Week seven: In weakness

Week seven: In weakness… 

Another week of Intake done, and this week I was reminded that I can’t do this. I can’t do any of it. I came to the Lord in prayer and told Him, “I’m not capable, I’m not ready, I’m weak, I’m not strong enough to do this.”  When I think of all that missions entails and think about doing this I know without a doubt I can’t do this…

This week we had a ‘Life in the Spirit’ Seminar. Within that we had different talks, a talk on God’s love, Sin and Salvation, New Life, Receiving the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and Growth. All of the talks were amazing, and if you ever have a chance to go to a Life in the Spirit Seminar I highly recommend you do. It’s a wonderful way to grow deeper in your relationship with the Lord and receive more of His Holy Spirit.

During the ‘New Life’ talk the speaker gave us different bible verses we could reflect on, the one that I felt called to reflect on was Isaiah 65:1, “I was ready to be sought by those who did not ask for me; I was ready to be found by those who did not seek me. I said, “Here am I, here am I” to a nation that did not call on my name.” The second I opened the Bible to this verse I knew that it was one that the Lord wanted me to see and reflect on. This verse reminded me of my call to missions as it reminded me of the Bible verse that came up while I was discerning missions which was Isaiah 6:8 “Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I. Send me!” 

After reflecting on Isaiah 65:1 I was reminded that I was struggling with being ‘ready to go’ as Isaiah was. He said “I’m ready” to be sought by those who did not ask for him, to be found by those who did not seek him and he said, “Here am I” to a nation that did not even ask for him!  And I realized I was struggling with being ready for that and so I prayed, “Lord may I be ready to go out! To be sought, to be found by those who did not ask and did not seek me. For I told you Lord, “Here I am, I come to do Your will— Here I am Lord send me!” And I’ve said it to a nation that did not call for me.” And a few days after that I realized why I was feeling like I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t feeling ready because in different ways I’d slowly been focusing on worries and struggles, thinking about how I’d have to deal with them, and focusing too much on my own strength instead of focusing on Christ and drawing strength from Him. He brought up that bible verse because I needed to be reminded that in order for me ‘to be ready’ for missions— I first and foremost need to focus on my identity and relationship with Him. If I take my gaze off of Him and try to do stuff on my own I will fail, He truly needs to be my strength now and always.

And honestly it’s such a relief and is very very true— on my own I can’t do this and the great and amazing thing in all of this is that the Lord knows that I’m weak!! He knows. He knows I can’t do this without Him and He wants me to surrender every day into His hands— every moment. And surrendering is hard, but so freeing when we remember that our strength doesn’t come from ourselves. As it says in 2nd Corinthians 12:9, “My grace is sufficient for you. My power is made perfect in weakness.” God works through our weakness and His power is made perfect! Even as I write out this blog I can’t help but laugh, I’m staring at this screen telling myself, “Ugh, am I even going to be able to write out the post for this week?” And I paused within my struggle and called out to the Lord, “Come Holy Spirit—help me with this post!” And I laugh because now that I share that I feel like the Lord wanted me to be real and share that small struggle I had with this, as a reminder that we all struggle with things we're going through. We are all weak, no matter what we’re called to, we all need Christ’s love, forgiveness and guidance in all things.

We all need to come to Him and surrender our weakness to Him and not be frustrated, but humbly know that the Lord will work through our weakness. If I was strong and thought I could do this (being a foreign missionary) on my own— would I come to the Lord? I would hope so but probably not. And if I didn’t come to the Lord for His help with foreign missions I wouldn’t be doing what He wants me to. I’d simply be doing whatever I thought would be good and without His strength within that I would fail miserably. I would get worn out and give up and wonder why MY plans and MY ideas weren’t leading others closer to God.  Another prayer I prayed this week was, “Lord, please break down anything inside of me that is trying to do it on my own and help me! You are my strength, You are my life. You are the One who will work in all of this. Send forth Your Holy Spirit and guide me and lead me now and always.”

My prayer now and always will be that I keep my eyes fixed on Christ and my identity in Him, that I will continue to surrender all that I am into His hands and lean on His strength and remember that His power is made perfect in my weakness. This coming Friday we’ll be leaving to General Cepeda, Mexico and there I will find out where I’m going in January. I’m extremely excited to know where I will be sent and know who my team members will be, if you could all pray that I will have peace when I find out where I’m going and trust the Lord in all of this. While I'm in Mexico I should have internet and I will try my best to keep doing blog updates while I'm there!


Photos from this week: 

 On Friday night we had an All Saints Day party with food and games, it was a lot of good fun and fellowship! I dressed up as St. Maria Goretti.

Emily as St. Kateri Tekakwitha and me as St. Maria Goretti 

Sophie, as St. Joan of Arc) and me. 

Sunday girl photos! :) 

Funny photo! 

Polaroid photo! Morgan, Kim and I. 

Today (Sunday) I went to the Giant Omelette festival in Abbeville, Louisiana. Here's a photo of them making the omelette. It had more than 5000 eggs in it! 

I got to try some of the omelette! 

May God bless you now and always!