The Lord tells us to hope in the things unseen.
He tells us to trust when we are in such deep, deep pain.
He tells us to surrender our lives to Him.
Friends, with an happy heart, I can tell you that the Lord means these words! We walk through so many hardships, but these hardships are not meant to hurt us. We, as humans who do not understand, tend to have worry and/or pain and tend to fear these hardships. However, the Lord is NOT a God of anger or of harm. He’s a God of love and ultimately, He’s a good, GOOD Father!
Looking back on this past year, it was hard! I faced so many challenges that even while I had people around me, they could never solve my problems. When I say this, I’m meaning my deep, deep wounds. 1. People are never our solution. God is. He’s the healer of our heart!
I’ve also seen how God uses the rough to make it beautiful. As a woman, I often have times where I don’t feel beautiful or lovely. There were many points last year, where I was so discouraged because I felt this way. However, God takes the “ugly” to make it beautiful. How? 2. If we give our hearts to the Lord to mold them into how He desires them to be, it does not matter what we look like, because He loves us. He created us to know our identity as His handsome sons and beautiful daughters, because we are made in His image.
Lastly, this is an encouragement for all of those who are searching for God’s plan. When I joined the Adventures family, I didn’t know what God had for me in Romania. I didn’t know why He was burdening me for the youth, except that they needed to know Jesus. He burdened it so hard, that I would wake up face flat on the ground from sobbing for the youth of Southern Romania. When I first moved to Draganesti-Olt, I still needed to get all of my Romanian practice in, as well as learn the culture and even adapt! Had I jumped straight into ministry, I probably would have been too overwhelmed to do anything! WAIT FOR CONFIRMATION! What does this mean? For example, when I was working at Starbucks before I moved to Romania, these Albanians kept walking into the store and telling me words in Albanian. I then proceeded to ask if they knew any Romanian and from there on out, we would have many conversations about Romania and why God was calling me to go back. I can’t tell you quite exact what the Lord has planned for my future, but I know it’s definitely not what my tiny little brain thought it was! He has bigger plans for all of us and be prepared to be blown away!
Amen!
Beautiful our Lord Jesus is. I pray strength in Him for you Rachel to continue helping others to know salvation.
Beautiful our Lord Jesus is. I pray strength in Him for you Rachel to continue helping others to know salvation.
I think I’m learning something similar! The plans I had for my life were so plain and simple but God has showed me that His plans for my life are so much better than my own! I love that He cares enough about us to “interrupt” our plans and lives to show us HIS plans…
Love you girlie and please email me whenever you’re on so we can skype again!!
🙂
I love your blogs Rachel! Thank you for sharing your heart for Jesus! Your message reminds me . . “There is none holy like the Lord; for there is none besides You, there is no rock like our God.” I Samuel 2:2. May He continue to show us and bless you mightily as you serve and obey!