Infertility

In my previous blog I mentioned embracing the plan God has for my life. Part of that plan for me is infertility. I’ve had several health issues over the past couple of years and this has been one of the many. We had a consultation with my fertility specialists and he has given us several recommendations. Please join with us in prayer as we seek God’s guidance on His plan for our lives.

"And my God will meet all your needs..."

The night we arrived back in the country we found out that we were in need of possibly two cars. Our ’01 Mazda 626 that we planned on keeping for the next several years was gone (too much to share). That left us with one vehicle- a 1994 Toyota Paseo that I bought for $4500 when I turned sixteen (aka “Old Faithful”). Needless to say, we didn’t think the 14 yr old Toyota was going to last very long. We had been saving for a while, but the possibility of replacing two cars seemed overwhelming! This was a test of our faith and a great opportunity for us to trust the Lord. To make a long story short, the Lord was so sweet. We took the Toyota in to get it fixed and the shop owner told us that only minor repairs were needed, and not the major mechanical work we thought. So we went shopping around for a second car. We found a really great deal on a vehicle in the newspaper (it was $5-6000 cheaper than the Kelly blue book price for it). We got counsel from several different people and prayed for confirmation. After we were already coming to see the car for the second time, the seller called to tell me he had found all the maintenance records and had dropped the price $1000 from the day before. Confirmation Enough- We are the new owners of a 2005 Honda Pilot!

We're home!

We arrived back in the U.S. on July 12^th after being in Mexico for 2 full months. The last few weeks I’ve been processing all I experienced and all that the Lord taught me while I was there. This is really long but here are some of my thoughts:

My prayer going into our International Training Project 2008 was that God would use me and produce a radical change inside of me. He answered my prayers in amazing ways, however differently than I was expecting.

God really blessed our ministry this summer. God gave me deep, meaningful relationships with several of the Iteso students through my time spent on campus. These relationships gave way to great conversations about my life and theirs, and what each of us believed. Most of these students got connected to the church there and I believe the Lord will continue to bless the seed He planted in their hearts. I’m so thankful that He allowed me to be apart of this process along with the rest of the team.

Personally, the Lord used our experiences and two books to really put His healing hand on several issues in my life this summer. The books were the Search for Significance and Captivating. Security, shame, and journey were some key phrases that surfaced throughout the summer. The Lord began by stripping me continuously of my earthly securities and forcing me to find security in him. Two years ago He began revealing ways I find security in myself, my abilities, and my plans for self-redemption, and continued to expose them on even deeper levels this summer. He not only exposed them, but also allowed them to absolutely fail, so that I was forced to trust in Him alone.

The Lord graciously took my heart to a place this summer to really embrace the plan He has for my life. In many ways, the past five years have been very difficult for us and we’ve endured trials of various kinds. Throughout this process, I have been fighting to survive, often in my own strength, and thereby not fully embracing all the Lord wanted to do inside of me through these hardships. I numbed myself to much of the pain, and found myself longing for relief instead of for the Lord. The Lord broke me and forced me to feel the pain hidden in my heart so that He could heal the wound. God has shown me that relief may never come, but I always have Him and He’s the answer. I can open myself up to feel the reality of the pain and disappointment in life, because Christ opened himself up to feel immense pain for me. . I can feel all my doubts, all my confusion, loneliness, and pain, because He already felt all of it. It is by his stripes that I am healed. I’m thankful for the journey, for by it I know more of His redeeming love.