I am FAITHFUL

With Martine and Leon at an orphanage for kids
with disabilities.

I just returned from an amazing week in Haiti, working with other therapists and teachers to develop Christian schools for children with disabilities.  As much as I'd love to start telling you all the stories of the children and families I met and loved on last week, there's a much more important story to tell.

It's the story of how faithful God has been to me throughout this adventure.  He deserves so much glory!

As I prepared for this trip (my second to Haiti in less than six months), I realized how little this is about me...this trip is about God, about His people, about His love and His character.  My prayers the week before the trip were not (much) for myself, but more that God would reveal His character to me during the week...that I would know Him more because of the upcoming week in Haiti.

Fast forward to Saturday...I'm sitting in the Fort Lauderdale airport, waiting for my teammates to arrive and rereading one of my favorite books, The Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer.  The second chapter, one of my favorites, is about Abraham and Isaac, about how God taught Abraham to lay down his idols (his son) and live "the surrendered life."  My old note in the margin said, "what is the picture of my surrendered life?"  I had never determined a good answer.  But definitely food for thought for the week, I decided.

The next morning, my friend Greg preached at Delmas Christian Church (I always like this, so at least I can understand part of the two-and-a-half hour service otherwise in Creole).  And he preached....on Abraham in Hebrews 11.  Something new I'm trying, that really speaks to me, is instead of trying learn to BE the characters of Bible stories, to learn about God and how He reveals Himself to characters.  I find this helps me worship and glorify God, rather than stay internally focused on being a good girl and keeping my nose clean.

I realized how incredibly faithful God had been to Abraham, and to me.  Abraham sure didn't know where he was going, but he went...I realized none of us really know where we are going in life, but we can go on that journey side by side with God.  I remember so well the morning two years ago He told me I would serve as a physical therapist in Haiti.  It seemed so crazy, impossible, and took almost a year and half to happen...but I knew I that I had heard God's still, small voice.  I knew somehow He would make it happen...and He did.  Returning to Haiti, I was filled with joy, not sorrow at the conditions and extreme poverty in Haiti, because of God's faithfulness to me and His people in Haiti.



With Michelina, learning to walk.

How easily we forget God's faithfulness...I know myself I am all too quick to forget His promises to me, to try to make them happen on my own timing and my own strength, to doubt that still, small voice because the promises seem too impossible, too incredibly wonderful, too far off in my own time schedule.  I'm realizing "the picture of my surrendered life" is a life reliant on God and His strength, not my own.  For too long in our American culture I have made myself my idol, trying to do things on my strength, my own willpower, in my own way.

But He is FAITHFUL.  He does not change.  He wants us to rely on Him and Him alone.

Isaiah 40:31 says that "they who wait on the LORD shall renew their strength, they shall mount with wings like eagles."  I recently learned that servants, in the time the book of Isaiah was written, did not communicate verbally with their master.  Instead, they had to always keep their eyes on him, to await hand signals for their next move.  Waiting is not weakness, the end position, the dying of our dreams and promises.  Besides, eagles require the least amount of energy to fly, because of the way their wingspan is designed.  Instead of striving and working to fly, they wait and use the external strength of the wind...they work best the way God designed them to be.

I need to stop working, stop striving, stop trying to make my dreams happen on my own strength and willpower.  I want to wait on and soar with God.

Because He is FAITHFUL. 

We can rely on Him.