Are You There, God? It's Me, Phyllis.

My week has been INSANE and you are getting another blog about it.

Let me clarify something from my heart because a private message this week on Facebook led me to believe maybe my life seems to be different because of who I am.  Nope.  What you see going on in my life is available to anyone in Christ.  I share these things God does in my life because 1. He tells me to do it.  Everything comes from Him and is for His glory.  No one can work miracles like this Guy.  2.  If I do not share what God is doing in my life, you won't know about His power and authority.  Just as I was growing in Christ and looked around for people to show me who this "God" was, so I allow God to use my life to show others WHO He is and what He is capable of through His kids.  I suck at life just as much as the next person, but my heart is devoted to Christ.  I strive to have nothing come before Him, so He can use me.  I screw up.  I complain.  I miss Florida.  I hate not having my FL friends here.  I grumble.  I cry.  I miss English church terribly.  I hate this place some days...but I love Jesus Christ (smiling as I typed that).  HE makes me awesome.  My joy comes straight from the Big Man Upstairs.  <3  There is way more to the Christian life than most have experienced.  God's promises are for ALL of those that have Christ.

For about 2 weeks now I haven't heard a word from God.  To some that may not sound like a big deal.  To me, it is frightening.  I have continued to read my Bible daily and talk to Him.  No words back.  The odd part is that I still get filled with the over-flowing love that makes you cry in praise, I feel His presence when I am talking, and He is answering prayers left and right...but no words.  No flowing wisdom coming from my Spirit.  WHAT IS GOING ON??  I have never had this before.   I mean I did when I wasn't a mature Christian, but it didn't matter because I didn't know what it was like. Usually silence means everything goes off, and I gotta fix some things in my life, move priorities around, etc.  This time it is different. And, so, well, it needs to end.  I didn't want to blog about it 'cause I have no idea what is going on!  But I suppose you need to read about this side of it, too.

So I crawled into bed 3 nights ago and said, "Uh, God, hey.  You mad at me?"  I know it may seem ridiculous but every time I prayed... it kept coming out and I would even tell myself shut up, no.  I know I have no bitterness, no unforgiveness, no nada, what is the deal?  I would keep telling God,  "Hey, convict me, show me what you need me to change, what is not pleasing to you?"  But, I knew there was nothing there.  I could/can stand before Him clean in heart...sooooo what is going on?  He continues to show up in miraculous ways like all this... However, no words for now.

So, after waiting about a month for a washer machine (I got the donation from Meredith who felt compelled by God to give up some income tax moola in church one day.  I felt a pause on purchasing).  Then, He finally gave me one.  I DO NOT like people showing up unannounced and I don't like last minute anything, so it is so uncharacteristic of me to do it to others, but we decided to ride out to the person's house last Friday that was selling one.  He was there and the deal was done.  I got it for dirt cheap and...IT WAS AMERICAN.  Ridiculous.  Unless you live here, you don't get how much a big deal it is that I got a USA washer for dirt cheap.  As Luke put it in the truck a person pulled up to purchase it.  We were divinely there at the right time.  I could not believe He would give me such a prayer.  So then the flight madness happened.  If you missed it, check this out.

So I've had a few days off because Nay had family in town.  Monday I laid at the pool.  I was thankful to be alone with God.  I hoped He would speak.  As I looked into the sky talking my head off pleading to GOD FOR A WORD or two, I see a heart shaped cloud.  Like a HUGE ONE.  I thanked Him for it.  Thanked Him for His love.  I talked to Him about the cloud for a few minutes.  I stared at it until it dissipated.  Mesmerized He would send it just for me.  So, what is the big deal?  I am scrolling for a verse for the FIGHT site and I see this tonight, which stops me dead in my tracks.

This is literally the same exact cloud I saw.  The center was opening just like this.  My heart literally stopped when I saw this.  I sat back in my chair and tears welled up.  I said, "okkkkay, now talk."  Nothing.

Yesterday I was texting a friend and told her how I can't hear God lately and she said:

I NEVER TOLD HER I had been crawling into bed the last few nights asking God if He was mad at me.  She freaked me out.  He freaks me out.

