Thankfulness and trust

As I look back on the last few weeks and months of my life, I am blown away by the journey God has taken me on. And I can say without a doubt He has been entirely faithful.

In August I got the opportunity to work in a hospital in Rwanda for a couple of weeks with my best friend. It was one of the most incredible experiences of my life. Rwanda is a beautiful country, filled with beautiful people, and I have some pretty amazing memories. Being able to serve people is a blessing, but when these people, who have absolutely nothing, only want to serve you....humbled is the right word.

Seeing the world gets a massive YES from me, but I won't lie, I got a little freaked out about travelling through not one, but three huge airports without my parents! (Yes, I'm pretty sheltered). That would have been enough to cope with, but a week before we flew I got some bad news. The kind of news you do not see coming, and hits you like a tonne of bricks.

As I boarded that flight out of Manchester Airport nobody would have blamed me for being terrified. But I wasn't. I've never felt peace like it. In fact, I had been like that the whole week before. I was confused myself, wondering why I wasn't crying myself to sleep or eating my weight in ice cream, but all I knew was that God knew what he was doing. Turns out that's all I needed to know.

Aside from all the things I got to see and and do in Rwanda, one of my favourite memories happened every morning, when I got up at 6 am to spend time with my Father. I would grab a jumper (the mornings were surprisingly cool) and cosy up in the little lounge, trying to avoid the geckos that were our uninvited roomies. And each morning God ministered to my heart, teaching me and loving me, and giving me peace over a situation I had no control over.

As I read back over the journal I wrote when I was out there, I read again and again about thankfulness and trust. He taught me to trust Him moment by moment, asking Him to show me the next step instead of rushing into it by myself, and He taught me to thank Him over and over, for even though the 'big' things didn't seem to be working out, He had still given me hundreds of things to be thankful for each day, whether that was listening to the beautiful church choir or the courage to jump into Lake Kivu from a big old cliff!

It's kind of funny that God had to take me all the way to Africa to teach me these basic lessons, but since I've come home I've realised how easy it is to slip back into old habits. Home in England, I have everything I need and more, and it's easy to want 'more, more, more' rather than see all the good things He has already given. It's been SO good to look back and remember what I learnt out there.

He IS all that I will ever need. What freedom to live in that knowledge, to live in surrender to the King of Kings, knowing He is Sovereign. What freedom to delight in each day, knowing He has filled it with blessings and trusting that He is the rock we can stand on whenever those punch-you-in-the-gut troubles come along. What a Saviour!

P.s, Today I'm thankful for this precious girl, Janet. Look at that smile!

Unfading beauty

I had the pleasure of coaching some little kids this week at a netball school, as well as sharing the love of Jesus with them. It was fun, and so exciting to see little hearts soak up the Good News. But, I couldn't enjoy it quite as much as I hoped. All week I knew my heart wasn't right. I could figure out that my gaze had slipped from him, but I didn't really know why.

I think a lot of it had to do with pride. My bible notes this week put it like this 'The simplest manifestation of pride is self - sufficiency. We feel that we can do it on our own, and we begin to measure everything and everyone by our own standards'. (ODJ July 29th, Poh Fang Chia)

I was so challenged by the above quote, particularly the part about is measuring others by our own standards. Recently I have found myself blaming someone for a situation they had nothing to do with, simply because I had no one else to blame. My attitude towards that person has been so wrong and has hindered me from making a friendship that could have been a real blessing. Sometimes things happen, and they suck, but I need to remind myself that God knows what he is doing, and I don't. Blaming someone is just another way of trying to control a situation that I don't have any rights to.

1 Peter 3v4 says it is a 'gentle and quiet spirit which is of great worth in God's sight'. In fact these traits are described as having 'unfading beauty', far above that of 'elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes'.

Lord, I pray that I might have a heart sold out for you, more concerned with glorifying your name than building my own. I pray that you would create in me a gentle and quiet spirit that would be of great worth in your sight. Amen. 

Planning for eternity...

So there I was, having a normal, just-before-bed conversation with my boyfriend, when he suddenly came out with something that changed, well, a lot.

"You have all these plans for us, but life's so short. You need to be more concerned with planning for eternity"

Wow! At first, I was a little shocked, but the more I thought about it, the more I knew he was right. 

At his 21st earlier this year, a load of his friends jumped on him. (I will never understand why play fighting is considered the perfect present? Boys are strange!) I turned to my friend and said how upset I was that Roy was getting 'beaten up'. She just smiled and said, "Yeah, but Rachel, will this matter next week? Will it even matter tomorrow?" 

The truth is I'm (very) protective of the people I love. Without thinking, I hold onto their every need, worry and pain, and then I wonder why I feel so tired! God's the only one who can truly meet anyone's needs, the only one able is heal our wounds, and carry our burdens. Maybe it was time for a change of perspective.

I'm good at planning, but I know most of my plans are for myself, me striving to gain some kind of control over something much bigger than me. What if I spent each day planning for eternity; choosing Jesus in everything, and using my little life to build His Kingdom? 

So here goes! 

Love Rachel x

P.s This song sums it all up pretty nicely!