I've started probably 3 different blogs in the past couple days at an attempt to share what my life looks like right now here in Cambodia. All have been wordy and described a glimpse of the trafficking, poverty, brokenness, and needs of the beautiful people here in Cambodia but I have stopped writing each half way, knowing they don't suffice to what Holy Spirit really wants me to say. So I'm going to get really honest and really vulnerable quick- bear with me.
The past three days for me have been really difficult and really revealing to where my heart is and where God is taking me. I've learned pretty quickly that with a calling this heavy comes a lot of responsibility- responsibility that I can choose to pick up or brush off. I can set out from the shore with my staff into deep waters or I can stay near the familiarity of land a few rows away.
To be perfectly frank, if I want to see freedom come to my teachers and students from the strongholds and bondage of darkness, then I can't have any of that on me. The past three days have been sitting in a small room in a hostel in Phnom Penh letting God painfully surface things I need to let go of. From fear of letting go of control, to hurts that still remained from past relationships, to fear of the unknown--I felt overwhelmed. These are things I know that most people carry for their entire lives, most of the time unaware they are even lingering- much like myself. Most of the things The Spirit brought up were things I didn't know were even hovering over me still and as I asked why He chose to bring them up all at once now, I realized the answer to that was already clear.
If there is room for anything to surface in a storm it will surface, and I know I'm headed into a storm with my boat to the middle of the deep sea with no shore in sight.
The boat is pointed towards a storm but the beautiful thing is God has called me to be the eye of the storm. A place where He himself can rest because He trusts me. He trusts me to care for these women and these children and to take steps with them back towards the eye of the storm where there is peace and clarity to see hope and new life.
If there is one thing I am beginning to see more as truth daily it's that the natural and the spiritual very much go hand in hand. We are a door for Kingdom to be accessed here on earth and that means that even when we are just sitting down for coffee with a friend we are a door for them to access the kingdom of God. I was sitting downstairs the other day in the hostel and a woman here looked at me after I smiled at her and said 'When you smile I can't help but smile too.' Naturally it was just a smile, but spiritually she was seeing a hope in me that she couldn't help but feel when I was around. That hope of Christ in me is what so many Cambodians need restored in them. Hope to smile, to dream, to laugh, and to be free again.
1 Corinthians 2 says that "we have the mind of Christ" and if I have the mind of Christ I can access His thoughts, ideas, plans, desires, and compassions by the Sprit of God that resides in me. Naturally I don't have everything I need to lead these teachers to freedom but spiritually I have access to all of my Heavenly Father that does. It is so beautiful to see that my natural gifts partner so well with what the Spirit wants to do through me.
I'm learning, I'm growing, I'm releasing, and finding that my natural partnership with Holy Spirit is exactly what is needed to stand in the storm.
The past three days for me have been really difficult and really revealing to where my heart is and where God is taking me. I've learned pretty quickly that with a calling this heavy comes a lot of responsibility- responsibility that I can choose to pick up or brush off. I can set out from the shore with my staff into deep waters or I can stay near the familiarity of land a few rows away.
To be perfectly frank, if I want to see freedom come to my teachers and students from the strongholds and bondage of darkness, then I can't have any of that on me. The past three days have been sitting in a small room in a hostel in Phnom Penh letting God painfully surface things I need to let go of. From fear of letting go of control, to hurts that still remained from past relationships, to fear of the unknown--I felt overwhelmed. These are things I know that most people carry for their entire lives, most of the time unaware they are even lingering- much like myself. Most of the things The Spirit brought up were things I didn't know were even hovering over me still and as I asked why He chose to bring them up all at once now, I realized the answer to that was already clear.
If there is room for anything to surface in a storm it will surface, and I know I'm headed into a storm with my boat to the middle of the deep sea with no shore in sight.
The boat is pointed towards a storm but the beautiful thing is God has called me to be the eye of the storm. A place where He himself can rest because He trusts me. He trusts me to care for these women and these children and to take steps with them back towards the eye of the storm where there is peace and clarity to see hope and new life.
If there is one thing I am beginning to see more as truth daily it's that the natural and the spiritual very much go hand in hand. We are a door for Kingdom to be accessed here on earth and that means that even when we are just sitting down for coffee with a friend we are a door for them to access the kingdom of God. I was sitting downstairs the other day in the hostel and a woman here looked at me after I smiled at her and said 'When you smile I can't help but smile too.' Naturally it was just a smile, but spiritually she was seeing a hope in me that she couldn't help but feel when I was around. That hope of Christ in me is what so many Cambodians need restored in them. Hope to smile, to dream, to laugh, and to be free again.
1 Corinthians 2 says that "we have the mind of Christ" and if I have the mind of Christ I can access His thoughts, ideas, plans, desires, and compassions by the Sprit of God that resides in me. Naturally I don't have everything I need to lead these teachers to freedom but spiritually I have access to all of my Heavenly Father that does. It is so beautiful to see that my natural gifts partner so well with what the Spirit wants to do through me.
I'm learning, I'm growing, I'm releasing, and finding that my natural partnership with Holy Spirit is exactly what is needed to stand in the storm.
