4 Years At A Glance - #3

 

In these early morning hours before my work day begins, I go back through all the days, weeks, months, and years that I have spent in the Coast Guard, and I relive all the moments that God has blessed me with. Every new week, my co-workers smile and shake their heads at me when I announce my new count down to my out date...right now I am down to 57! But what I don't tell them is this, where as I am so excited to be getting out of the Coast Guard and counting down helps me to make it through each new week, I am also doing it to remind myself that this is all I have left...I only have 57 more days to make an impact here! And really only half of those days will be at work. So really I only have 29 more days to shine Christ here in front of every one of these people who surround me day in and day out.

And I am left wondering...have I? Have I really even made a difference? Have I pointed to Christ; and maybe in the process, has anyone seen Jesus in me?

Reviewing Words of Life!

 

How do I live this today, right now in this hour...in this moment? As so many people all around me seek the things of this world, how do I instead live as a citizen of heaven? It is hard to put into words what this may look like, but I do know what I will do today...I will say "Yes" to the Lord. Whatever He may have for me today, whatever people He sends my way to love and show kindness to, and whatever He may bring I will rejoice in Him and in His love for me. I am His very special child! And that is why I must love those around me and show them by my actions that they too are made in God's image and desperately need Him to save them.

 In the midst of this broken world and the discouragement of my own sin, I will rejoice! Not in me...but in the Lord! I suppose I could ask why should I rejoice in the Lord, but I think the bigger quest is...WHY NOT?! The Lord has saved me, taken my sins away from me, given me new life and abundant life, He has washed me in the blood of the Lamb, and I am a child of God! I have every reason to rejoice today and so I will no matter what my circumstance may be.

Christ has showed me such love, such kindness, and in His suffering and brokenness He brought me near to the Father's heart. And so this same attitude that Christ demonstrated must be my own as well. At work I want people to see Jesus in me...and I want to show them the Father's heart of love and compassion...His righteousness and holiness, which requires Him to punish sin, and His grace and mercy in sending Jesus to take our place if we believe.

 As I continue to wait for Fidele's visa to come in, I set my heart on prayer and thanksgiving. O those awful worries and anxieties flood my soul, but the Father whispers His love in my heart and says be still. And I find that if a heart cannot be both worried and thankful...I cannot live in a state of anxiety and thanksgiving at the same time. So I put on thanksgiving and fill up the moments with thanks to the Lord. This is not an option for me either, but is a command from the Lord. So I work at this and look to Him for strength to continually fill up my heart with thanksgiving and prayer instead of the constant worries that bombard me.

And so as each day comes and I live out my life more and more and little by little my thoughts are being transformed by Scripture. And I seek to think on these things above so that my heart may rest in the peace of God and be protected by it.

 

Always remembering that I can do everything through Jesus! I do not try and live this life alone anymore. I am a child of God, and He is with me. He wants me to fix all that I am on Him and trust Him. He wants me to live for Him and rejoice in Him and live life in Him. And all of this He wants me to do in His strength!

Blessings from Above

 

 Soft, lovely beauty of new life blooming

  

 Clothed in sweetness, not one the same

 

Warm cookies cooling, a surprise to take to work

 

 

A hot cup of loveliness!

 

  

Clean dishes air drying

 

  

Words of life transforming me

 

 YAY! Skype time with my Love!!

4 Years At A Glance ~ #2

The day before I embarked upon my four-year mission trip around the United States, I wrote down some thoughts that I would like to share now as I look back. It is crazy how slow time moves while pressing through situations and how fast is has passed once you are on the other side! I was gearing up at this point for eight weeks of boot camp. Excitement pulsed through me as I wondered how hard it would really be...would I be up for the challenge? Would I make it through? Would these be the longest eight weeks of my life? And then what about after those eight weeks? What then? But this is the perspective God gave me in the midst of my fears and excitement.

ONLY EIGHT WEEKS...to make an impact for the Lord on my fellow Coast Guard recruits and Company Commanders, to shine the light of the Gospel in a dark place, to have the attitude of Christ Jesus as I give my best in all I do, and to be a witness of the transforming beauty and power of the cross.

4 Years At A Glance~ #1

With orders in hand, I realize that I am fastly approaching the day that I will be getting out of the Coast Guard. In these next several days and weeks, I want to write a blog series highlighting the amazing things God has done right before my eyes these past four years. When I joined the Coast Guard, I looked at it as a four-year, all expences paid mission trip around the United States...and though time and discouragement can cloud that vision, as I look back I realize that these past four years have been exactly that. God has called us to be "World Changers" to step up and "Do Hard Things" but we must not forget that it is when we touch one life with Christ's love that we are actually impacting the world...it is by one act, one word, and one attitude of saying "Yes" to God that will do the most for spreading God's fame. Why is this so? I think it is because God is doing this work and not us...God is changing the world and not us. So we need to focus on the little part of the world God has given us and demonstrate by our actions that God truly does care for each person.