So. Here's what's going on. I have officially purchased airfare for Peru this summer! There is a wonderful family at my church who is lending me a hiking backpack to take with me this summer. The Recuay team is now up to SIX girls! There's this phenomenal guy in my life who is pursuing the Lord wholeheartedly, and he just happens to like me a little and wants to serve the Lord with me and is leading and challenging me more spiritually than I've ever been led or challenged AND he's in Peru this week (perfect). I've gotten to pray for several of my friends this week who are serving all over the world - Dubai, Zambia, Morocco, Mexico, Kansas, Panama City, Mission Arlington, Honduras, PERU - and seeing more and more how the Church really is one body with one purpose. And it's spring break. Life. Is. Beautiful.
Breaks from school are ALWAYS welcome, and this one is no exception. While I haven't gotten as much homework done as I should have, it's been great to rest with friends and enjoy some time off. [I'll just need to remind myself of that when school gets back in full force next week.] And one of my favorite things about having time off is the time to THINK about and READ things other than the best methods of teaching math and social studies to fourth graders. This break, I read Discipline: The Glad Surrender by Elisabeth Elliot. What a challenging reminder. The Lord has been teaching me so much about the power of our MINDS ever since Passion this January, and Elisabeth Elliot writes that true discipline is rooted in our minds - what we THINK about is what we will DO. She says that to discipline our minds is to discipline our entire selves. And how else do we discipline our minds than to allow the Holy Spirit of God to do that for us?
"Don't be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect." Romans 12:2. That's where those sweet RE-MIND-ers from God come into play in my life - those moments when God uses a situation to refocus my mind on Him and His calling on my life. Recently, there have been so many other things on my mind - school, Flat Stanley, the future, unicorns, really anything to distract me - and many of those things are good, but I have neglected resting in and getting to know my King. Paul writes in Philippians that his ultimate goal is KNOWING CHRIST - not being busy doing His work or making sure the Gospel gets to the ends of the earth, even though those things are what Christ has called us to do - first and foremost, we were made to be in a beautiful relationship with the Creator of the universe as His bride - His very body. THAT is the will of God for our lives... to know Him. intimately. personally. And out of that relationship, to let love be a sunshine that fills the heart so full of radiance that it overflows upon the outward world.
So that's my goal. That's my purpose. To know Christ. And to let His love overflow through me. Right here and now. With the kids in the fifth grade math class I'm teaching in April. With my third graders on Wednesday nights and my girls on Sunday mornings. With my friends in classes and on my hall. And soon and very soon - with the people who have already stolen my heart in a little town in the mountains of Peru.
Pray with me? For Karen, Olivia, Jordan, Mary, and Lynnlee, my teammates in Recuay. For Humberta, our fabulous hostess/translator. For the people of Recuay and surrounding villages. That we ALL may seek to know the Lord, and may we fall more in love with Him the more we know Him.
