hiking by now. How am I going to climb Mt Kilmanjaro if it hurts to just walk through the stinkin’ mall?!
Ok, I feel much better. Sometimes, you just gotta let it out. I have an appointment on Monday with my orthopedic doctor but part of me is scared he is going to tell me nothing is wrong. I know I am not crazy, insert smart comment here, because I am back to limping pretty bad because of the pain. I feel like the metal part is loose or something and I can feel it pressing down in my tibia. I don’t want to get back on pain meds, they make me feel too good.
Life is full of Surprises
I have been praying about Africa and how I can help with the AIDS orphans for quite a while now. I am trying to figure out if God wants me to live there full time or what. I am an advocate for these poor children and my heart is with them but does that mean God is calling me there to minister to them? Does that mean that God wants me to pack up my few meager things and move there? Does he want me to leave my unsaved brothers, sister and mother to go spread the Gospel there to complete strangers? As a single adult, should I date knowing God could call me to live there? Will I be able to raise thousands of dollars in support to get and stay there?
These, and many more questions have been on my mind for the last few years. I am in my last year of Bible college and I am praying that the Lord will reveal His will to me soon!
I have asked many of my friends to be prayer warriors for me and to help me to seek God in this and I am so grateful for people who I respect to speak words of wisdom and who encourage (and yes, sometimes admonish!) me.
One of my friends told me it was time to start doing something about it so I sent out an email to some friends and asked for prayer. That was 2 days ago and amazingly enough, an opportunity opened up for me to possibly go to South Africa with our youth group at church this summer.
One leader is unable to go now so there are 2 candidates vying for this position! And one of those is me!
An even greater opportunity opened up for me in that I am being sent to a seminar next weekend in Chicago with Teen Mania to go through their leadership missions training program. Our youth group at church is using them for our mission trip and in order to be a leader, you have to go through their training and be approved. Even if I don’t get picked, how awesome is that? Maybe God is opening another door with Teen Mania for me somehow. Maybe I will make more connections and my missions network will grow because of this trip. I don’t know, I can only pray that whatever happens, I have an open and responsive heart.
I was thinking about Abraham today and thinking about how I would respond if God said to me, Go, leave your country and everything you know and go to where I will tell you to go…by the way I am not sure where yet, just go and I will let you know when you get there.
Yikes!
Oh Lord, that I would be ready to go. Today…Tomorrow… Next Year… Whenever…
Prayer request for my knee
Over the last 5 and half years, I have been to 5 orthopedic surgeons, had 3 operations, 5 cortisone injections, 5 synvisc injections and countless hours of physical therapy for my right knee. I have been in pain virtually every day for the last several years and it has been a difficult journey for me. The Lord is gracious to me and has given me strength to not have to take pain medication. I know it would be perfectly ok for me to do so but with as a recovering drug addict, the thought scares me silly and after being in constant pain, I can see why people with chronic pain become addicted to it.
Last week, I received a letter from my doctor that his office will no longer participate with my health insurance. At first, I was upset but I am now looking at it as an opportunity to find a specialist that will help me. The reason I am blogging this is to not complain but to ask for your prayers. Please pray that God would give me wisdom about which doctor to see next. A dear man in my church is on the board at Johns Hopkins and he has referred me to several doctors there. Please pray that they will accept my health insurance. The insurance companies have paid out over $50,000 for my knee already and my out of pocket expenses have been in the thousands.
I know the Lord will use my situation for His glory and I am fully convinced that His grace is sufficient for me. Please pray for me and if you feel led, post your prayer here. Thanks.
Romans 8:28, And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.
2 Corinthians 4:17, For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.
