The Valleys and Mountaintops

There is a quote by Francis Chan that says:

It is true that God may have called you to be exactly where you are. But, it is absolutely vital to grasp that he didn’t call you there so you could settle in and live your life in comfort and superficial peace.

Since we have begun this journey towards the mission field, the doors have been wide open for us to walk through. However, life has been far from “easy” or comfortable.

In fact, it seems like since we decided to fully commit to going to the mission field, we’ve been attacked on all sides. We’ve walked through the valley’s.

Our children – we had a nasty battle with colds and flu last year that I thought we’d never recover from

Our marriage – we had moments of fighting and bickering that were testing and painful

Our vehicle – our 15 passenger van (which at the time was our only vehicle other than my husbands scooter) broke down more times over the last year than I care to count and cost us way to much money.

Our house – was falling apart. Little things here and there. And we needed to get it on the market because home in our neighborhood have been sitting there for a year or longer before selling.

Raising support – the places and people that we were sure would be a lot of our support turned out not to be and it was frustrating and confusing.

Our family – we lost our sweet little girl, Izabella, and walked through a difficult time of loss and pain

Emotionally – my husband suffered from depression and there were some bad attitudes all around

So, the road…. It hasn’t been any easy one. All these things seemed to just hit all at one time. But, God refines through fire. And we hold fast to the encouragement from James…

My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. James 1:2-3

We’ve walked through storms during this last year, but we’ve also been showered with His blessings and walked the mountaintops.

Our children – have been learning to serve on another and take care of each other

Our marriage – has been strengthened and we celebrate 18 wonderful years today.

Our vehicle – one of our prayer partners has blessed us with a free car with excellent gas mileage for us to use when out raising support and to use as a second car to run errands.

Our house – within one week of putting it on the market it had a contract on it. We are still in the process of all the paperwork, but if for some reason it falls through, we also have two more offers as back up! And we are selling as is – no money needed to be put in to it!

Raising support – God put people and churches in our path that we never dreamed would be part of our support people. He arranged meetings that only HE could have orchestrated. He took us down a completely different path than we started on.

Emotionally – along the way, we ran across another quote by Francis Chan, from his book Crazy Love that said:

God doesn’t call us to be comfortable. He calls us to trust Him so completely that we are unafraid to put ourselves in situations where we will be in trouble if He doesn’t come through.

And this is where we are living right now. This is where we are letting go and trusting. And it couldn’t be a more peaceful place to be.

We’ve walked in the storm, where we could barely hear HIS voice… and we praised Him anyway.

We’ve walked in the beauty of His blessings where we could hear HIS voice loud… and we continue to praise Him.

He give and takes away… and blessed be HIS name.

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