And more.  So, another thing on my prayer list was some clothes.  My girls save me clothes/shoes every year that they don't want.  I had not mentioned to anyone yet to save me stuff, but Jessica messaged me a few days ago and said, "hey, my hubby was nice and bought me some clothes at the thrift store....and HE bought you some."  Crazy part is he told the cashier my line of work and she said "oh, her clothes can be free."  What!?  Why!  NO ONE asked him to buy me clothes and honestly, I have only met her hubby a time or two, we are not close.  Doesn't make any sense.

After my last post, someone asked if she could help out.  Another answer to my prayer.  Someone I had no idea read my blogs. What. I thanked God for all this and nothing in response.  No bible verses come to mind, no words to show me understanding.

I woke up to a voice that sounded like Luke's at like 6:18AM today,  saying get up and read.  Why didn't God use His own voice?  Oh, that's right, He aint talking.  OK!  I got my butt out on the porch with my Bible and I stayed there until 11:30AM.  Determined to hear SOMETHING.  Guess what?  I got nothing.  BAHAH.  I can laugh now but I told Dana, I am thankful for the gifts, but I miss my BFF (Jesus).  :(  It is like someone giving you gifts showing love, but not talking to you.  Just sitting there looking at you.

Yes, God speaks in many ways.   Yes, all this is God speaking.  But I mean no disrespect to other Christians when I say until you come into a close relationship with Christ, you may not know my emptiness to not being able to hear Him speak words in my Spirit.  I have decided to accept I am in some season that I have never been in, but I will wait it out.  I know some thing is going on, I can feel it.  I know He is growing ME BIG TIME right now and I will continue to seek Him.  Read, read, and read.  Seek, seek, seek. Yell, yell, yell.  Joking not joking.

I have a little notebook that I keep to remind me of things He does to take of me and in case I ever die of things God does to prove He is real :) Tonight it said a little verse:  Romans 8:38-39   For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, ³⁹ neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

I totally know this is true.  I may feel abandoned at times, but that is not Truth. I thank God for not talking to me right now.  I do not understand it and I dislike it, but I know when it is over, I will have drawn so close to Him and grown spiritually.  That is pretty cool to think about.  Thank you, God, for understanding me and what I need to follow You.    

If you wouldn't mind, tonight, I ask if you would lift me up in prayer for acceptance of the silence and a steadfast heart to keep reading and seeking without becoming discouraged or heavy-hearted.  Also, maybe all 100 of you that read my blog could throw up some prayers for that future hubby and throw maybe the word "soon" in there, too.  Matthew says were 2 or more or 100?? gather to pray in His name, He is there.  I love using that verse :)  It was the very first Bible verse I memorized and repeated to someone else in need.  I remember thinking OH MY GOSH, I know a Bible verse!  I went home that night and wrote it down in such awe that I knew one. 

Psalm 4:1 Answer Me When I Call to You...

My BFF, Heather, stole the blog spot this week without asking.  Love it!

Answer me when I call to you, O my righteous God. Give me relief from my distress; be merciful to me and hear my prayer.

Psalm 4:1

That is exactly how I was feeling that night, distressed. Many might think that distressed is an over-exaggeration of the situation, but I don’t. It had been on my heart for a while that I wanted, scratch that, needed to see my friend. We have spent many nights texting or talking over the phone, but I missed her. I was distressed over not being able to see her. I had spent some time checking out my bank account to see if I could make a quick trip to the Dominican Republic over spring break. It just wasn’t in the budget though.

I try not to be selfish about seeing her. She is doing GOD’s work down there. Sometimes she needs to be there, using her resources and time for that. I would tell myself that she is working towards alleviating human trafficking. Human trafficking! These are the people that are suffering, not me. Although the desire to see her makes me feel like I am shouldering my own troubles.

I had a glimmer of hope, though, remembering that it was income tax time. Partly because I knew Phyllis wanted to come home and partly doing it for selfish reasons, I held out hope that she would be able to spend her return on a flight home. “I think taxes were dropped off today” she typed through text, we will hear soon. At this point, I was sure that it was going to work out for me. In a matter of a few days, she would be booking a flight home. Then the news came that she actually OWED money in taxes! Dear Federal Government, she lives off donations, she should not owe you taxes. She no longer uses a single service this tax money is used for. I was super bummed out… as I knew this left no money for a flight home.

