Fearfully & Wonderfully Made

“I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. Philippians 1:3-6
This week has brought me challenges and affirmations. Challenges of being truthful about myself and the affirmation that God’s love is unconditional, He is my Healer, and thinks I am ‘fearfully and wonderfully made’. This week’s speaker is Joanne Blaik, who is speaking on the topic of Identity. She brought in two duplicate pictures of what she claimed to be the most beautiful masterpiece of all time. Joanne explained how much impact these pictures had on her life and thus she wanted us to experience it too, by ourselves. She got the leaders to blind fold each student and then bring us one at a time behind a curtain where they left the individual. I was left alone and when I removed my blind fold, I was staring into a mirror that had written on it, “fearfully and wonderfully made”. I was really taken a back. I did not expect that at all. I was the masterpiece? The most capturing artwork that she bragged about? Bringing into light once again, that God is the author and artist of creativity and diversity. It really opened my eyes to the idea that what the world says beauty is doesn’t mean that is it. We learned about how the Ideal Man/Woman of this World is so un-ideal. It’s every changing and you will never be able to attain to being that ideal. My heart is being challenged, and this school is demanding a lot of emotions – spiritual, mental, and then even physical. Waking up in the mornings can be a tough go (smiles).

This past week, following up just too yesterday, every DTS student has been anxious to find out where they are going on their outreach. It was on a lot of my fellow classmates’ hearts. It was cool. I found out through a game yesterday. It was like tag, and whoever the leader tagged had to hold onto their backs and so on. Then when the game was over, they made us sit with the people who were attached to the tagger and they said, welcome to your outreach team. So where am I going? I am going to Thailand. I am more than excited. My heart seems to be leaping in and out of me. I don’t know exactly where we are going in Thailand; the details are still being worked out. I just want to say that I am so thankful for your prayer support and encouragement. It means a lot to me. I don’t want to leave it at that. I wanted to share with you why I choose Thailand as my first choice. We were in worship on a Wednesday morning and I felt the Spirit moving in this place. The Lord really put me back in my place, and I broke down in tears because once again for the hundredth time I realized how corrupt and sinful I am, and how undeserving I am of his Love and Grace. I wasn’t panicking about where to go on my outreach but I did want to seek God’s guidance. While I was on the ground, I opened my Bible, and brought myself to Proverbs 31 - Epilogue of the wife/woman with noble character. I just knew that God wanted me to open my arms to these women in Thailand, and work with eager hands side by side with them. God wants me to show them that He wants to clothe them with strength and dignity. They were worthy of respect from men, women, us and God. After understanding that this was the Lord and His Word that had confirmed this to me, I shed a few more tears to the excitement of just feeling a calmness that this was what God wanted of me. I started to touch my Huguenot necklace and became wanted to suddenly read Matthew 5:8, which I knew was beatitude but didn’t know which one. It reads, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.” This was an amazing experience for me, and it’s hard to put all of this in words, but learning to hear the voice of God has been overwhelming in such an amazing way.
I think this is a fully loaded blog and I will keep you all posted on my further adventures, as I want you to come and join me on this journey. Keep in touch.

Yes and I will continue to rejoice, for I know that through your prayers and the help given by the Spirit of Jesus Christ, what has happened to me (or what will happen) will turn out for my deliverance. I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. Philippians 2:18b-21