(I started this quite a while ago…and although I never finished it, I’m still posting it as is, because I feel that it is important, and even the fact that its not finished or “perfect” is something I believe God is try to teach me through…I’m not perfect and I don’t have to be, HE IS!)
Most of the time I love sitting and reflecting on recent or past events and discovering what things I had learned or seen through them. Reflection is something that I have normally said that I am good at. To be honest, as I think over these last few weeks I have no idea how to process them. I feel the need to share and am hoping that blogging will aid me in processing. When I usually write a blog I have something in mind already that I want to share. I’ve usually highligted something in my journal knowing that I wanted to blog that, and sometimes they actually make it to my blog! Most of the time they don’t. 
These weeks have thrown me for a loop and I am still not sure how to digest them. Perhaps I’m learning that some things are simply to be lived and not easily figured out by my human mind. Perhaps I’m still in the lesson that is to be learned because God’s timing is not mine, the lesson won’t be learned exactly at what I see to be the end of that particular event. Even with my “Perhaps” I’m trying to figure it out! Some things just can’t be wrapped up in the neat little packages that I want them in, they are suppose to be messy, so we can truly see a God that is in control of what we see as a mess.
Beyond anything else friends, these last weeks, even months, I have come to realize my desperate need for my Father. He’s making that pretty blatantly obvious to me. I usually can get by with doing things on my own strength (even though I will want HIS) and that has not been happening. I CAN’T DO A THING WITHOUT HIM. And you know what? Neither can you. I pray that we can rejoice in that! Wouldn’t that be amazing if we could rejoice in our weakness because then He gets to be stronger? We want Him to be stronger right?
Right now I’m at the point where I’m trying to learn how to be weak…
First came the Woman’s Retreat two weeks ago…
“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. FOR WHEN I AM WEAK, THEN I AM STRONG.” – 2 Cor 12:9-10
We were asked to speak and help lead the women’s retreat for a church in Springfield, MO where the Tillmans came from. Kristy and Sharon were going to be the main speakers and the rest of us were sharing testimonies from our time in Cairo. We had known and had been praying and preparing for quite a while. The week of the conference most of us got some sort of a stomach flu/cold/sore throats/losing voice….wow. Sharon and Kristy went ahead and still spoke despite the voices nearly gone….its not about us, it is seriously God’s message coming through us, not what we have to say. He made it clear that it wasn’t about us, as we were mostly in a place where we couldn’t “pretend” we were admitting that we were weak…and that is when God really can move…and HE DID. We saw the hunger for the Lord in women in a way we haven’t seen before. And we knew it wasn’t us! He orchestrated everything. Praise to His Name!
Then, we came back and there was an Ice Storm in Cairo and the surrounding areas…
“He sends out his command to the earth; his word runs swiftly. He gives snow like wool; he scatters hoarfrost like ashes. He hurls down his crystals of ice like crumbs; who can stand before his cold? He sends out his word, and melts them; he makes his wind blow and the waters flow…” – Psalm 147:15-18
Then, after a week of braving the ice, we headed to The Call, a prayer meeting for Southern Il.
“Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity!” -Psalm 133:1
Yep, God is in control.
I am not.
Even when I think I am, I’m not.
Even when we think we are, we’re not.
May it free us to know that we do not have to be in control because our Father is…