I hopped onto Travelocity just to see what the flights were looking like. It would have been perfect to have her home Easter weekend because I had an extra day off that weekend (plus it was my birthday!). There it was, the perfect flight, the times were perfect, the price was great. I texted her and said everything is in alignment except for this stupid tax money.

That is it I said! We need to pray about this. I did not have any other plan. Now… I have come a long way with prayer. It wasn’t that long ago that I only prayed when I saw an ambulance with its emergency lights on. In the last year or so, I started to pray for God to change my feelings. To be more specific, as a teacher, sometimes the kids require more patience than I have. I would pray for just a moment, asking God to help me deal with them in a way that was patient and loving. He always granted my prayers, but this prayer was going to be different. This was going to be the first time in a LONG time that I prayed to God for something monetary. Something that required HIS resources to be directed towards a flight instead of Human Trafficking. Selfish sounding right? But I was desperate! So I did. I closed my eyes and prayed that He would find a way to bring her home. After I prayed I texted her that God is either going to bring her home or change my heart because I felt so peaceful after praying about it. We left it at that.

Around 1 in the morning that night, my cell phone started ringing. I woke up on the last ring and I saw it was Phyllis. I was so disoriented that by the time I thought I should answer it, it was done ringing. I got up to go pee while I was waiting for the message. Now if you know me, you know the severity of ending my slumber. You had better be dying or else you will be dead when I see you again. While I was in the bathroom I thought either she got a flight or she is dying. I came out to a text message and it said “Coming home next month”. I just stopped and read it a couple of times. Seriously GOD?! That is crazy!

A friend’s sister felt convicted to do something for Phyllis with her income tax money. This is what she decided to do last night. Speechless, this act left me speechless. I was even searching for the words to write back to Phyllis.

God answers prayers that even seem selfish. In fact, anytime we are desperate, our prayers probably seem egocentric. I learned last night to pray whatever is on your heart. God will use it for his glory. The scripture says “Answer me when I call you”. God answered me big time. He grew me that night when I awoke from my deep sleep. He showed me that He is my sole provider, he can do anything. He gave me relief from my distress and showed me mercy. While my heart that longed for my friend to come home felt selfish at the time, to God it could be used to His good. 

(I cant friggen wait to see this girl!!) Love from the Dominican!

Poverty

In August of 2011, I had just gotten home from another mission trip to Honduras and had heard about the book When Helping Hurts while I was there.  I remember Luke was sitting nearby and I looked over to mention it, and he said he had downloaded it, like, uh,  before we moved out of the circle.  When we got home to Florida, we started a small study group on the book with Dana and another person from our church that was interested.  Besides reading the book, we joined a mission that was already trying to help the community. We went to watch what they did and educate ourselves.  Every week we would meet at the soup kitchen and would sit around with recently released felons that were eating a hot meal for the night and trying to figure their own lives out.  We really had no idea what we were doing, but we showed up every week for months.  We knew God had sparked something in our hearts.  For the longest time, I thought God was pulling me to Eloise, a poor community in our county.  I would drive through Eloise often and pray every single time asking God for specifics.  I was willing to do whatever He wanted.  I just wasn’t sure what He wanted. 

3 years later in another country, we are working through When Helping Hurts. Again.  All 3 of us.  God knew 3 years ago where we would be today. Of course. 

As we are developing a new part of FIGHT Ministries, this week I felt wicked overwhelmed figuring out what God wants for us.  The thought of my work harming others because I followed my own plans (even if they were well-meaning) sounds scary.   Like anxiety scary.   I have been in prayer, and have been looking for info.   I loveeeee reading, learning, and searching for information. 

I had painters at my house today (from my landlord) and the men were in and out on my porches, so I had a lot of time today to just read the book and take copious notes while I (im)patiently waited for them to leave and think about this blog.

