"Hi Two-
It is 7:30 am and I am up doing my quiet time with the Lord and thankfully you two are still sleeping (you usually sleep until 8 am...) Anyway, I've been studying Isaiah 30 and I have been so fascinated and convicted by it. It is just confirming and reminding me strongly of what I already know: that I always want to follow God and carry out His will in my life even if it is not easy or wouldn't be my first chocie if I were choosing based on my selfish motives. I never want there to be any unwillingness in my heart towards the things that God is calling our family to. There truly is no other place to be then where God wants you to be.
I don't know how much I have wrote about in these letters to you but living in Nepal is really not always easy for me. Not because of the material things or comforts that we live without here (although that is sometimes difficult) but mainly because of the emotional side of things like wanting to live near our family, raise you around your grandparents (who love you so much and want to be with you so badly) and raise you in a more "normal" way with a more "normal" (or what I have always pictured as normal) "traditional" life. I struggle against the calling we have to be here sometimes. I am not sure that God will keep us in Nepal forever but I am confident that this is where He has called us right now. I don't want to trade following HIm, being in His will, living for and serving the God who died for me for what I want, for what I desire and for what my flesh wants. Don't get me wrong....I am definitely not miserable here at all. God has blessed us with a wonderful life here but I struggle with this, with knowing God's will for how long we will be here and with being so emotional about the whole situation (your Daddy is thankfully less emotional about the whole situation and also simply desires to do what God has called him (us) to). God has provided abundantly for us here: we have a comforatable, nice apartment, good friends, good food, we get to see and do some amazing things as a family but not only that, we get to be a part of seeing God visibly work among people who have never heard of Him, we have the priviledge of working and being used by God to fulfill Revelation 7:9 and that is an ABSOLUTE honor and joy. So, I really don't want you to hear me say that I am miserable and don't want to be here at all because that is just not true. I just also think about life in America a lot and get pulled back into thinking that life there would be easier and more fun. It is my flesh and satan trying to keep my heart divided and not focused on where God has me/us now.
My prayer for you, Keane and Gracie, is that you'll always seek the Lord and His plans. That you won't run from what He's called you to, even when it is hard (and I will support you in that with the Lord's help even when it is hard for me) living a life surrendered to Jesus is the best, best way to live! It means that God is directing you , leading you, that the God who created you for a purpose is being able to carry out that purpose in your life for His glory! If you are doing this then you are doing what you were created for! The opposite is a dangerous, lonley and scary path. Living a life in rebellion to God, to the one who LOVES you and sacrificed Himself as an ultimate sacrifice for your sin may seem easier at first but believe me, there is NO joy in that. The temporal things that you would be running after do not compare to the Glory of the Lord and Him working in your life. Here are some of the verses from Isaiah 30 that really spoke to me about this:
"Ahh stubbon children," declares the Lord, "who carry out a plan, but not mine, and who make an alliance, but not of my spirit, that they may add sin to sin, who set out to go down to Egypt without asking for my direction, to take refuge in the protection of Pharoah and to seek shelter in the shadow of Egypt. Therefore, the protection of Pharoah shall turn to your shame, and the shelter in the shadow of Egypt to your humiliation...through a land of trouble and anguish, from where come the lioness and the lion...they carry riches on the backs of donkeys and their treasures on the humps of camels to a people that can not profit them. Egypt's help is worthless and empty...For they are a rebellious people, lying children, children UNWILLING to hear the instruction of the Lord, who say to the seers, "do not see" and to the prophets, "do not prophesy to us what is right, speak to us the smooth things, prophesy illusions, leave the way, turn aside from the path, let us hear no more about the Holy One of Israel." Because you despise this word and trust in oppression and perverseness and rely on them, therefore this iniquity shall be to you like a breach in a high wall, bulging out, and about to collapse, whose breaking comes suddenly and in an instant; and its breaking is like that of a potter's vessel that is smashed so ruthlessly that among its fragments not a shard is found with which to take fire from the hearth or to dip water out of the cistern." For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, "in returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength. But you are UNWILLING...therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you and therefore He exalts Himself to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a god of justice; blessed are all those who wait for Him." For a people shall dwell in Zion, in Jerusalem, you shall weep no more. He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry. As soon as He hears it, He answers you. And though the Lord gave you the bread of adversity and the water of afflicition, yet your Teacher will not hide himself from you anymore, but your eyes shall see your teacher. And your ears shall hear a word behind you saying, "This is the way, walk in it, when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left." Then you will defile your carved idols overlaid with silver and your gold plated metal images. You will scatter them as unclean things. You will say to them, "Be gone". And He will give you rain for the seed with which you sow the ground, and bread, the produce of the ground, which will be rich and plenteous. In that day your lifestock will graze in large pastures, and the oxen and the donkeys that work the ground will eat seasoned fodder, which has been winnowed with a shovel and a fork on every lofty mountain and every high hill there will be brooks running with water..." Isaiah 30:1-3, 6-7, 9-15, 18-25.
God has BIGGER, better, more wonderful plans for us then we could even imagine. We only see what is happening right now but He sees the big picture and knows what is ahead. I want to take refuge and protection from God alone and not in the temporal things that I think I know and that I think would satisfy me. God alone will be my refuge. God alone can truly satisfy me. Let me (let us) not put all of our hopes, dreams and lives into something that does not benefit us, does not profit us and leads to destruction. Only God knows where we should go and what we should do. I want to follow Him. I don't want to be unwilling. I don't want there to be any unwillingness in my heart. I don't want people to tell me what I want to hear, I want God to speak to me and direct me and I want to follow Him even through the difficult roads. I don't want to focus on my life and what I want and know so much that I am completely unable to be used by the Lord.
But God is SO good and so gracious that He is always there providing refuge (even if we have gotten off the path of following HIm or even if we are living in rebellion). He is there with open arms waiting to receive us, forgive us, bless us and use us. He is waiting to give us the good gifts He had in store for us from the beginning. He is patient. He is faithful. He is generous. He loves to give gifts to His children: good, amazing gifts! God knows us. He knows you, Keane and Gracie. He created us and knows what is best for us and we need to trust Him and follow Him even when it is not easy. It is the best, best way to live our lives.
It is my prayer that God would give me the strength to live like this everyday so I can hear Him clearly (what an amazing promise!) and live for Him and carry out His plans for my life here in Nepal, in America or wherever He leads me/us. I pray the same for you two, my sweet Keane and Gracie. May you have the strength to follow God wherever He may lead you and your family. You will always have my support, blessing and love because it is not about me (or you) and it is all about Jesus. I love you and will do my best (with God's strength) to live my life as an example for you. I love you and pray for you all the time!
Love,
Mommie