This week in my women’s missionary Bible study we touched on the topic of poverty alleviation and how to avoid creating more of a problem.  You see, in an effort to do good to communities that suffer from “material” poverty, we often hurt them.  What we think is a great idea, is often a horrible idea.  I think the main reason is because we simply do not know how to wait on the Lord’s leading.  We can have the biggest hearts and want to “make a difference,” but as humans, we can’t possibly possess that kind of knowledge unless we are tapped into the Holy Spirit.   We can read all the books in the world and seek as much counsel as we want, but our ultimate guide and final decider should be the Holy Spirit.  If you do not know His voice yet, my advice is to continue to seek and pray.  In the beginning you will have to go with your feelings of what feels best (those are of God), but as you grow in Christ, it changes from feelings to concrete directions from Him. 

The authors of When Helping Hurts, Corbett and Fikkert,  explain that, “the problem goes well beyond the material dimension, so the solutions must go behind the material.”  We need to take the approach that allows people to know that we want to walk beside them, help them figure out their abilities and gifts and use them to change the situation.  Not just come and hand things out as heroes trying to fix stuff.

What is the hardest part?  It is time-consuming.  Very time-consuming.  The good news is I have a lifetime to work here.  Time is all Christ’s.

This is the framework.  We have four main relationships: God, Self, Others, and Creation.

Every human being suffers from POVERTY.  We often just think of “material” poverty, but that is ONLY ONE way that our broken relationships manifest.  This one is easily seen by others, while other forms of poverty can be hidden more easily from the rest of the world. 

Workaholics won’t likely experience material poverty because their high level of productivity will keep food on the table.  However, their poverty will manifest in a different way.  Their poverty of stewardship shows not just a job to glorify God (as it should), but they have now made their work a GOD; finding meaning and purpose/worth through production.  They will have strained relationships, physical/emotional stress, and SPIRITUAL weakness because of their inadequate time devoted to Christ because of their demanding schedules.  People pleasers do the same, they are constantly saying “yes” to everyone and they are the people in your group that are worn-out, tired, and barely completing anything for lack of time to do something of quality.  God can ask us to do anything but it won't cut God-time out or make our identify in anyone but Him.  Poverty.

It is neither better nor worse where the poverty is in your life.  Just different.  You may be able to put food on your table but your broken relationships make you poor relationally with others.  God can provide a person's daily bread, literally.  Having a fridge full of food doesn't make you better off than a person whose needs are met by God daily.  The one that abides in Christ is the one who is rich.

As economically rich people, we suffer as a whole with poverty of self in the fact that we feel a sense of superiority in which we believe we can come in and “fix” things.  We think because we have money we can throw money at the problems and “help.” 

Wrong.

Satan deceives us, and we completely hurt ourselves thinking we can do such things in our pride of being above them (not identifying our own God problems..which thinking WE can do that), and we hurt the poor because we shame them and show them they are inferior. It doesn't solve anything.

It takes some serious self-searching and pruning to change our thinking of who we are, and what we are going to do when we go on a mission team to another country, etc.  We need to quit thinking that poverty is a “lack of materials” problem.  Not working or keeping a job, is not laziness.  If you want to make a change, you have to change your thinking to help people.  There is a deep seed here that needs to be worked on.  Just like your issues with materialism and wanting more and more to keep up with your neighbors is exactly the same. Poverty.  A broken relationship with God.

In order to fix my issues, I have to know what the real issue is…

In order to help alleviate material poverty, we need to know what the real issue is…

Luke hit it on the head in his last FIGHT blog. Check it out here.

Trafficking is still our mission, but we are learning that there are 9000 layers to prevention, rescue, and rehab.  As we went through this book’s chapter 2, we were intrigued to see that our foundation of FIGHT Ministries’ process and 4 step model (that we structured last year as a group of 5) is SO ON TARGET with these principles. 

All we can say is it is…Holy Spirit leading.  I can't have His best or do His best if I do not listen.

And sometimes, the Spirit might tell you to go against all this empirical evidence.  He can do whatever He wants, that is why it is important to read your Bible and pray.  He might say something you wouldn't expect.  Doesn't matter what I think is "right," we follow Christ.

So last week we heard someone in the ministry say, "This is my dream come true.  I have dreamt of it so many times at night.  I have prayed to God...and now I will have it."

Nothing touches my heart as to when I hear someone say I am part of their answered prayer.  By far the coolest thing to know that God uses you because you listen. Humbled. I can't help but be thankful I get to be a part of it.